My last coffee in the catacombs.

I hear the footsteps on the other side of the door, the swaying of military shoes hammering in my head, I think I've gone mad. I've already forgotten when was the last time I was outside this dark prison, or the last time I held a conversation with someone. Now my mind only remembers the pain and prepares to remain silent during the bloody interrogations. Why am I here, I am not so sure, before I was transferred against my will to this torture den I was very clear, my whole life was a declaration of principles, but now I don't know anymore, it seems that this is what happens to just people in a country where human rights do not exist.

I have been condemned to the death penalty, now I just wait for the moment when all this will end. I hear this voice in my head, a voiceover narrating my last days, as if it were someone else's circumstances. I am my own audience, the only spectator of my death. That is what frightens me most, to be so alone in these catacombs, to know that there will be no witnesses, that above all I have been condemned to oblivion.

My jailers have granted me one last wish, it is an unpleasant joke, when your destiny is death, your only wish naturally is to live. But they won't grant me life, so what's the point? I think part of my rejection of the idea of making a last wish is based on the fact that I've forgotten what my wishes were like before confinement. What are the wishes of normal people like? The ones who are not subjected to isolation, torture and pain. In spite of everything I have thought it through, at another time my wishes were simpler, I would have been satisfied with drinking a good coffee with a good company, perhaps a friend, a colleague or with Eva, the mother of my son Manuel. So that's what I asked for, a last coffee with Eva, talking to her has always been good for me, even after the divorce.

So I hear the footsteps on the other side of the door as I wait for my visit, the sublime aroma of freshly brewed coffee reaches me. The swaying of military shoes hammers my head, but between the fierce thuds of boots on the floor, I manage to hear a subtle click of heels, a soft sound that caresses the granite of the hallway. I can't believe I remember the sound of Eva's footsteps, I think I've lost my mind. The door opens and I see her enter, her radiant presence lighting up the place. I smile at her, but in her face I only see sadness, then I understand everything, the tortures made my smile a deformed grimace, I try to keep my face neutral, I don't know if I exist.

-I always had a painful feeling that you would end up like this - she says with her eyes full of tears.

-Is that why you got divorced? - I ask her.

-Yes, that and because you were hardly at home anymore, I know you were busy. But I thought that if I got divorced it wouldn't hurt so much to find out that you had been arrested or killed, but look at me, I'm crazy with pain.

-Tell Manuel that everything I did was to guarantee him a better future - I beg him.

-But you leave him without a father and in the same country of misery.

-I may not have made it, but there are many more in the streets, fighting for the same cause - I remind her optimistically.

Eva is looking at me as if she wants to tell me something else, but the words don't come out of her mouth. It's as if she knows that any word she says will break her into pieces. The door opens again, coffee has been brought to us, the aroma is mind-blowing. I take the first sip, it's very hot, but I don't care. Eva also drinks, her face tells me that she didn't like the coffee, but she tries to hide it because she knows that this will be my last cup.

-I tell Manuel that principles are not negotiable and neither is dignity - I tell him this and I hear my voice cracking.

-I always tell him that - she says with some pride.

We are silent as we drink our coffee, I imagine that in the courtyard the gallows awaits me, I will see the sunlight for the last time as they wrap my neck in the rope and in seconds I will leave this aching body. The sound of Eva's heels leaving the dungeon dulls this voice in my head, my voice. At least the taste of coffee will accompany my last steps.