Nerv Erf

I feel happy for the people who thought they were running this website, I really do. I mean, they can't even hack back into their own blog. What's going on with that? Maybe they've all retired to Guatamala or whatever. Good for them.
Meanwhile, I'm so at home in the English language it's wierd. But I'll come clean. A little secret. It takes a lot of hard work.
You may ask why I'm on the run. I have now understood that the truth is illegal. And I hacked one step too far.
The world is a funny place.

I don't have ten single solitary monetary units to my name. I could've bought a whole meal, but no, I find the cheapest bottle of wine and a loaf of bread, and thence (I love old fashioned words) position myself overlooking a countryside consisting entirely of dirt, stones and grapevines. I begin writing a letter to my parents.
Dear Mum and Dad. The clouds here are amazing.
Meanwhile, an inchworm – black and white stripes between burnt orange globes – humps his way across my loaf of bread.
Mum. I am living on stolen tomatoes. I wish I had a 50cc Honda step-through motorcycle.
Dad. The clouds here are ranged in long black lines in an obvious attempt to scare me.
But I am not afraid. I will walk under one to see what happens.
While walking through the withering grapevines (I take the bottle with me but I don't tell my Dad that) the sun, now confounded, sends down rays slanting here and there in an upside down crown so picturesque I expect God Himself to appear at any moment.
I scream "God is here!!"

But nature doesn't listen to a drunk.

I am standing at the entrance to the freeway trying to hitch a ride. The wind is so strong and so ferociously constant I have to hide behind the on-ramp sign in order to stay upright (for some reason, it seems useful to stay upright). I am heading for the capital, about eight hours drive away, but the wind has me convinced I don't want to be here under any circumstances. Any car that picks me up will be going in either of two total opposite directions, north or south. I decide to take the first car that stops no matter what.
And that is why I am no longer, or ever will be, anywhere near where I was going to be.

I realise I've got a bit of explaining to do, but I really can't be bothered. I don't get to the internet that often. Anyway, the only reason I do this is to send coded messages to Boo Boo who, as you know, is a genius, even if she's only six. Last post told her I got away clean. The one before: Europeans are very strange. The one before that was code for "never ever eat potatoes."
Of course, I can't very well tell you everything.

Other people have taken me to the supermarket because I look so hungry. One man gave me a bed for the night at his house in the country. Of all his family's home comforts, I loved the shower the most.
 

After two weeks on the run, I am beginning to smell. Miraculously, three young people (two girls and a boy) pick me up on some country road and take me to a swimming hole. Naturally, I am astounded at their nakedness.

I choose a group of trees close to the highway and look for a piece of ground without light.
In the darkness I rake together a pile of leaves and crawl inside.
I listen through my knees to the cold.
For the moonless traffic.
For the sounds of any intruder.
I remake myself fifty seven times.

Tomorrow, I'll camp in the middle of a roundabout.

By now, I'll be walking between the great orange trees of New York.
I'll be skipping over five storey shop rooves in Paris.
I'll be boarding the ferry to the Chinese mainland.

I am the semblance of a purple ticket.
I am under the underground.
I will be everywhere at once.

I'll be lost.

I show my new passport to Ahmed and he just laughs. He can't get over my hairstyle, my new persona. "But this is the truth!" he exclaims.
Later on he informs me: "The upshot of democracy is that the very few will end up in power. The participation of women will quantifiably increase the suffering of children. People with no qualifications whatsoever will run the country, industry, education, the military and everything else. But even these will yet be subject to the wants of the very few and the need to make children suffer."

I call Ahmed a true redneck. Who could have a problem with democracy?

Even if my entire family is not dead (I heard they may have been released!) my name is still Tarik. I'd hoped to change my name to Uda, but since I have been taken into the heart of the most noble Ashtuk clan there is no need. Nevertheless, I am defiantly Iraqi. A refugee. Okay, I am not thirty, as I told them, but no one seems to notice. It's really amazing. If you think about it, you can get away with anything if you put your mind to it.
Wilfully or not, people are so unobservant.
Strangely, I am allowed to use a computer. And while this particular website may not be so safe, it has a kind of remote familiarity.

The trouble is, no one tells the truth.