misin
Teletubby Cosplayer
When they came for me, I gave myself up without a fight; oblivious of the dark abyss that my life would be thrown into. There was no telling what to expect; whether I was going to be handled aggressively or if this was all some misunderstanding. I peered through the spy hole of my front door. There were 3 huge men, dressed in black uniforms and armed to the teeth with a riot gear, shotguns and shoulder straps lined with cartridges. Accompanying them were two men dressed in button-up shirts and khakis.
I had been living in Egypt for eight years prior. In that time, I finished high school and a few years of college studying Pharmacy. I was married and living in my own apartment with my wife and two children at the time. Life was as ordinary as it can be as an American living in Cairo. I had heard of people being taken from their homes for growing a beard, regularly praying in a mosque or wearing traditional Islamic attire, but I never imagined that I would be targeted. As soon as I mention my nationality, Egyptian police would apologize for stopping me even though I had been speeding or parked in a no-parking zone. Any previous encounters with the police indicated that I was almost above the law, as long as it wasn’t anything serious, but this time something was terribly wrong.
I opened the door and greeted the men standing outside. One of the casually dressed men introduced himself as Major Mustapha Mohamed. He told me that he would like to search my house. I obviously did not have much of a choice so I called to my nervous wife and asked her to take the kids to the corner of our apartment and wait behind a curtain until the police were done.
The search was quick and painless. They took my broken computer, my wife’s address book and my favorite turban. Maj. Mohamed finally said that he would like me to come with him to the police department for fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes, he said. Yeah, right.
I was taken downstairs to a van full of more armed men. They sat me in the second to last row and we started our trip. The major asked me a few questions then told me to look at the ceiling of the van. As I looked up, the guard behind me placed a blindfold over my eyes and the darkness began- I was completely deprived of my sight for a month. I knew Cairo pretty well, so I figured I could follow our movements by visualizing the city and estimating where we turned. The trip was about an hour long and once I figured out that they were purposefully disorienting me, I gave up trying to track our movements. When I was suitably disoriented we took a long, straight road out of the city.
We stopped somewhere quiet. Fear began trickling into my heart. I started recalling stories of people dragged into the desert and never heard from again. The whole experience was mind game after mind game. I had no idea why they had taken me, where I was or when they would let me go.
I was ordered to get out of the van and follow the voice of the man in front of me. When I began tripping, the man grabbed my hand and guided me across the street. They told me to pick my foot up high and step onto a big truck. When I got into the truck I could tell I was in what the Egyptians call “The Box,” a military truck used to transport prisoners. I was told to sit on the bench and then they exited the truck and locked the door behind them.
Nothing happened for a long time. I just sat there in the darkness trying to hear what was going on around me. Voices started getting closer. “I told you it wouldn’t work,” one voice said. “Just start the truck and shut up,” snapped the second voice. The first voice replied, “I’ll try, but I told you before you got here that it just won’t start.” I smirked. As intimidating as they could be, their lack of organization was laughable. I thought up a new game where I would look for funny, unprofessional mistakes that these men made.
The truck never started. I laughed to myself.
I heard metallic clanking as the door to The Box was being opened. A man took my hand and guided me out of the truck and into Maj. Mustapha’s personal car. On the way, I told him it was my bad luck that ruined The Box and caused the Major to have to drive me himself to the police department. His skinny assistant giggled but the major didn’t have a sense of humor.
We arrived at the police headquarters and the Major checked me in. I was taken into a long hallway and sat on a wool blanket against the wall. Everything was quiet. It was the month of Ramadhan of last year and everyone, including the guards, was fasting from sunup to sundown. I was given a small meal before the sun came up. The guard in the hallway was friendly and we chatted for a short time. After a few hours there was a shift change and the guard that was keeping me company left. Assuming I had the right to speak, I asked the new guard what his name was. He spoke back to me as if I was his slave. He asked me what my name was. Before I could finish my name the guard was out of his seat and instantly over my head shouting at me at the top of his voice. “You don’t have a name! When I ask you your name you tell me your number! Do you understand?” He yelled as if he was trying to intimidate me but I was too confused to be intimidated. I asked him what he meant by my number. By now, the guard was frothing at the mouth, incapable of reason. Another guard informed him that I was new and I was given the number 21.
