Walls

I felt stripped of all power. My personality was becoming unmasked. The various psychological reliance's upon which I called upon for protection, arose from my subconscious and suggested themselves to me as images of past defensive skirmishes. This submerged aspect of my personality came to the surface as a face not recognized before. Theoretically in my mind they could hold me incommunicado indefinitely. Torture was not out of the question.

And then there was still a final act when I was finally called up for my passport. It was the guard who I had seen bringing in the higher-ups and gesturing toward me, who had tried to get me, but apparently was overruled. He called me to the counter, pointed at my picture in the passport and showed it to me. The picture and my real likeness did not exactly match. I now had a beard and longer hair. He said to me in broken English.
"I don't know you. Push your hair back so I can see you --- Ya Vol."
The indignity. It was obvious he was just pulling a power trip. He was trying to embarrass me. He was trying to show me and everyone in the room that he had power over me. Or he was trying to justify his attempt to have me arrested.
"Pull back here so I can see". He pointed to my hair.
I pretended to not understand him. I had to make a decision. Was I going to make a stand as matter of pride or was I simply going cave and get the hell out of there.

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