threat.
They were a fact.
Her name
The new guard was called Ralitsa Doneva.
He was thirty-eight years old and only 135 centimeters tall. People often saw her height first, then her uniform, and sometimes they never got to the person behind both.
But Ralitsa had not come to prison by accident.
Years ago, she worked as a social mediator in a crisis center. There she had learned something that no textbook explains well enough:
A person who wants to humiliate you rarely seeks only conflict.
He is looking for an audience.
He wants others to see you lose control.
He wants to make you defend yourself chaotically, raise your voice, make a mistake.
Then he can say:
“See? It is weak.”
Ralitsa had seen this in other forms all her life.
At the school.
At the university.
In her first job.
On public transport, when strangers