Sleeping was all there was to do for the rest of the day. As time went on I began hearing sounds of other people in the corridors. It wasn’t just me there. My number was 21 because there were 20 others sitting on thin wool blankets, blindfolded with itchy wool and handcuffed to metal rings in the walls. The guards would wake us up to pray and tell us to lie back down when we were done. When the sun went down we were served gourmet food: rice with little noodles, black-eyed peas with salsa, fried chicken and finally a little cup of rice pudding. It was wonderful until I came to a terribly grim realization; the guards weren’t insisting we ate because it was the Holy Month of Ramadhan, nor did they choose such a high-calorie diet out the kindness of their hearts. The food and the sleep were to make sure we were ready for the living nightmares that came every night- the interrogation officers.
When I look back at how horrifying the ordeal was I am ashamed at how indifferent I was. Every night I could hear the demeaning, heartless insults, the clicking of the cattle prods and the screams of my brothers echoing through the halls. There was nothing I could do but listen.
My interrogation began and it immediately became apparent that I was being given special treatment. I could only guess it was because I was an American. The officer, Major Yusuf, told me to tell him everything I had done in Egypt since I had gotten there 7 years prior. I never saw his face. Two nights in a row I told him my story and he asked questions. Then I didn’t sit with him for days. I sat with him again and answered the new questions. This pattern continued for almost a month.
On the last day, I had heard numbers being called out and sensed an aura of joy in the air. I could tell that something good was happening and could only hope that my companions and I, weak from physical and mental torture, were finally getting to leave. I couldn’t help the tears from overflowing in my eyes. I thanked God Almighty for finally answering my prayers. I was overjoyed, ecstatic, thrilled. Words cannot begin to explain the goodness I felt when the number 21 was called and I was lined up with the others to get back the items confiscated from our houses. I finally got to the front of the line and my handcuffs were unlocked. I was still blindfolded, but it didn’t matter. I was so close to being free.
I was shown my possessions and signed a paper saying that everything taken was given back. I was led to a van similar to the one I came in, but this time we were joking with each other and laughing. I couldn’t believe it was finally over- but it wasn’t.
I was moved to another holding facility until they had readied the papers for my deportation.
METANARRATIVE
I had to make many choices while writing this story, mostly because I had so much I wanted to write with so little space to do it. Other than the magnitude of content I wanted to write about, I also had to make a big decision on the tone of the essay. I’m pleased with the way it turned out. I wanted it to be as similar to my actually experience as I could get it. The best I could do is show how quickly my mood and environment would change. In the beginning, I was surprised and anxious; on the way over and for a short time while being held I found everything humorous; and then very abruptly reality hit me. The truth is these 3 things – anxiety, humor and fear – went back and forth multiple times every day, but to explain that in the story would take much more room. I also had to leave out some more gruesome details because I didn’t want the tone to so grim that it ruined the humor.
I feel like I didn’t capture the idea that I couldn’t see anything for a month well enough. In my first draft I did state that I never saw my interrogator’s face, but then I said, “Then I didn’t see him for days.” Even after my experience, I’m taking my eyesight for granted and I’m confusing the reader.
One problem I always have is putting myself in the reader’s shoes. I once wrote a 10 page story about the adventures of a monster that I had made up. Personally, I knew everything about the monster- what he looked like, what his powers were, etc.- but for the entire story I never described him. Similarly, in this story I left out all the context because it never occurred to me that the reader doesn’t know who I am or what Egypt is like.
The paper is still more than the allowed 4 pages. My first draft was 6 and it only that short because I was trying to summarize it. There is so much more that I wanted to write but didn’t have room for. The final editing was even more difficult because I was already over the 4 page limit but I had to add context. I was forced to summarize the first encounter to the bare minimum so that I could put some history in.
