Hello, I am June Osbourne. I was a person who loved books and reading. I was a writer and an editor for that matter. I was someone's wife and a mother too. And I was a handmaid of the so-called Republic of Gilead.

I wish to be all the things that I once was, except for the last one I mentioned.

I may not know anything else about you, my dear reader, but if you are spending your time reading this, I know you care.

Even if everything seemed quite absurd, I knew very well that the first thing I wanted was freedom from the minute I was put in a dark red dress, with white wings covering my face and red gloves hiding my fingers. I wanted back all the activities I was robbed of. Reading, writing, speaking, arguing, smiling.

Back in Gilead, we wore red. No other colour was allowed for us. A red gown, designed to display no skin. It meant lifeblood. Red is not my colour, I never looked good in red. But that didn't matter.

We were of controversial nature. I, a handmaid among others like me, were there to bear children for the rich and powerful commanders whose wives were infertile. Reading and writing was a forbidden act for women, except for the aunts that kept an eye on us. Proving again that men are the most intelligent creatures and only they can be masterminds behind the idea of dividing women into social classes. Making some women more "controversial" than others even if they did nothing to deserve what they were treated like.

In my room was a mattress with white bed sheet. Well, not my room, our room. Nothing happened on the bed apart from sleep, but that too happened rarely. I tried not to think too much.But it's hard not to think too much when all your brain wants to do is think. And then it all made sense, why there were no hangings on the ceilings, why the windows opened only partly and why they had a shatterproof glass. It isn't the running away they are afraid of. It's those other escapes, it's the ones you can open in yourself given a cutting edge. We were women with reduced circumstances due to our still existing circumstances.

When I went out shopping, there was usually one more handmaid with me. We were each other's responsibility, although no one was friends with each other. In fact, most of the time I was too scared to take the risk of asking her name, anticipating she might be a real believer in this. Probably a handmaid more than in name.

However , this isn't entirely true. Moira was my friend. A really good friend. I missed her a lot after she escaped. I wished for an escape as well, all of the time. And Ofglen, my partner handmaid, was a good friend too. We couldn't have those spicy, gossipy, real talks, but we understood each other very well.

Until she hung herself.

I had a miscarriage of the baby I would have from commander Waterford. But faked my pregnancy anyway. I was extremely careful to not make mistakes, those were the last things I wanted. Planned it out with every little bit of intelligence in me. Saved urine in case they did a second test. In times of menstruation, I used layers and layers of toilet paper since I couldn't ask for those supplies. And agreed to everything Aunt Lydia said.

She behaved like a friend. Seemed to have forgotten the electrocutions, the beatings and all the menaces she put me through. But seriously, I enjoyed myself. Just saying, "baby needs food", "baby wants to rest", "baby wants to go out", just put baby in any sentence ever and no one could stop me from doing what I wanted to do. But, a rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.

" All you need to do," I told myself, "is keep your mouth shut and look brainless. It shouldn't be as hard as it looks in your brain."

I had a hard time believing. I was such a good actor. Mum would have been proud.

There, I did things against my morals, thought about things I never thought I could think about and felt complicated feelings. When a handmaid became pregnant I got jealous. Seeing all the nice ways she was treated in and the way everyone valued her made me want it too. But that's not what I mean when I say I acted against my morals. I poisoned a wife to get her out of my way when she suspected me. And stabbed a commander with a ballpoint pen till he was no longer breathing. You must wonder what kind of a psychopath does that! I can't really justify this to myself. The only thing I can tell you in my defence, dear reader, is that when you spend too much time in an asylum, you become one of the lunatics. You do things you never even imagined in your wildest dreams when the world made a considerable amount of sense.

One night, I grabbed a coat, a woolen cap and anything that could keep me warm. Snatched a flashlight from a table drawer and documents that would dismantle this place. I started to run, waking up the armed men. I knew the guns were in my direction but I also knew that they would not fire. Why? Because pregnancy. I ran for what seemed like ages, out of breath I still ran to reach the Canadian border. And the moment I was in I laid there around hundreds of trees, staring at the dark sky.

My cheeks hurt from smiling so much as I was catching my breath. I fell asleep there, the next morning I woke up to familiar faces. People of Mayday.

I felt safe there for the first time in the last 5 years of my life. I saw Luke, my husband, held his hand tightly as I was laying in bed half conscious. "I love you so much."

I published the documents I brought with me in around forty countries. Plus, they're all over the internet. It's surely helping. I'm glad I was not foolish enough to leave all that valuable paperwork behind.

Today, I sit here on my cozy bed reflecting on those miserable years of life. It's nice and warm with snow outside. Luke put on some country music and brought me coffee. Brewed longer than usual, with two cubes of sugar and a little bit of milk for a mahogany brown colour, just the way I like it. But, I still haven't learned how to forget things. The only disadvantage of having a good memory.

The red dress, white wings, and red gloves stayed. The faces of the commanders moving above and pushing into me stayed. The wives holding my hand above my head during the act stayed.

I still picture myself laying blankly on the bed, without even the smallest bit of control. The fact that I could not say no.I still feel the tight grip of my hands on the handles of the electric chair, the whip hitting my back, the thirst of not being given water for 2 days. The blood of the commander is now on the floor of my bedroom. The half used poison bottle is looking for me. This room I am in is bright yet dark. I am afraid of my own shadow. She laughs at me. I try, but all I am is a bundle of nerves. It's the constant feeling of being out of place. Everything seems to be vexatious . No matter how much I sleep, or much I write or how much I drink coffee, something inside of me has given up. I try to find what it is, but I am unable to. I have started to think it is me.

But maybe right now, the journey is about being alone in my head. Maybe it's about waking up in the middle of the night to a bad dream and telling yourself that it'll stop one day. About normalizing the quiet and the chaos. About trying to see the sunshine that every positive freak talks about and realising that summer songs don't always make you happy. That resolutions don't make it till the end of the year. Maybe it's to make me aware that I can depend on the person I am now.

I have always thought of myself as the woman with a torch, heading to a forest of uncertainty. And now that I'm in the clear, I remember one more thing that stayed. I cheated on death and now he wants a divorce. "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum." ( don't let the bastards grind you down)