This life is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons — living or dead — is coincidental.
—
The seasons change in front of me. Through the bars. The black steel bars I live behind.
My home.
My home — and theirs. The home of others. Coming and going. My sentence: seven years. Theirs: different.
The decision was made. A new Mercedes 63 AMG Coupe — my entrance fee. My share in a fifteen-foot by fifteen-foot concrete box.
—
It is a constant here in Envigado, as we watch through the steel door. A door made of steel slats four fingers wide.
A breeze cools the concrete cell during the heat of the day.
Eighteen men. Eighteen angry, irrational souls. There is no change in their world behind bars. Just a constant.
Most young. Eighteen to thirty-five. A badge of honor, coming from the barrios of Colombia.
A daily ration of food comes through the bars. We clean. We live. A daily evolution of sadistic personalities. The future villains of the world.
—
Parque. Cards. Ajedrez. The daily education of passing time.
Hammock or mat on a slab of concrete — the place we sleep. The always-functioning society rarely stops to lay its head.
High above in my hammock, I lay.
The city below evolves and grows.
Evil lives in the cells of Envigado, waiting to get out. The time in between — a limbo of sanity.
Colombia. Envigado. Prison.
My Hilton. My timeshare. My vacation home.
—
The Madman
Engine # 7798060018089
Chassis # WOD2053871F445198
Plate # DOU317 Bogotá
—
Golondrina.
Swallows.
I watch them from behind the bars. Small bodies cutting through the air. Unburdened. Unimprisoned. They come and go as they please. The seasons change, and they follow. Instinct. Freedom. Flight.
They do not know my name. They do not know I exist. They pass by the steel slats of my door and see nothing. A dark room. A shadow. A whisper of a man.
But I see them.
I see everything.
—
The swallows do not ask for permission. They do not file paperwork. They do not wait for a judge to sign a release. They simply fly.
North in spring. South in autumn. Across borders that mean nothing to them. Over walls that would stop a man but cannot stop a bird.
I have been both. The man behind the bars. The bird that flies away.
Right now, I am the man. But I remember being the bird.
—
I wrote this on November 9, 2022. Cell #3. Envigado police station. Two years in. Five years to go — or so I thought. The release would come earlier. March 18, 2026. But that day was invisible to me then.
All I had was the steel door. The four-finger slats. The breeze that carried the smell of the city — exhaust, cooking food, sweat, life.
And the golondrinas.
Always the golondrinas.
—
In Spanish, "golondrina" also means a migrating worker. Someone who moves from place to place, following the work, never settling. A different kind of prisoner. A different kind of freedom.
I have been that, too.
A traveler. A wanderer. A man with no fixed address and no fixed purpose. Moving from country to country, hostel to hostel, bus to bus.
Behind bars, I learned that freedom is not the opposite of imprisonment. Freedom is a state of mind.
The swallows are free. But they are also bound. Bound to the seasons. Bound to migration. Bound to the instinct that tells them where to go and when.
I am bound, too. Bound to my past. Bound to my choices. Bound to the concrete box that holds me.
But my mind — my mind flies.
—
Engine # 7798060018089.
Chassis # WOD2053871F445198.
I remember these numbers. The Mercedes that brought me here. The silver bullet that carried me through the broken glass and onto the roundabout and into the arms of the law.
I do not regret the car. I regret nothing.
But I remember the numbers. I will always remember the numbers.
—
This life is a work of fiction.
That is what the disclaimer says. But the disclaimer is a lie. Or a truth. Or something in between.
These are my words. My memories. My cell. My bars. My golondrinas.
If they resemble someone else's life — that is not coincidence.
That is because prison is the same everywhere. Desperation is the same everywhere. The desire to fly — to be free — that is the same everywhere, too.
—
The seasons change.
The swallows return.
And I am still here.
Still watching. Still waiting. Still writing.
My Hilton. My timeshare. My vacation home.
My prison.
My life.