Overall, I’m happy with how the narrative turned out. The peer review and teacher’s review went well and as a result the story has improved a great deal. Now that I have a super-summarized version, maybe I’ll take it a step further and add in all the details that I couldn’t. My final goal will to make this a chapter in my autobiography.
I had been living in Egypt for eight years prior. In that time, I finished high school and a few years of college studying Pharmacy. I was married and living in my own apartment with my wife and two children at the time. Life was as ordinary as it can be as an American living in Cairo. I had heard of people being taken from their homes for growing a beard, regularly praying in a mosque or wearing traditional Islamic attire, but I never imagined that I would be targeted. As soon as I mention my nationality, Egyptian police would apologize for stopping me even though I had been speeding or parked in a no-parking zone. Any previous encounters with the police indicated that I was almost above the law, as long as it wasn’t anything serious, but this time something was terribly wrong.
I opened the door and greeted the men standing outside. One of the casually dressed men introduced himself as Major Mustapha Mohamed. He told me that he would like to search my house. I obviously did not have much of a choice so I called to my nervous wife and asked her to take the kids to the corner of our apartment and wait behind a curtain until the police were done.
The search was quick and painless. They took my broken computer, my wife’s address book and my favorite turban. Maj. Mohamed finally said that he would like me to come with him to the police department for fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes, he said. Yeah, right.
I was taken downstairs to a van full of more armed men. They sat me in the second to last row and we started our trip. The major asked me a few questions then told me to look at the ceiling of the van. As I looked up, the guard behind me placed a blindfold over my eyes and the darkness began- I was completely deprived of my sight for a month. I knew Cairo pretty well, so I figured I could follow our movements by visualizing the city and estimating where we turned. The trip was about an hour long and once I figured out that they were purposefully disorienting me, I gave up trying to track our movements. When I was suitably disoriented we took a long, straight road out of the city.
We stopped somewhere quiet. Fear began trickling into my heart. I started recalling stories of people dragged into the desert and never heard from again. The whole experience was mind game after mind game. I had no idea why they had taken me, where I was or when they would let me go.
I was ordered to get out of the van and follow the voice of the man in front of me. When I began tripping, the man grabbed my hand and guided me across the street. They told me to pick my foot up high and step onto a big truck. When I got into the truck I could tell I was in what the Egyptians call “The Box,” a military truck used to transport prisoners. I was told to sit on the bench and then they exited the truck and locked the door behind them.
Nothing happened for a long time. I just sat there in the darkness trying to hear what was going on around me. Voices started getting closer. “I told you it wouldn’t work,” one voice said. “Just start the truck and shut up,” snapped the second voice. The first voice replied, “I’ll try, but I told you before you got here that it just won’t start.” I smirked. As intimidating as they could be, their lack of organization was laughable. I thought up a new game where I would look for funny, unprofessional mistakes that these men made.
The truck never started. I laughed to myself.
I heard metallic clanking as the door to The Box was being opened. A man took my hand and guided me out of the truck and into Maj. Mustapha’s personal car. On the way, I told him it was my bad luck that ruined The Box and caused the Major to have to drive me himself to the police department. His skinny assistant giggled but the major didn’t have a sense of humor.
We arrived at the police headquarters and the Major checked me in. I was taken into a long hallway and sat on a wool blanket against the wall. Everything was quiet. It was the month of Ramadhan of last year and everyone, including the guards, was fasting from sunup to sundown. I was given a small meal before the sun came up. The guard in the hallway was friendly and we chatted for a short time. After a few hours there was a shift change and the guard that was keeping me company left. Assuming I had the right to speak, I asked the new guard what his name was. He spoke back to me as if I was his slave. He asked me what my name was. Before I could finish my name the guard was out of his seat and instantly over my head shouting at me at the top of his voice. “You don’t have a name! When I ask you your name you tell me your number! Do you understand?” He yelled as if he was trying to intimidate me but I was too confused to be intimidated. I asked him what he meant by my number. By now, the guard was frothing at the mouth, incapable of reason. Another guard informed him that I was new and I was given the number 21.
