07:00PM, fifth of June. A Thursday. I just came back from work, a two hours exhausting commute. Hello couch, my best friend in the world, you understand me. After ten minutes of laying there, I get a phone call. It’s my other friend.

“Hey man, what’s up? How are you doing in your exams?” I ask immediately.

“Good, good. It’s all good.” Not the greatest answer in the world, but I will take it.

“So, how is life treating you? anything new with you?”

“You know what. I was just calling to ask you the same thing.”

“Well, my life is boring at the moment, as always really, nothing is actually happening, ever. You know, just the usual.”

“Because I was just thinking the same thing you know?”

“Okay, and that is?”

“I wake up. I get breakfast. I go to work. I come back. Eat again. I try to sleep early, so that I could wake up again tomorrow in time and do it all over again. Is this it?”

“Pretty much.” I answer laughing. Join the world, we are the functioning depressed, fucked up generation.

“Then you get married, and then what? You wake up. you get breakfast with your family, if you are lucky. You go to work. You get back. Eat again with them. Make money. Spend it. Be concerned, because now you need more money. Then you die. You just die.” He said laughing.

“That is also true. What are you going to do about it? So, listen we are up for the world cup, right? Are we still watching it together?”

“Yes, you bet your ass we are.”

“I got to go. I just came back and I need to eat. But, I’m gonna hold you to that, Mr. busy guy.”

07:20PM. I’m streaming a new show called Jennifer Falling on my dusty 2007 Acer laptop, laying in bed. It’s the first episode and I’m eleven minuets in. Well, this is completely not working. Cancellation after the 2nd episode. Third, if they are lucky. I’m gonna go out and pray.

Walking down the stairs of our duplex, my mother tells me, they are going to the mall. She asks if I needed anything. I jokingly tell her yes, while I continue to walk down. My little sister opens up the balcony and calls me by my name. I’m already outside.

“What do you need?”

“Nothing. Nothing. I was just kidding.”

I take 10 steps on the road, a car just drove by me, then, a black Hyundai stops. A very decent looking guy, wearing a blue shirt is sitting in the passenger seat. Tall. Broad shoulders. He goes to a gym. He’s got a well groomed beard, with a scar on his right cheek, the kind that makes the hair stop growing in that area.

“Excuse me, can you help me?”

I stopped.

The guy comes out of the car.

Now what?

He grasps my neck.

The backseat of the car opens. Okay someone is sitting there wearing a shirt with the exact same color as the one I’m wearing.

The guy tries to shove me inside.

Okay, this is happening to me. I should react.

Yell! Or shout now! Father? Mother?

I shove back into the opposite direction.

He is still holding me. Fuck this guy.

And with the loudest voice I have ever heard a human utter before, especially when that human is me, I shout, “back off, man.” shoving him with all the power I thought I never had.

I fall.

Now on the ground with scraped hands. I finally get a good look at the guy’s face. Such handsome features. Our eyes meet for a second, and I stare at him. He stares back.

He gets into the car. The driver shifts to the 3rd gear.

They are gone.

Now what?

Still on the ground, I take a look at the dust made by the car. I stand up, look around me. Anyone? Not a single person came out, no one heard me.

I spit.

Blood.

I take a look at our balcony, my six year old sister is still there. Frozen.

Okay, where should I go now?

I walk back and forth ten times in just a one feet space, undecided. Go pray, or go back home. Shit. This just happened to me, just outside home.

My clothes are torn.

Home.

I slam the door intentionally as I walk in. Going up the dark stairs my mother asks me, she still hasn’t seen me yet. “Wow, that was fast.”

I don’t answer.

Lights. I’m up.

“What happened?”

She then takes a good look at me. “Just tell me what happened. God.”

I don’t answer.

“Oh my god. Your clothes. Did you fall down?”

“Just leave me alone, will you?”

I go into the bathroom, and take an inquisitive look at myself in the mirror.

