Now that I'm going to die in prison I want you to know...I know you're wishing to know. As to the how, I guess you already know. I won't deny my guilt, it will torment me to the end of my days. How a professor, an historian and a fine anthropologist, a man that speaks 14 languages fluently, winds up sitting in prison for the rest of his life? it's easy, you already know it, by being so stupid and brutal as to kill a woman in such a horrible way. I bet it's the why what most intrigues you and I'll try to satisfy your doubts as thoroughly as I can.

To enlighten you a bit more about the how, I'll tell my credentials and my position made it easy for me to find a barn and to have a scaffold built inside, just for academic purposes of course. My credentials and position made it easy for me to find the ideal secretary too, she was a sun of a woman but I bet you're eager to know about the why so there we go:

Everything began long time ago back in my country when I was just 12. I was a lonely shy boy by that time and I loved it, people used to say I was mature for my age. My loneliness was not a problem, indeed being alone turned to be a blessing. I was raised by my old uncle, the old gentleman was a book freak, culture and civilization meant everything to him...I guess that's why I ended up speaking 14 languages, maybe that's why I ended up in here; it was like that or maybe I was just preset to enjoy some hidden pleasures History has to offer.

My old uncle was happy to know I was interested in our national history and heroes. I guess he thought he was raising a cultured man and a patriot just like him. He had been following me and I wasn't going to explain why my country's history attracted me so much, I had not been able to explain for I didn't know many things about my body...I didn't know how to name it or why that thing happened but I was sure I enjoyed it.

Main square in the capital city of my country is dedicated to the three men that gave us freedom and founded my country but that was just another main square and another statue to me back then.

There's another place not so far from the main square, a beautiful park nobody seemed to visit anymore, surrounded by flowers and nicely kept trees. The park is small and silent and it's reigned by her in the middle of it...I know it's just another statue but to me it was a her...it's still a her.

I didn't know why I went there to contemplate her, as I've said I didn't know what was going on with me...I just enjoyed the sensation and that was that, she was my first and...I must confess...my only real crush.

There she was, stoically standing with her back against a pole, her hands tied behind her back, her eyes covered by a blindfold, properly dressed in skirtsuit, the cardigan under her jacket unbuttoned and showing her blouse, her curly hair waving in the air...she's the greatest heroine in my country and I bet you know her name. And there I was, contemplating her, sometimes for hours, feeling that nice sensation under my belt, imagining what happened to her and how it happened right in that park some 70 years before.

Sure as he was about being raising a man of History and a patriot, my old uncle told me I should pay the many museums in the city a visit. It wouldn't do any harm and besides that, entrance to museums on Sunday was free.

I took to visiting museums partly to distract my old uncle's attention about my real interests in History and partly because...you know, museums tend to be lonely silent places.

All museums seemed boring and uninteresting to me...all of them but one. The big old house and the museum still stand there nowadays, in one of the corners in the main square. I strongly recommend you to visit it whenever you go to my country.

The museum is called The House of The Seven Balconies. Though its balconies were shut some 30 years before I was born they are still the main attraction of the museum...well, the one that caused the main attractions to be.

Soon Sundays were not enough to me...I discovered the heroine in the park was my only real crush as I told you, she made me experience that nice sensation for the first time...and the second and the third but she was not the only one.

The House of The Seven Balconies had been some sort of a death row for women in the past and then it became a museum about crime and justice. There were 1:1 replicas of the women that had been sent there, They are still there.

The 1:1 replicas were not the only attractive though. The museum had a wide collection of material about the women that had been sent there on display...from papers to tapes to clothing and shoes the sentenced ones had used up to their last day. Photographs of them on their last day, before, during and after justice had been served were the most cherished piece of the museum.

The replicas were kept on full sized glass boxes...they still do.

Soon the guards and the guides at the museum became aware of me. My old uncle used to give me the money to pay the entrance and I used to be there at the museum right after having visited her at the park everyday after school.

The museum was a lonely silent place but I had to do wonders to avoid giving myself away nonetheless. I must be frank and admit I felt the urge to slide my hand in my pants more that a couple of times and I had to fight hard against myself for I didn't want to ruin the chance to return to the museum every day.

