85 292
Solenoid
85
one of the walls. He put his
ear against it andheard them
better: clear, intelligent,
repeated elaborate series of
knocks at certain intervals.
Amazed,
the
prisoner
believed he had had one
of the hallucinations that
accompanied his miserable
incarceration.
But
the
following day at the same
time he heard the series of
knocks in the wall again and
then again, day after day. He
learned the series of sounds
by heart and started to write
down what he heard on the
section of the wall hidden by
the bed. Now and then the
alternative sounds became
more complicated, as if new
“words” were introduced
into the code by the
neighbour beyond the wall.
It took the prisoner months
toguess thefirst connections
in the secret web of the
knocks, then years tomaster
their language. Eventually a
dialogue was established,
as the prisoner started
answering in the same
code he wrote down in an
invented graphics with half-
moons, spur gears, crosses
and triangles scribbled on
the wall). The neighbour,
he now understood, was
giving him the details of an
escape plan of breath taking
courage and incredible
simplicity.
One
night,
after having finished all
preparations, the prisoner
escaped
upon
strictly
following the instructions.
Years later, when he was
rich and famous after having
invented a fake biography,
he asked permission to visit
his former prison in order
to finally meet the one he