Fuck this. Blood. Fuck this guy. Fuck. My hands. Fuck. My neck hurts.

After washing my face. I take off my shirt. Fuck it’s torn. I look down. At least my pants aren’t.

As I come out of the bathroom, half naked from the waist up, both my mother and sister are waiting for me outside.

“What happened?” She is almost crying, while my sister is hiding behind her, holding her gown.

“Someone just tried to kidnap me. Okay.”

“What?”

“…” Looking straight into her eyes, like I haven’t done before.

“What happened?”

Walking away I tell her, “a car stopped me. Someone tried to take me. I didn’t go in. I shouted, then I fell. ”

“…” Now she is silent, and begins to cry.

My father didn’t say a word. He goes out and starts looking for the car like if it was still there.

“I thought I heard someone down in the street shouting. I was going to look then I couldn’t find anything to cover my hair with.” Mother said.

“Seriously, god would have forgiven you if you came out with your hair to help someone. priorities, mother.”

“Would you guys just leave my veil here at all times,” she shouts while talking to the wall.

My father comes in “okay, do you want to go to the police station. Let’s go to the police station.”

“Just give me a second will you? My back hurts”

“Why?”

“He just said that someone tried to kidnap him, he fought back and he fell. what do you want from him.” She gives him a look of scorn.

“You didn’t fight back, or anything? You fell? It must have been your reflexes.”

“The guy grasped me by the neck and I shoved him back, what more do you want from me?”

“To hit him with anything. You could have used anything. Throw dust into his eyes.”

“The guy grasped me. I fell.”

“Then why didn’t you take a stone from the street and smash the car window?”

“…”

“I’m telling you this because I want you to know what to do next time.”

“Would you back off of him.” Finally someone said it, and it was her.

“Look dad, talking is easy.”

“I know.”

“And finally. And I’m talking to you mother, would you please not make a scene about this okay? I don’t want it to be national news. So just don’t pick up the phone and start your social news hour.”

“You know that I could have never forgiven myself if they took you.”

“…”

I let her hug me from the side. I’m between her arms, emotionless like a dead body, with my hands on my sides.

“And you, when you see your brother in trouble, you should say something. Don’t just stand there and watch.” She tells my sister.

Upon hearing those words, she goes to the balcony, closes it. then puts a chair behind its door. Then she cries.

“What are you doing? I’m telling you that because I want you to learn. This chair won’t do anything.” She scolds the already crying sister.

“Leave her alone. She probably didn’t realize what she was seeing.” The old man on the defense.

I finally interrupt their victim make believe, “you want to go to the station, lets go to the station.”

Father now is driving our red Hyundai. I’m the one in the passenger seat this time.

“So, case closed. Filed against an anonymous person. That’s it.” I say.

“Do you expect anything else?”

“No”

“My neck really hurts.”

“That’s because you didn’t act right. You know I have seen this self defense documentary, it said that you can use anything as a weapon, even your fingers. Even the weakest part in your body can become the strongest weapon. Your fingers in the guy's eyes. Or just hit him in the groin.”

I smile.

Halfway through the drive, we encounter a demonstration. “God is our savior. God have your wrath on the people who misjudged us.” Their microphones shouted.

The Muslim brotherhood.

“God. These guys, they think that he is coming back, it’s impossible. Why do you think they are here?” He asks me.

“They are stupid.”

“Well, no. They really do believe in their system. That’s why they behave like that. Blind belief.”

We reached the roadblocked street the station is located in.

“You know they are going to search your bag right?”

“I don’t really care, I’ll let them keep it if they want to. Crime evidence.” I say as we arrive at the gates of the station. An AK-47 greats us. The officer holding it had a power mustache, that when you look at his face you forget about what he is holding. The mustache said it all. He didn’t need a weapon to scare you.

“Excuse me, I want to report a kidnapping.” Father said.

“Kidnapping of whom?”

“Well, It’s an attempt really.” I correct him.

