Her Prison Within

"Well. I didn't think that was going to happen. Oh, dear..."

*****

It had been building for a long time. Much longer than she cared to admit. Maybe even the entire time. Her inner voice screamed she was losing her morality. She retorted she was a wealthy Christian wife with children, i.e. bulletproof. She had climbed the mountain of morality according to the hallmarks of the society which cared for her. She ruled in undisputed reign, no voice dare speak out against her - except for the inner one crushing her soul.

Misery is the mother of change. Yes, it took decades to come to fruition as she knew change would mean the end of life as she knew it. But when that life lost its desirability, the unthinkable became thinkable. The solid belief in her goodness having eroded, she had to admit - privately - it had been an illusion all long. But what if she really did do something real?

I want that certainty back more than anything in the world. This hollow act is wearing on me and I can think of nothing worse than that coming to light. But if I step out of this rut and do something I can genuinely be proud of, no one will ever know of my long moral lapse. I don't know if I can even do this. Been so long since I've dealt with the unknown...

But facing the unknown would help revive her lagging self-respect. Literature had always been her passion. In the past she'd joined Bible study groups as the outreach in her life, but those had always been so...confining. She wanted to join a real club, something vibrant where every opinion wasn't known beforehand. If she joined a true book reading club she might even be required to read *gasp* forbidden books. That could be a tough sell but a price she'd pay to put adventure back in her life.

Too much adventure for a lifelong liar

It was not too hard to find a club in the creative landscape of San Francisco. She picked the one most daring and exciting to her withered soul. In for a penny, in for a pound, she reasoned. Plus it felt good to finally feel alive under the glorious bay sunlight. So many different people living so many different lives. Seeing it up and close and personal put a whole new spin on life. It was as if she'd been watching the world through her own private TV - or prison bars.

The meetings were as exciting and lively as she'd hoped. Throwing off ancient shackles rid herself of the rust of decaying guilt. She couldn't help but be amused by the shocking convictions she heard - words that would make her carefully screened circle howl in dismay. But she found it thrilling even with a latent feeling of betrayal. How obvious she needed to stop betraying herself if she wanted to get her self-respect back. At some point, though, this will come to a head...

Having taken one step she wanted to take another, one gulp of air launching a mad scramble for life. Her own views started to change and she wished to share her new enlightenment even at the cost of her friends' and family's approval. Surprisingly, she didn't get the backlash she expected. So she took it further down the line, to the place where she felt most free. Now surely that would get her disowned! Instead, she heard understanding and even some agreement. But this doesn't match what you've been saying and preaching all these years!

"What do you mean you got a blow job from Aunt Bea??"

Then it hit her. What cowards and hypocrites. They already know the truth! They just wanted someone else to say it first before agreeing. I wonder how long they've known. Are they laughing at me for just now finding out? No. They must hate themselves for lying and cowering in the dark. I held them up in such high regard. I always wondered how I could ever match them when I myself was having such a hard time. No wonder my little voice has been screaming at me to step out. I thought it wanted to destroy my life but it's trying to save me. Damn!

But a single flower does not a garden make. She hungered to fill her garden, to bring it to life. This was the real way! Having once tasted life she could not go back to a dullard's bitterness. Even if she did she could no longer be convincing in her happy act knowing what she knew now. So that's the price for this gift. The price for lying has doubled. And will double again if I take another step. I'm more frightened now than ever before in my life.

The full magnitude of what she'd done hit her like a sledgehammer. No way she could shake the feeling she'd lose everything if she continued down this road to life. That she could not do. On the other hand, there was no going back to the old her. The oxygen was leaving her lungs. She ran outside to the patio in desperation, crying out to the world. "Where is freedom? Where is life? Why does everyone have it but me!"

*****

The decision to do nothing buried her alive in terrifying boredom. These are the same walls you will stare at until the end of time! At times she could barely keep her composure, yelling inside while talking on the phone to her father; a million miles away at the dinner table; rejected dreams revived in the middle of the night. Like everyone, she had known bouts of boredom before - but never as a coffin, as a permanent unsealable fate. This was terror on a scale she never could have imagined.

In one of her many judgmental moments of the past she haughtily decried women who had affairs "because they are bored. How silly is that? I just can't understand it," she readily assured herself. That was before she knew it could be life and death. How shocking to find she'd gladly accept an affair now if it brought back that first feeling of life. She wanted it again and again and again. "What would Solomon say of me now?"

On July 6, 2001, betrayer Robert Hanssen, who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States for 22 years from 1979 to 2001, pleaded guilty to fifteen counts of espionage. On May 10, 2002 he was sentenced to fifteen consecutive sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Hanssen is Federal Bureau of Prisons prisoner #48551-083. He is serving his sentence at ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison, in solitary confinement 23 hours a day.