Boom. My life is the fragments left over after a bombshell.
Fragment 1 - Midnight
Abu Omar [Name obviously changed] came over. He's the leader of the Mujahideen cell that checked me out and he wanted me to explain why a "normal" person would have a laptop computer. I didn't, but I let him surf it. It was OK, so he decided I would be a translator for him or something. Bullshit, I said. I'm not a secretary, nor do I want to work with the Mooj, even though I ideologically support their right to resist the occupation militarily. He left before I could finish my sentence, and brushed me off.
Fragment 2 - later than midnight
I'm fucking constipated in the land of diahrrea, squatting over some fucking hole in the ground. Somewhere in between my subvocal cursing at Abu Omar, I try to make sure I'm squatted right over the hole. There's no light or running water, so in the end, there ain't too much I can do.
As I meditate, I finally decide this is it: I'm going back to Baghdad. If this guy is gonna push, I'm fucking outta here. Don't look back. Don't change your mind. Just go.
Fragment 3 - 10am
"These people are sinners, Tarek. We all are. I swear to you, if you knew the things we had done, you'd never be able to look a one of us in the eyes. We're sinners, I swear.
There was a man once who we knew was a spy. He told us a Turkmen worked with him. We grabbed the Turkmen so he would confess, but he wouldn't. He owned a hotel and had a wife and three kids. No matter how much we beat him, he wouldn't confess. We broke every bone in his body, but he still wouldn't confess.
Finally, Abu Ahmad [Name obviously changed] - your friend - finally he took a knife and he cut a checkerboard into his back, then he sprinkled salt on it. The Turkmen begged us to kill him. We knew we were wrong, but letting him live would have been cruel, so we killed him and dumped his body on the highway.
We're sinner's all. All except for me, the fatman. Fat men have good hearts, you know."
Fragment 4 - Overheard while walking past the outhouse
"God. This is disgusting! Someone peed all over the outhouse! It was either some drunken stranger or one of the little kids!"
Fragment 5 - 1pm
Dahr once warned me that everything around here was hard. How true. I was packing my things to leave when I realized that all my money was gone - all but $5 USD, which I considered insult atop the injury.
I didn't want to tell anyone, but I had to. I suspected the fat man primarily. The keeper of the house went for his AK-47 and swore he'd kill him if he didn't fess up. It was Abu Ahmad with the gun, so we believed him. In the end, we brought out the Quran (The Muslim holy book) and we all swore on it that we were telling the truth. It's the final word, so the matter was dropped after that. The keeper of the house went and collected on some debts, then swore up and down I'd take the money. I swore up and down I wouldn't. I ended up taking a hundred - enough to feed his family for more than a month. I just wanted to leave, but they wouldn't let me till the money thing was fully settled.
Fragment 6 - 4pm
Living is barely worth it when you can't even trust one person around you. I don't trust a soul right now. Two guys said I should go out with them. They wouldn't say where, so I said no. They forced me into the car, so I went. They drove towards the country. I was sure they were going to kill me, even though they used to be nice. I mentally choreographed how I would karate chop one gun away, then another. If I had a gun, I would have shot them both and driven till I ran out of gas.
We ended up in some market. They fed me fruit that was not poisoned and water that was as fine as water gets here.
I used to tell people around here that they shouldn't trust anyone on account of this precedent or that. Never again - it's no life at all, even though it's the life every citizen of Fallujah lives.