Sleeping was all there was to do for the rest of the day. As time went on I began hearing sounds of other people in the corridors. It wasn’t just me there. My number was 21 because there were 20 others sitting on thin wool blankets, blindfolded with itchy wool and handcuffed to metal rings in the walls. The guards would wake us up to pray and tell us to lie back down when we were done. When the sun went down we were served gourmet food: rice with little noodles, black-eyed peas with salsa, fried chicken and finally a little cup of rice pudding. It was wonderful until I came to a terribly grim realization; the guards weren’t insisting we ate because it was the Holy Month of Ramadhan, nor did they choose such a high-calorie diet out the kindness of their hearts. The food and the sleep were to make sure we were ready for the living nightmares that came every night- the interrogation officers.
When I look back at how horrifying the ordeal was I am ashamed at how indifferent I was. Every night I could hear the demeaning, heartless insults, the clicking of the cattle prods and the screams of my brothers echoing through the halls. There was nothing I could do but listen.
My interrogation began and it immediately became apparent that I was being given special treatment. I could only guess it was because I was an American. The officer, Major Yusuf, told me to tell him everything I had done in Egypt since I had gotten there 7 years prior. I never saw his face. Two nights in a row I told him my story and he asked questions. Then I didn’t sit with him for days. I sat with him again and answered the new questions. This pattern continued for almost a month.
On the last day, I had heard numbers being called out and sensed an aura of joy in the air. I could tell that something good was happening and could only hope that my companions and I, weak from physical and mental torture, were finally getting to leave. I couldn’t help the tears from overflowing in my eyes. I thanked God Almighty for finally answering my prayers. I was overjoyed, ecstatic, thrilled. Words cannot begin to explain the goodness I felt when the number 21 was called and I was lined up with the others to get back the items confiscated from our houses. I finally got to the front of the line and my handcuffs were unlocked. I was still blindfolded, but it didn’t matter. I was so close to being free.
I was shown my possessions and signed a paper saying that everything taken was given back. I was led to a van similar to the one I came in, but this time we were joking with each other and laughing. I couldn’t believe it was finally over- but it wasn’t.
I was moved to another holding facility until they had readied the papers for my deportation.
METANARRATIVE
I had to make many choices while writing this story, mostly because I had so much I wanted to write with so little space to do it. Other than the magnitude of content I wanted to write about, I also had to make a big decision on the tone of the essay. I’m pleased with the way it turned out. I wanted it to be as similar to my actually experience as I could get it. The best I could do is show how quickly my mood and environment would change. In the beginning, I was surprised and anxious; on the way over and for a short time while being held I found everything humorous; and then very abruptly reality hit me. The truth is these 3 things – anxiety, humor and fear – went back and forth multiple times every day, but to explain that in the story would take much more room. I also had to leave out some more gruesome details because I didn’t want the tone to so grim that it ruined the humor.
I feel like I didn’t capture the idea that I couldn’t see anything for a month well enough. In my first draft I did state that I never saw my interrogator’s face, but then I said, “Then I didn’t see him for days.” Even after my experience, I’m taking my eyesight for granted and I’m confusing the reader.
One problem I always have is putting myself in the reader’s shoes. I once wrote a 10 page story about the adventures of a monster that I had made up. Personally, I knew everything about the monster- what he looked like, what his powers were, etc.- but for the entire story I never described him. Similarly, in this story I left out all the context because it never occurred to me that the reader doesn’t know who I am or what Egypt is like.
The paper is still more than the allowed 4 pages. My first draft was 6 and it only that short because I was trying to summarize it. There is so much more that I wanted to write but didn’t have room for. The final editing was even more difficult because I was already over the 4 page limit but I had to add context. I was forced to summarize the first encounter to the bare minimum so that I could put some history in.
Overall, I’m happy with how the narrative turned out. The peer review and teacher’s review went well and as a result the story has improved a great deal. Now that I have a super-summarized version, maybe I’ll take it a step further and add in all the details that I couldn’t. My final goal will to make this a chapter in my autobiography.
