from refractario, translated by waronsociety:
Note from WOS: Our translation of this piece is dedicated to all the rebels flying high or laying low, and especially to Kerry and Steve.
Note from Refractario: This text came to us from prison and we published it in Refractario #5 (here in Spanish). In light of Hans’ arrest we decided to publish it again for its diffusion to encourage all those who assume and assumed the difficult path of clandestinity. To the compañeros who are currently imprisoned after being arrested following their unknown steps, or who can happily be with their loved ones after long periods of escape, but also to those who still travel the anonymous paths imposed by the still-pending order for their capture.
* * *
When qualifying terms are disqualified, a proper name ceases to be so…
We fly for freedom…
He went underground like someone going into a cascade of water.
One fine day he had woken up with a name and a story–an identity, they call it. The problem was the future.
Prison would be his next dwelling. By the end of that same day, none of those things were his.
He had pulled together a bag and a piece of information he carried outside the borders of his skin, it came with him like a shadow. A deep rift had formed between him and his anticipated future.
The first days went quickly. The adrenaline allowed no entry to boredom or nostalgia. Again and again he went over the already-worn little piece of paper that had the basic facts of his new I. There were easy things: the names and the profession were things he knew, closely related to his own life, to the immediacy of reality. But some were more difficult–numbers had always eluded him. He reminded himself of the correctness of his decision: the human thing to do was to run. His RUT* had a million numbers, in an impossible order!
It was going to be long. He expected the rift would separate him from his sunless future, from the prison and its dampness, its perennial cold, its deadened sounds. They would remain far on the other side of the abyss into which he would try to hurl his deepest fears. In this way he could defeat defeat.
These thoughts made him laugh nervously, the half-moon of a smile appearing his mouth, letting his white little teeth be seen. He would have to contain it; he was not going to reveal his freedom to the City’s dismal beings.
Some days passed, and the time was not time. Now laughter was not so easy, it had less joy and more reasoning to it. The shadow of his identity followed, stuck to his feet. He thought about the children in Peter Pan who looked for his shadow. What if he lost it? The idea upset him. Even the dark future the shadow brought with it seemed to be part of himself.
But hey, brush off your coat and let go of your nostalgia. The children are going to grow up fine. Your partner is strong and caring. She had given him a strong and sensitive never-ending kiss filled with emotion; he returned endlessly to these images. They comforted him, and they also caused him to feel his loneliness great and raw.
Better to return to the feeling of victory–the defeat of defeat… it is nourishment. Fill the lungs. He was a happy man, nobody could argue with him. Life, alive, appeared on the horizon. Were there time, he would have left every decision of power over his body right on the ground.
The laughter would return, and he wasn’t alone–he knew of the laughs of those close to him, of his companions and of the others, knew that he walked hand-in-hand with the worst intentioned, and with the most creative tumults of people living and dead.
Observing himself, traveling, flowing, changing, developing these other abilities, knowing himself a little more. Loving himself greatly, and a little more still. The shield of fear, the idea in the palm of his hands, fly and fly for freedom…
Warm, close greetings to the women and men composed of love who take off on their own wings.
-Libertad Estrella.-
