In A Room (1/3) By Joe Hakim

(1/3), (2/3), (3/3).

I wish there were bars so I could hold them, wrap my fingers around the cold steel and press my face in between them, but it's just a room, I'm in a dark room with no windows and no features, so I just sit and think and think and think. I am a captive, a hostage in a foreign country. I'm apart from my family and friends and I don't know if I'll ever see them again. Every so often one of my captors walks past the door and I think: Is this it? Is it my time to die? Every second becomes elongated and drawn out into hours, days, years, lifetimes. Just how long have I been here?

When I told my wife I was coming here, she said I was stupid, misguided. "You're going to go and try and help people that don't want your help," she said. "Please stay here with me." I smiled and kissed her. I didn't expect her to understand. "The world is falling apart," I said, "I have to try and do something, no matter how small it may be...I have to try." She didn't understand but she accepted. "But the place where you're going...it's so dangerous. What happens if they kidnap you or something? I've heard that they actually eat their prisoners."

I laughed, I couldn't help it. "That's preposterous. I think you've been watching too much television," but my laughter was enough to trigger the tears. "I just don't want you to die," she said. "We all die eventually..." There's a loud knock, and I sit upright. I must have drifted off. The ones who hold me, they don't want me to sleep or relax. They want me to be constantly awake and terrified. They want to break me; they want to rip apart the very fabric of who I am.

A man who speaks in a language that I can barely understand shouts at me from behind the door and tells me to wake up. There's a scraping sound, like something metallic being dragged across the surface of the wall. I can't see what it is, but I know it's the barrel of a gun. He wants me to know that he can kill me at any time. I have no value as a human anymore. I am a chip to be bargained with, nothing more.

This country, this poor, poor country - I came here to spread the word of God, in the hope that some people might realise that all this conflict is futile. We're destroying ourselves and our children, and in my naivety I believed that the simple clarity of my message would be enough to protect me and those around me. But now, sat here in the darkness, I know that there are black corners in the souls of men that even the light of our Lord cannot illuminate.

Continued...Next Page (2/3)

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