3 - Pablo

I woke up with a small bump on my body.

I would give anything to listen again to the singing of the birds on the farm, the howling of some ox, or merely the natural aroma of the grass on a sunny day. However, my reality was always to wake up with some sudden movement against my body and provoked by my cellmate, or some loud curse of the police officers outside the cell.

" Wake up, sleeping beauty," sang Ramirez, my cellmate. He walked away when I yawned and mentioned getting up. "Today's day promises.”

"What promise? "I asked with debauchery, but I remained lying down. Despite the cold of the bed, the constant feeling of being sick, I preferred to take advantage of every second I had to stay lying down. Maybe that way I could ignore the fact that my reality is total shit. "We never do anything different in this place.”

"Just the fact of being alive is already something, brother," said Ramirez, kneeling next to our bunk bed and making the sign of the holy cross on his forehead. He closed his eyes, but still told me: "Before awake and having one more chance to escape from this place, than dead and trapped in these cells forever.”

My cellmate was the worst and the best person in the world at the same time. Better because he had offered me his friendship when everyone else just suspected my reason for being there. And worse because he kept wanting to include the word of God that he believed in every motivational phrase he offered me on the day.

There were times when I wondered if he really had faith, or just pretended to believe just to have something to think about when the silence of the cold night inside the prison tormented us more than hours at a noisy party. Not that I was an atheist. I believed that there was someone looking at us, whether it was a God or a goddess, I knew it existed. Not least because, if it didn't exist, I would have been dead for longer than is considered normal, taking into account my first years of life.

I wasn't born into a wealthy family. I never had money left over at the end of the month, to even think about a trip or a fun tour. My life has been difficult since I understand myself by people, and before me, my own parents had a complicated life. However, only I ended up choosing the wrong path, and condemned myself to that horrible life of never knowing if I would be alive the next day.

My reality was terrible, but I had provoked that in myself, and although I really wanted to continue in that hot dream of a famous and voluptuous actress who seduced me to her warm and comfortable bed, I was forced to wake up and agree that it was much better to have been woken up by my cellmate.

I allowed myself to close my eyes once again. If I focused a lot, I could pretend I was somewhere else. I could literally follow that the world would disconnect if I focused enough. I regretted it. I couldn't say no, but I regretted it. Because I missed my freedom. From the days when I cared more about the sun and rain than about my own life. What wouldn't I give to go back?

"I had a very good dream" I murmured to myself.

"And which porn actress did you go to this time? " mocked Ramirez, but I could only laugh, because it was still true. “Do you feel better? Has the chest pressure decreased?”

Ah, that damn pressure on the chest. Since I was little I felt strange to do what most people didn't even get tired of doing. In cold times, my whole chest hurt, and it was always cold in prison. The night before, I had spent the whole night in the dark, coughing, containing the moans of pain, as I cringe on a ball and tried to sleep in every possible way.

Ramirez was the only one who knew about that condition of mine. He had witnessed moments when I literally got purple due to shortness of breath. Sometimes he slept without his own blanket, because he tried to give me what he thought would warm me up. But the cold of that cell seemed impregnated in my body, in my bones. Nothing I did helped me. And my body already felt all the effects of it.

"It decreased," I lied, knowing that a worried cellmate would not change anything in my life. The man already had too many problems, waiting patiently for the end of his sentence, so I couldn't give him anything else to think about. "I'm much better today.”

"You should look for the infirmary," he suggested, in a lower tone than before. "You know you can end up dying overnight in here, don't you?”

I knew it. And that's exactly why I wasn't interested in seeking any medical help at all. Not that we could call the ward for medical help. There was even a chubby nurse with the face of few friends who used to stay there to distribute medicines.

However, I have never known, in two years, of any inmate who has been helped by an examination performed by the woman. In general, she just stayed there to dose how many painkillers those who felt muscle pain could take. Nothing more than that.

"I'm not interested," I murmured to Ramirez. He let out a wheezed. I kept my eyes closed, with one hand on my chest. Even the simple act of touching him was making me sore. I had no doubt that my entire airway was obstructed. "And you have things beyond my chest pressure to worry about, Ramirez.”

"I won't stop taking your foot," he said, so I heard when his steps moved away from the bed. He had finished his prayers and prayers. "You know that after I became a father I can't help but be move by the health of others. It's my instinct.”

I laughed. I never imagined myself having such a miserable life, but I also never thought I could have an ordinary life, with children and wife. I thought Ramirez had won the lottery, for having had this kind of thing, even stuck.

Ramirez was a good and kind person, despite being arrested for being the head of trafficking, and I thought he really deserved a happy ending in his story. Even if my story was just to be the supporting actor that made no difference to anyone.

I opened my eyes to the second touch I took on my arm. My first sight was not the beautiful breasts of the woman I glimpsed in my dream "should be some famous actress, because the women I was used to attracting in recent times, did not contain all that hottie", nor were the sounds of her moans that I kept listening to when I woke up for good.

First, I was aware of that absurd pressure I felt more often than usual on my chest. It was as if a damn creature was sitting in my heart, making pressure, preventing me from breathing. The pain extended in that chest area, to the top of my back, and it hurt like the demon marking my skin when I coughed.

Then I was aware of the sounds. Some inmates shouted, complained, and offended the guards who woke them up. They were probably the most complicated to deal with, or the beginners. The guards always liked to take the foot of those who were not associated with any gang or faction; as in a daily reminder that their days were numbered.

Finally, turning my head on the hard pillow, I was aware of the cold of that damn place. Not only for my rough-looking sheets, but for an aura that falls over the entire prison. That place looked like the hole of hell. It didn't matter how much my religious cellmate said that hell was hot. I believed that hell could also be cold, because that place was.

The concrete of the bunk bed above my bed found my face when I got up and bowed so as not to hit my head. In the first days, I could count on my fingers how many times I was without a cock on my forehead. I hadn't gotten used to the screams, the grumblings, and the sounds of fighting, so I always woke up desperate.

After two years, I learned that my life mattered little, that my impaired sleep mattered little. As long as it was done cleanly and quickly, I didn't mind if they broke into my cell in the middle of the night and killed me. So, I took the habit of first staying calm, and then getting up.