Samir straightened his body and sat. he wiped his wet cheek with his sleeve. Samir was a new cellmate. He was few months above 18. He told Khaled that they caught him and some other people when he was trying migrate secretly by an inflatable boat even before they could start the engine of the boat. He told him that he paid ten thousand dirhams to a middleman to traffic him to Spain, but for his misery, the news reached the coast guards were happy to catch the migrants once they were on the boat.
The signs of a normal and relatively luxurious life were somehow evident on Samir’s face. Khaled knew from Samir that he was not in a real need for ‘harik’ (secret migration) as he was still living with his parents and had the whole future ahead of him to work or find other legal means for migration, but Samir could not help waiting. He told Khaled,
Khaled noticed that Samir movement in the prison yard was too confused. Without trying to reveal it, he remained near Khaled most of the time. Khaled thought that Samir was just feeling safe near him as cellmates and because Khaled was the only one with whom Samir contacted. When Khaled asked Samir about the real reason, Samir replied,
Samir felt some comfort, so he lay down again, fell asleep and his snoring filled the cell. Sleeping abandoned Khaled’s eyes. He thought it could be a good chance to call his friend Mahdi who was working as a night watchman in the local industrial area. It was a chance to pass some time and ask him about his news.
Khaled knew a lot of secrets and unravels a lot of unknown things. He knew how and when to use his mobile phone and ‘bought’ later a license to use it anytime he needed. He learned how to charged it with credit through his friend Mahdi who used to send him credit vouchers. In urgent situations, he knew how to buy credit as the whole world existed in micro-form in the prison under completely different laws. The only comer had only to learn them.
Khaled knew that he was going to commit a lot of sins in that jungle. He wasn’t a hero, but he had no other options. In prison, one could be either a sheep or a wolf. None of his dreams ever was becoming a wolf, but he did not need to be a sheep, either.
This was the way he began adapting. He felt the devil inside him becoming bigger and taking more control over him. He didn’t have a means to stop it or to restore it to the right path. This was a result to the events he had been through lately that changed his personality a lot.
The voice mail responded that his balance was empty. He remembered the phone Aziza Rahma brought him. How could he forget it? If it had some balance, it would be lawfully his.
He dials his own number, and he smiles triumphantly when his phone rings. He looks at the phone which is displaying a name! It means that the phone number of the phone whose owner is unknown is stored in his device. He brings the phone closer to his eyes and reads. It is ‘Huda’.
Reality got confused with dreams. He cannot understand what is happening. He considers waking Samir up, but why? He stands up…looks from the window of the cell that overlooks the gloomily lit corridor…he sits down…walks up and down…leans…
What a coincidence! What a coincidence! Is there anybody who arranged it?
This cannot happen. Huda told him that her mobile phone was mugged. Was it actually mugged to be sold to him!
He examined the phone again and plays with its keys, he reads one of the messages he sent her. Below his message appeared the first few words of a message from another person. The message talks apparently about him. He opens and reads it. His eyes bulge in surprise. He reads the rest of the messages. He shakes and his body trembles violently. What he read is either a nightmare or a reality that will drive him crazy.
His stomach was aching… his bowels gurgled … and yaaaaack.
He couldn’t stop himself any longer. He emptied the contents of his stomach that could not stand that amount of nervous tension.
His cellmates woke up and the guard looked from the window.
He started cleaning up and his head was aching severely as if hit by a thousand hammers. He addressed himself,