I used to go home after the museum, I locked myself in my room and...well, I bet it's not hard to imagine what I devoted my time to. I had bought a book about the museum that had some pictures of its times as a death row, those in the book weren't the good ones though.

By that time my old uncle was sure, I would grow up to be a lawyer, a forensic tech or at least a high ranked officer with the police. My interest in crime, History and justice was obvious but the reasons why were kept a secret locked up in The House of The Seven Balconies.

Fighting against my impulses became harder with time. I was barely able to keep my hands out of my pants. Once one of the guides, a woman in his early 40's, could notice something strange in me...of course she knew what was going on but we pretended there was nothing going on, she was kind and prudent and we never had to talk about it.

Souvenirs, those were the main attraction the museum had, and still has, for the strange tastes of a young man like me. Every piece in the museum has a 1:6th replica; every yoke, restraining pole, chair or cross in the collection can be found as a souvenir...civilization sometimes comes at the price of brutality, you're hearing it from the most eminent professor at the Anthropology and Human History College my dear...well I guess it used to be like that an eternity ago; now, you can see, I'm nothing but a miserable lifer.

The cherry that crowned the cake were the replicas of the women that once stopped by The House of The Seven Balconies. One could find everything they had used up to the day they danced for the last time as a 1:6th souvenir, form their cars to their favourite purses. Everything sold separately of course.

The guide, that sun of a woman, once let me touch one of the 1:1 replicas, then we had a pact of silence and honour. She opened the glass box and allowed me to touch the replica's hand. I had thought those were made of wax but it felt like human skin, soft and warm. I couldn't resist, something was adding to the strange nice sensation under my belt then, I began to feel something for the women that danced their last dance at The House of The Seven Balconies. As strange as it might sound, I fell in love with women that had been hanged in that same house some 30 years before.

The one the guide let me touch was my favourite piece in the museum, I used to stare at her for what might have seemed to be an eternity to the guides, guards and occasional visitors. The one in the park was still in my mind but she was distant, so big and cold...so different from the one I was touching.

Her name was Isabel Case. she was a dame, a baroness, one not only respected but loved by the people. She had been one of the first visitors to The House of The Seven Balconies during its times as a judicial facility. Isabel's crime was to stand for the right of the women to be elected to high offices within the government...well, her real crime was organizing groups of people that were considered as to be against the republic.

Isabel presented herself before the judge as soon as she had been notified of the process against her and she moved from his husband's house into The House of The Seven Balconies once the veredict and her sentence were read. She was a decent lady and she was not going to embarrass herself. Isabel was aware of her high position and knew her excellent behaviour had to be an example to follow no matter whether she might have liked the situation she was in or not. Isabel Case put the greater good of the republic over her own life, that's why she's to be regarded as a martyr rather than an ordinary executed criminal

Three days had spent Baroness Isabel case at The House of The Seven Balconies, three days and a half to be precise. The fourth day at noon the balcony had been prepared and was waiting for her. She was presented with the most delicious lunch but she kindly offered it to one of the guards that were escorting her that day. She had declined her breakfast as well for she knew what was ahead for her. Composure and modesty had to be observed, Isabel had lived her full life as a lady and was going to die one.

She wore a dark blue skirtsuit, a dark blue cardigan, a white blouse, a dark blue silk scarf and a fine pair of heels matching her skirtsuit, to her last date. The chief of the office of judicial affairs nodded in approval when he saw her. One of the guards sighed in despair for he was in love with Isabel, it wasn't hard to love her within minutes of having known her and the guard had spent three days guarding her door.

--I'm sorry Baroness but we must go... I fear there is no reprieve letter--said the chief of the office of judicial affairs as he entered her room. Isabel was in accompanied by three guards.

--Well...-- said Isabel as she stood and buttoned her cardigan--it was a pleasure to meet you gentlemen--

She walked calm and composed across the hall to the balcony. The chief of the office of judicial affairs walked before her, two guards walked at either side of her and the third one closed the party walking behind her.

