Ahh, the depressing tales of an alternate universe where everything went right...
I'm an Iraqi, but I spent my first 7 years of life in Japan, & I can still remember it so vividly because I hated the way my dad dragged the whole family back to Iraq. But I loved Iraq too. It grew on me eventually, so even though I wonder about what could've been, I still had a good life there.
Then the war was coming. Dad refused to leave the country. The war came. It "ended". The country was a chaotic mess of looters. Feul was so scarce, I'd have to wait in line with our car for at least 3 hours, get only a 20 liter ration, & the prices multiplied drastically. This in a country where we used to fill our 90-liter tank for the equivalent of 40 US cents.
Traffic & roadblocks would keep me from getting home for 6 hours sometimes. The insanely beautiful panorama of acres of date-palms that we could usually see from the highway was razed, along with every tree beside a road, for security reasons. We saw thicker dust-storms more often because of that. The birds that we usually find pecking in our garden never came back. The backyard was littered with small plastic shell-like things that we suspected were part of a cluster-bomb.
I started college. What can I say, life went on. Without electricity, we bought an electric generator that roars like crazy throughout the house all day & night.
Then on the fateful morning of June 1st, 2005, 2 a.m., I heard a scream from my mom's room. Just as I was getting up to see if everything was ok, a guy in a mask pointed an AK-47 at me. "Come!"
Gruesome details at
http://unwindlife.blogspot.com
After being moved around the house a bit, the 4 of them asking for our valuables, they took me to a room separately, hooked my toes up to a wire, & plugged me into a wall-socket. They electrocuted me several times, several seconds at a time.
They eventually took me down & blindfolded me lightly. They made me stand near when they tortured my mom in the same way. My dad was spared 'cause he was so old.
After taking everything, & I mean EVERYTHING, they left us tied up.
.
.
.
For the next 2 months, I didn't sleep. I'd keep myself awake with my PC through the night, an AK-47 borrowed from a friend never leaving my side day or night, & only collapsing into snores for a coupla hours a day once I'm sure that someone in the house was awake.
My phone rang once in the morning. I picked it up. It was the mother of our next-door neighbor. Her husband was being held hostage in the garden by possibly the same crooks, & they wanted in. I woke my parents, & AK in hand, ran to my roof hoping to get a good shot at the sick bastards from the dark. I saw someone climbing over our fence. I almost shot him, until I realized he was half-naked. It was the hostage. The bastards noticed the commotion & scattered. They were nowhere to be seen in the dark streets. That was the end of that.
We finally moved out to Jordan, neighboring country, where I'm continuing my major Computer Sciences. My dad has since then suffered a terrible stroke leaving him mostly crippled. My mom is depressed & on the brink of alcoholism. Just looking at them makes me want to end it all for the three of us. We are currently waiting for results on our application for immigration to Australia, where we have some family.
2 of the 4 have apparently been caught. No sign of our valuables. I was tempted to go back to Iraq just to be left alone in a room with them.
I hate the Middle-East. I don't care if it's not their fault that there's so much struggling within it. 15 years here is too much. I just wanna live in a regular country without this insane bullshit. A house robbery where the victims are tied up & tortured? Where in the sane world that we used to live in did that ever happen?!
I hate this thread now.