“An attempt to kidnap my son.” He said pointing at me.

“Talk to the officer over there, next to the car.”

We walk to the other officer. He is giving us his back.

“What should we call him, sir? I don’t like that word.” Then my father says what he said to the other one, prefixing it with the word Mr.

The officer didn’t look back, he is checking his phone and while doing so he pointed to another one and said, “Hey, listen to what these people want to say.” A much younger officer who looks like he could be my age looks at us.

“So, what happened?”

I tell him.

He smiles, gets into the police car, and says, “Listen, I can’t do anything.”

“I know.”

“Tell me, how old are you?”

“23”

“Shame on you really, that you are 23 and you come to me saying that someone tried to kidnap you.”

I smile at him, turn and walk away.

As we are walking back to our car, I see the officers, all three of them, in their cars with more AK-47's and some riot police gear. They are going to the demonstration before it reaches the station.

“You know dad, what just happened back there, it’s disgusting.”

“Well, you can’t really compare what happened to you to the demonstration. It’s more important.”

“What?”

“It is.”

“I don’t want you to feel bad for me because I’m your son. What just happened is inhumane.”

“It’s not.”

“Okay, when you think like that, then that’s the problem really, you are the one who is giving them permission to act the way they did.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Okay.”

“No. I don’t want to talk about it anymore with you. And specially you.” Then I start to walk with a much faster pace than his.

“Do you want juice?”

“I don’t want anything. I don’t want anything from you.”

I reached the car, and I wait for him by the door. We get in. I open the windows.

Engine starts.

“You know that is the problem with all this hypocritical society. The “Muslim” or “Arabic” society, they fake their morals. Just a bunch of self-righteous jerks.” I say angrily.

“…”

“But the truth is, they all just want to get laid. That is all what they want. All their actions, oil or no oil. They want a naked female body to sleep with. All their tall buildings. All their desert money. All their fast cars, everything they do is about women, and how to control them as domestic creatures. And how they get that? They get it with their fake morals. They control it with “Religion” or “customs” and the truth is they don’t know shit about either one of those. And what just happened back there is sick. You took a victim and you told them that it’s their fault that someone harassed them. I mean come on It’s not like I asked for the kidnapping to happen. I don’t go around wearing a shirt that says “I love to get kidnapped on the weekends” and he tells me shame on me. Jerks.”

“…”

“Same as what happens to victims of rape or harassment. Oh what she was wearing was bad. She evoked their lust. You know what “Islam” says, it says look down. Don’t look at all. I don’t even care if she walks around naked. It says look down, until it goes down. But, no, no, no. We turn them into abusers of their bodies, their bodies that belong to their men. Then he comes and tells me, shame on me. Jerk. It’s all fake. Hypocrites.”

“…”

“What did he want me to do? Take the man with me? Know his name, where he graduated from high school. Bring him and his car with me to them. What else should have I done? Someone tried to kidnap me, I fought back and didn’t get kidnapped. What else did he want me to do? Kill the guy. Make a citizen’s arrest and bring him in with me. What?”

12:30AM, since the time I got home, my chest has been filling up with anger that is about to explode. Each time I remember what happened, I make a fist, and anguish just builds inside of me. I decide to go to the one place that could take my mind of the thing. Comedy. Black Books, series three, episode two, elephants and hens.

My brother just came from work, he comes into my room immediately.

“So?”

“So?”

“Mother already told you right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m fine, physically, I’m fine. I feel like shit though.”

“Of course. You know I was driving the other day and I found some people dressed in civilian clothes, they made a random roadblock on the street. I panicked, made a u-turn and drove like a maniac. You can’t feel safe here anymore.”

“You know what happened at the station?”

“That guy's an asshole. This was a test from god, you was just going to pray and that’s what happened.”

“…”

I laugh, and continue to watch black books. I still feel like shit. As my mother was going to bed, she stops by my room and says, “I would have never forgiven myself if they took you.”

“Okay.”