--I'm thirsty--said Isabel on her way to the balcony. The party stopped and the guard walking behind her rushed to find a bottle of water for his love.

--here...--said the guard as he opened the bottle and offered it to his love. Isabel thanked them all, asked for their permission, drank half a bottle and returned it to the guard.

The party began to move, the balcony was just a couple of meters away.

-- Please don't let my effort and commitment be forgotten-- said Isabel as she stopped a step before the balcony, she arranged the dark blue silk scarf over her hair and around her neck--Please tell my daughters to always pursue their dreams. Tell them a woman that doesn't stand for her ideas either her ideas are not worth it or the woman is not worth--finished her as the chief of the office of judicial affairs secured her wrists behind her with medical grade restraints, her elbows bowed and her left forearm over her right one, making her chest stand out. Isabel walked the step to the balcony and the chief of the office of judicial affairs put a white veil over her head and face as the guards secured Isabel's ankles and the hem of her skirt with medical grade restraining belts. There was a multitude in the street watching her as she stood in the balcony, Isabel looked at the multitude thru the full frame windows that walled the balcony. The chief of the office of judicial affairs passed her head thru the leathered loop and adjusted the ring below her left jaw. Isabel looked at the multitude and shivered a bit, the trapdoor opened and the loop turned Isabel's last, and only, scream into a strangled short gasp.

Isabel's shins were at the same height than the heads of the witnesses, the thud that was heard indicated the Baroness' neck was broken. Her face began to turn to red, her tongue protruded a bit out of her mouth and her bladder released.

A man rushed to put a short ladder under the balcony, he unstrapped Isabel's ankles and knees, drove his hand up and dampened his handkerchief in the urine remaining in the inner side of her thighs. She was still unconscious and her feet gently rubbed the man's shoulders as he descended from the ladder.

Isabel's body twitched in a last spasm, life had finally abandoned her.

The corpse was left dangling for half an hour and then it was cut down and taken into the House of The Seven Balconies for funeral preparations.

I knew I had to had some of those souvenirs. The first of them was Isabel Case's 1:6th replica, the shiny black box with golden sparks made the beautiful figure stand out.

I arrived home that evening and I rushed to my room. I had enough reasons to lock myself in. I took the figure, for they are far from the average ordinary doll, out of the box to discover she, I'm sure you would agree those figures are far from an it if you had seen one, was made of the same materials than the 1:1 replica the guide had let me touch that day at the museum. I undressed her to her fine lingerie and dressed her again, the replica was wearing the same outfit Isabel Case wore to her last date. I decided I had to had everything the Baroness had used, even her car, for my 1:6th Isabel.

There were many photographers in the street the day Isabel Case fell thru the trapdoor but none of them could take the pictures that came with the 1:6th replica, those were the good ones. There are photos of Isabel Case in her room the morning before her last date as well as a couple of her body in a tray minutes after it had been cut down. There was even an inch of the rope used by Isabel Case to satisfy justice inside the box.

Those souvenirs were not to be sold to the younger ones of course, but the guide and I had established not only a pact of honour but a strong friendship and some sort of complicity. Besides that, I was nephew and grandson to two patriots and men of honour, it wouldn't do any harm to me having such nice replicas under the vigilance of my old uncle.

I'd bet you're thinking people back in my country are but a bunch of savages. Unstrapping a hanged woman's legs and driving one's hand up in between her thighs doesn't spell civilized so well but those were other times and it was then believed the fluids of a hanged woman's body might cure almost any disease, the fresher the better I guess. I was never able to understand that phenomenon as much as I had studied it. The incident that brought me here was partly aimed to study the facts behind the myth. As an anthropologist I'm used to think there's some truth lying behind every myth. I will not be able to conclude that investigation I guess.

Here, take this key. It unlocks all my collection of replicas. I'd be glad if you could bring me just two of them, my Isabel and my Cecilia... yes, that's the name of the heroine I used to visit at the park back in the day when I was twelve. I'm sure you'll know them as you see them. Please keep the rest of my collection.

Let's make a deal, every time you come to visit me you bring one of the replicas and I'll tell you her story. Bye and have a pleasant rest of the day.

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