REVELATION-final1

water. But the care did not extend to the courtesy of granting me enough blankets to stay warmand since I slept on an unheated concrete block without a mattress I was not only continuouslycold but also perpetually uncomfortable. Due to the harshness of the surface I slept on it wasimpossible to sleep longer than five minutes at a time since the part of the body on which Ihappened to lay would fall asleep and this forced me to have to change position every fewminutes so as not to get numb.To make my life even more miserable and break my hunger strike, they turned off my hot waterand I could only wash my hands and face with cold water, which only added to the constantfreezing I felt, especially since the observation cell I was in was drafty. Yes, I was allowed onehot shower a day, but even that was controlled to make sure the water was only lukewarm for thefirst month and a half.Thirty-eight days passed before I was given access to a lawyer, and she turned out to behandpicked by the government and tasked with getting me to plead guilty rather than prove myinnocence.On day 45, I had the first blood test and electrocardiogram and this continued once a week untilmy hunger strike ended on day 75. Miraculously, even though I had only water for the first 30days and some 600 ml of lousy apple or orange juice per day thereafter, but no food whatsoever,my tests came back perfectly normal to the very end.To make my cell more livable I drew on the wall above my sink the ying and yang symbol whenthe guards were not looking and my hunger strike chart on a different wall, but the guards camein and washed it all away while I was taking my shower. I then used an empty juice cup to drawintricate geometric patterns that kept not only my mind entertained but also my creativity alive inthat Spartan cell.I thought, wrote, read about 50 books, and meditated for hours every day, seeking shelter in andnourishment from the Lovelight. “Killing Us Softly” was born in that cell and most of it writtenin that cell as well. Most of all I thought about and ached for my children. I drew strength fromthe love I feel for Ben and Oliver and from the knowledge that my father, Dr. Costel Galalae,spent nearly five years in a communist prison as a political prisoner. If my father could do fiveyears, I reasoned, then sure as hell I could do three months, or six, or nine; for that is how theCrown kept increasing the time in order to demoralize me.I pushed myself not only to my physical limit, but also to great intellectual heights, and at notime did my mind waver or weaken; quite the contrary, as the body got weaker the mind gotstronger and out of this dissonance the spirit soared, as though it had been freed from the doubleprison of the mind and body.I received no letters though I wrote many.203