Ilaria Salis, 'I fell into a very deep well'

"I fell into a very deep well, I wonder if I got out. But I have no doubts about which side of the story is right'.

This is a passage from a letter by Ilaria Salis from prison, anticipated by Repubblica online. The Italian antifascist recounted in her prison diary her second month in the maximum security prison in Budapest.

"The months are long and it happens that the bubble turns into a black hole that sucks you in. Borrowing a metaphor that I would read several months later in a beautiful comic book dedicated to my story,' he says, quoting Zerocalcare, 'I fell into a very deep well. The walls are slippery and every time I struggle to take a short step to climb just a little, I always end up falling deeper. Sometimes I wonder if this well has a bottom and if there really is an exit somewhere. I imagine I am a small gecko, who in the silent darkness manages to climb the walls. Yes, I have to climb the walls, but here, unfortunately, there are no climbing partners and the bonds of trust tight on the safety rope.

"I close my eyes and cast my gaze beyond the walls of this blind prison: I catch a glimpse of the stories of men and women as spare parts in fabrics on tapestries depicting wider stories. Stories of peoples, of cultures, of languages and religions. Stories of economic, political and legal systems. Stories of wealth and misery, of power, of oppression and exploitation. Stories of wars and armies. Stories of a world in which children are still being killed, in which machine guns resound at the quarters of Europe, echoing the ravages of the last century. I open my eyes and see myself huddled on the grey blanket, my gaze fixed on the iron door of the cell. Everything seems simple and straightforward to me in these events, as in so many others, there can be no doubt as to which side of the story is right,' she reports in her diary.