“You see road, many?” Big Ass said. He was pointing across to mountains. I could see lines of roads going across mountains. They seemed like concrete rivers. “Bin Laden build. Do you understand?”Big Ass said. “Osama, you know?” Yeah, I’ve heard of Osama Bin Laden… I was just too mortified to realize that I was in Osama country.

“We are stop for Petrol,” said Big Ass. He yelled at the driver for like a minute straight. We were on our way somewhere. All the important talk was in Arabic. They stopped with the blindfolded treatment. They had moved on to manhandling. That was nice of them. Now I could see the swathes of desert while I was being dragged across it And drag me they did. Into a shit 80’s Toyota Tacoma. The thing was caked in ages of dust. There was a long bullet hole in the front passenger door, right where the thigh rests in the seat. It was a big hole too, at least an inch and a half in diameter. If anyone was sitting there when that bullet hit, they would have had a hell of a time standing up for… shit, the rest of their lives.

The Tacoma stopped, and so did the breeze. We were in the middle of the desert, right by an oil pipeline. In about 1.2 seconds, my face erupted in sweat. I was in the back of the truck, sandwiched between two guards. I could feel them squirm away from my sweaty arms. The guard on my left had a beard like a sack of potatoes, while the other, with significantly more muscle mass, wore that turban thing. Not like the Sikh turban, but the checkered, almost plaid-type head cover. Shit, you know, looking at that plaid, the red was identical to the plaid on my cousin’s hunting jacket. Just less complicated. I couldn’t help but get a little lost in the intricate threading. It was so spot on like the things my cousin wore in winter during white-tale season. As I stared off into this soldier’s scarf, his eyes caught mine, point blank. They weren’t as nice as the King’s eyes. I realized I leaned in a little too close. He turned at me and pushed his forehead into mine. We didn’t connect, but the sentiment was all the same. “Get the fuck away from me”.

Then he said something in Arabic. It was a lot phlegmier, but it sounded like he might be saying, “Get the FUCK away from me”.

I flinched. I went back and my eyes shot straight ahead. That didn’t stop him saying some more shit to me. He was yelling in my ear. My bad ear, and my eardrum started crackling. I wanted to cover it, but I couldn’t with my shoulder. I was too afraid.

He started yelling to the other guy, Beardo, on my left. That guy was much less interested in what was happening with me. It seemed like it wasn’t going well. I could tell, especially after he clenched my cheeks in his fingers and whipped my face back and forth. The bearded soldier started laughing. For some reason I thought, deep in my head, that Beardo was going to help me. Nope. He started laughing. In that moment I thought he would start clapping along to the beat. He was smacking my head against the back of the Taco until Big Ass yelled at him. He was fierce and sharp tongued. Checkered turban guy on my right was still flailing me around.

Big Ass was screaming his head off at him. Then the hard barrel of a gun pressed against my temple. A pistol to be sure. In that moment I couldn’t really tell what kind of pistol, considering I heard scratches in my ear. I’d probably lose my hearing altogether if the gun went off.

“Makhaneeth.”

He kept saying “Khaneeth”. He insisted on it. He kept saying it at me. He was calling me “Mokhaneeth”. I didn’t know what it was, but damned if I wanted to. This guy didn’t like mohaneeths.

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The thick metal butt of that gun drove deep into the back of my neck. Big Ass, now pleading with his hands, was telling him to let go of my collar. But instead I was pulled out of the truck, and on my knees in no time.

Makhaneeth. Mokhaneeth.

My hands were up, and I was still feeling sore from my existing wounds. The Taco was empty. Everyone was out of the truck, guns down, but begging this checker-turbaned guy to let me go. He wasn’t really having it. He wanted something done about Makhaneeth, which I guessed was me. I guess in their world I was Mokhaneeth. It was at that moment that I looked up and saw the black flag whipping in the wind. It was embroidered with white Arabic, a circle, and upside-down camels on top. I’d seen it before unfortunately. I was mostly certain that that was the flag of ISIS. I was in the ISIS.

I just met the King of ISIS.

I was about to get shot by someone from ISIS.

Shit got really slow, and really quiet. The sun blazed on.

I turned back. The turn felt like it could have lasted a week.

My ears whistled and rang with a loosening silence. The world felt dizzy, even on my knees. I started to wobble. First to the front, then to the back, and I felt it. Right at the top of my stomach. It reminded me of that blondie from the cruise ship—and then I ralphed.

I let a bounty of orange and yellow barf just fling and whip and nay-nay all over the Earth. There was a lot. I was embarrassed by it. In front of ISIS, I puked my guts out.

And then my hearing came back. Laughter. And there was laughter, howling out of these ISIS jerks. These goats. They were laughing their asses off. Big Ass was now on the ground, rolling.

I wiped my mouth on my collar. Sitting back on my butt, recollecting my stomach, I looked around slowly. Laughter. Good, hearty laughter. They were looking at me with innocent eyes. Guilty weapons of death in hand, but innocence in their brown eyes. I smiled, just a bit. I felt a little drunk from the puking and was a little giddy. Remembering only briefly that I was in ISIS territory. Dude, I was in ISIS territory. ISIS land. No. WHAT! What?

The.

Fuck. How?

And these guys seemed to like me, if only for a little bit. And then I felt a pop, from behind me.

I grabbed for my ear. “Fuck!” I screamed. The checkered asshole shot his fucking gun. The ringing was permanent.

“FUCK! Dammit, dude!” I yelled, and immediately three more pops came out from behind me. I went down on my chest, gripping both ears. I was yelling, but only from the noise. I turned to see the guy behind me. Pistol in the air. It was a Glock, but some bullshit knockoff. Fucking turban chode couldn’t even get a real fucking Glock. Pussy bitch, I can’t wait ’til you fucking die in this war. Fucker made me go deaf.

It was at that moment that he took the Glock and turned. He pointed it at the oil pipeline. He took aim. I ducked. This mad turban idiot was going to blow us up. I covered my ears, and then the shot was fired.

Nothing happened. I opened my eyes to see oil sputtering out of the pipeline. The laughter died down. The men set off to work. Beardo got an oil drum out of the back of the truck. The turban guy got a hose.

These guys… damn. They stuck a hose into the bullet hole in the oil pipeline. The sputtering stopped, and now a stream of oil was flowing. The oil drum was connected, and… it was a refuel. It was pretty genius.

Big Ass looked on, cigarette in mouth, unimpressed. He couldn’t even see how baffled I looked. He offered me a smoke, but I looked at him stupefied. He shrugged and got back to his phone. Just as I was starting to get impressed, they ripped out the hose. The oil pipeline sputtered again, and then the guards packed the drum onto the Taco. They just let the pipeline leak. Leak out onto the desert, into the soil, onto the earth. Looking into the sand was a riot. There was little flecks of litter and trash every yard or so. Who knows how ancient this pollution was? It definitely dissolved the mystique of being in the mighty, ancient desert.

And just like the barrel, they grabbed me out of the sand and loaded me up. The truck roared back to life, and I got the breeze back. And what else did I care? The breeze was nice.