12.28.9 – These Embers
Dear Professor,
After a year in captivity, I have reached my limits. I can no longer continue on in such dubious laboring, harvesting the fruits that only nourish these unholy masters.
I have decided to take my life into my own hands. I am planning my escape.
Either way will lead to death … or life, depending on how you look at it; it is only a matter of which way I decide to go — rotting here in this jail cell, or out there, in the uncertainty of the merciless jungle.
Even if death finds me, at least it will not be in a cage. I would rather die freely — even if only through mental emancipation — than at the hands of these thieves who show no remorse for their hateful crimes.
If I die here, it would be without purpose, and with such lack of hope that any light I had once emitted would be permanently extinguished, and those who did see the magic of this luminary would eventually acquiesce and willingly go blind.
But if I die out there, I will have done so with the faith that there is, indeed, life beyond the walls and bars to which we have grown accustomed. These walls are not our home; they imprison us, seducing its inmates with illusions of warmth, leading us to believe that we are comfortable, despite the bleeding and lingering soreness we endure from the day’s lashings.
As I stare into the fire, I am reminded that These Embers are a symbol of our permanent transience, and the necessity of burning down to build back up.
Should they find this letter before you, of my demise you can be absolutely certain. But, my dear professor, please know that I died with brilliant visions of freedom and songs of great joy ringing in my ears to the beat of the drums and rifles.
Either way, I shall see you on the other side.
-Lady Lauren Monaco
