The governor, red with anger, did not even want to listen. He felt betrayed by the servant he trusted most. “Take him away,” the governor ordered, “let him rot in the tower of oblivion and give him nothing but bread and water until he confesses or dies.” The trial was swift and brutal, if it could be called a trial at all. There were no lawyers or witnesses in favor, only Gastón’s poisonous word against Bruno’s desperate crying. He was sentenced to life in prison.
In the deepest cell of the city’s prison, a place reserved for murderers and traitors, a stone hole from which it was said that no one came out alive. As the guards dragged him through the cobblestone streets toward the prison, the townspeople, who had once greeted Bruno with affection, were now throwing rubbish and spit at him. “Thief!” they shouted hypocrites at him. The pain of injustice was sharper than the chains that tightened on his wrists.
Bruno looked up at the sky for an answer, but saw only heavy gray clouds. Where was divine justice? Why did God allow lies to triumph over truth? Gaston watched from the balcony of the mansion with a smile of satisfaction on his lips, wiping his hands as if he had just finished a dirty but necessary job. Bruno was pushed through the heavy iron gates of the prison and the sound of bolts closing behind him sounded like the end of his life.
The tower of oblivion was not a tower, but a deep, damp, dark basement. Bruno’s cell was a windowless cube of cold stone, where the only light came from a distant torch in the corridor that barely flickered. The air was thick, laden with the smell of mojo, filth, and desperation from hundreds of men who had died there before him. The guard, a brutish man, without a trace of compassion, pushed him inside and closed the gate.
“Make yourself comfortable, thief,” he sneered. “This is your grave. No one will remember you in a week.” Bruno was left alone in the dark. The silence was absolute, broken only by the constant dripping of filtered water somewhere. He slumped down on the rotten straw floor, hugging his knees. The cold penetrated his bones, but the cold in his soul was worse. He had lost his job, his reputation, his freedom, and his future in a single day. Anger, helplessness and fear mixed in his chest forming a knot that prevented him from breathing.
She wept silently, hot tears that were rapidly cooling on her dirty cheeks. He felt completely abandoned by man and by God. Weeks passed in absolute darkness. Hunger turned into a constant pain that weakened his body, but the mental battle was worse. In solitude, doubt attacked him. If God existed, He would not allow this. Bruno, on the verge of despair, whispered in a broken voice, “Lord, if you are there, give me a sign. I don’t ask for a miracle, just to know that I’m not alone in this hell.” But the only response was silence and the dripping of water.
One night, as Bruno looked sadly at the small piece of dry bread that was his dinner, he heard a faint noise near his foot. He stood motionless. A pair of small, bright eyes were watching him from a crack in the stone wall. It was a large, gray rat with dirty fur and a bitten ear. Most of the men would have screamed or tried to kill her. The rats were pests, carriers of disease, the only other inhabitants of that cursed place.
But Bruno, in his infinite solitude, felt something different. He saw in the animal the same hunger and misery that he felt. “You’re hungry too, aren’t you, little one?” whispered Bruno in a hoarse voice. The rat did not run away. He moved his nose smelling the bread. Bruno looked at his food. It was so little, just enough to keep him alive another day. His survival instinct screamed at him to eat everything, but his heart, that kind heart that not even prison had been able to fully harden, took control.
He split the piece of bread in two! Here, he said softly, tossing the smaller half toward the crack. It is little, but it is shared…
Part 2 …
The rat shot out, took the bread and disappeared into the darkness. Bruno ate his part feeling a strange warmth in his chest. For the first time in weeks he had connected with another living being. He did not know that this act of mercy, so small and insignificant in the eyes of the world, had just set in motion the gears of his liberation.
God had heard his prayer and his messenger had no wings, but a tail. From that night on, a sacred routine was established in the darkness of the cell. Every time the guard brought the food, the rat would appear punctually as if it had an internal clock synchronized with Bruno’s hunger. He named her Spark because of the intelligent sparkle in her black eyes. It was no longer just sharing food, it was sharing company. Bruno spoke to her, told her about his life before prison, about Gastón’s injustice, about his fears.
“You’re the only creature that doesn’t judge me here, Spark,” she whispered as the little animal confidently ate crumbs from her hand. Perhaps you are nobler than all the men who walk up there. The rat, in its own way, seemed to hear him. Sometimes he would stay a while longer after lunch, wiping his mustaches, watching him with a curiosity that seemed almost human. However, Bruno’s health was deteriorating rapidly. The moisture from the stone had gotten into his lungs.
He began coughing up blood. Fever visited him at night, causing him delirium, where he saw Gastón laughing and the governor signing his death warrant. He felt like his life was fading like the torch in the hallway, slowly, without anyone caring. Upstairs in the mansion, Gaston’s life was very different, but no less tormented. He had been promoted. He was now in full control of the house, but peace had left him. Guilt is a ghost that does not need chains to imprison.
