The overland bus leaned into the mountainous turn, as if to give the passengers a better view at the steep mountain side. Desert dust, no plants, only a few large boulders pigmented the drab sight. Regardless, the class was cheery. The rare field trip let them see something other than a ruined city. Mountain peaks, drop offs, and large boulders were still a novel sight, despite their blandness.
Never less, the trip itself was exciting enough. The eighteen and nineteen year olds were on their bonding voyage at the beginning of college. Salahaddin University had sent them to befriend the other freshman students. A tradition that was uniquely Kurdish. Muslims outside of Kurdistan ran universities with strict rules and isolation among the students, if those areas allowed education at all. The world had changed a lot in the recent years.
Pekhat was the proud teacher sitting on the foldout seat next to the bus driver. Pekhat's hand clutched the microphone with great importance. His whole stature demanded importance. He wore a sports jacket with a hatched pattern. He wore glasses. He wore is clothes as neat, so that he stood out among everyone else dressed in overalls, dresses, robes, and clothes pieces wrapped around them.
However, his triumphant persona came with a quick eye that always checked his back side. His teacher's brief case did not carry books or notepads. It carried a white robe with a head covering that he could quickly throw over his clothes to disappear as a regular person. Being a teacher these days did not come with death threats by Muslim activists. Though, the majority of Kurds supported the last remaining university.
They were on their way to a lake high up in the Zagros Mountains. Pekhat promised the students that they would soon pass the tree line, where the dead desert would turn into a sparse forest of oak trees. He held up high a white paper with the drawn outline of an oak leaf. The driver held onto Pakhet's shoulder, while he vigorously rotated the steering wheel into the opposite direction. The Bus bowed again to the front and the outside of the turn.
The bus was a plain operation with the colors faded. Broken or damaged parts of the bus were diligently removed, yet not replaced. There were no more part stores, only well meaning bus drivers. A window panel was missing in the middle. A seat had lost its upholstery. Another chair was missing entirely. And, so was the third gear. It was missing entirely.
The college kids were the same drab rag tag troupe. The clothes were simple, often made by their parents or made by neighbors and sold on the black market. The cool and wild kids sat in the back. That's why Delal sat in the very first front row. The boisterous action of the cool kids always startled her. She was intrigued from a distance though.
Delal was a little on the small side. The top of her beige dress had pockets with covers. The pockets were stitched in a neat way that would have reminded you of a British tropical explorer, if you'd know Britain. Britain didn't exist anymore. The heavy fabric had a neat side slit to make walking comfortable. Underneath the clothes, you'd expect a trim body with small, yet firm boobs.
Her hair was long, black and neatly combed back into a pony tail. You could see the thick bundles of her hair clustering together. Her face was soft. She would beautiful and gently red lips and dark black eye lids. Her face was lightly brown. The black eyes tended to bat at anyone looking at her, while she was trying to understand whatever she was seeing.
Next to Delal on the aisle side sat Abda. The first thing you noticed about Abda was that she wore pitch black clothes. Then, you noticed that her clothes was one large robe that started at the top of her head and covered everything down like a makeshift ghost wearing a bed sheet. After you get over your initial startling, you realize that she is wearing face mask of equally black clothes, yet thinner material, so that her breathing air can pass in and out. Somewhere in the depth of the black mountain were presumably equally black eyes carefully eying everything that happened in the outside world.
"Is it permitted for me to talk with you," asked Delal respectfully.
"Hoo! I am sorry. You startled me. I am still not used to being in Kurdistan. Back home in Iraq, we all remain in silence in public."
"So, can we talk or does that get you into trouble."
"As long as my dad doesn't see us talking, it is alright. My dad has a rough time to adjust to the permissive Kurdistan."
"Is that why you still wear the strict Muslim clothes?"
"Yes, back in Iraq, pretty much the whole rest of the world, we have to live by strict Sharia law. My mother is very glad that my father moved us out here. For three years, he could not find any work at all."
"Is it really that bad outside of Kurdistan?"
"Yes, after Islamic Nations took over the world, strict sharia law was established. Freedoms were taken. There is a giant television cemetery near Baghdad for all the stoned television sets. Intellectuals were persecuted or driven to live in the remote desert with goats. With all the Western countries shattered, plumbing, streets, employment, everything started falling apart."
"Oh, that must have been so hard, you poor thing?"
"We do not talk about private family matters."
They silently surrendered to the nausea inducing motion of the bus and curious eyes not getting enough of seeing the new landscape. The film of perspiration from the hot air was touched by the cool caress of the 10,000 foot high mountain air. Depending on how the air blew out of the missing window, they either smelled the dusty fresh mountain air or the arm pits of the young bodies cooped up in a bus for hours.
BACKFLASH: DELAL'S HOME LIFE
Delal was a gentle girl. Her beige uni-color dress was neatly folded and tucked under her thighs. She was sitting on her knees on top of the white cotton rug with the bright red, blue, and green dots. The clean and soft white rug was the luxury in the bare single room hut.
The sun crept through a little glassless window and powered the whole room with its high desert intensity. Shadows and bright spots painted like an old world artist on the white washed wall that had turned to a light gray over time. The dust floating in the air peacefully reflected the sunlight as glares. And, a few sun rays illuminated Delal's hair to show vivid brown hues in what usually seemed black hair.
Delal caressed her little baby sister, who peacefully moved her lips in a suckling motion. The baby sister was packed into a tight bundle with a rag. Delal admired her sister's large eyes and voluptuous lips. Her mother was preparing rice and beans on the other side of the kitchen. The age hardened staples had to be nursed with much water and time to turn back into an edible stew.
Delal's father entered the hut. Everyone looked at him. The baby woke up a little bit to stir its arms in an aimless fashion in the air. Delal's father had a deeply red head. He had been in a fight with his boss. His boss had insisted that there were three lanes on the central square. Her father had insisted that there was a fourth lane, but the lane markers had been washed off years ago.
He worked in the city's department of transportation. His department managed whatever infrastructure had survived after the last dirt compacting machine had bitten the dust. Ever since the triumph of Islam over the world, everything had started deteriorating. Now, they only occasionally painted the streets to circle knee deep pot holes to at least give people a warning, before they fell in.
The issue wasn't so much the argument with the boss. It was that he had become totally absorbed in the emotion of it. His jaw was still shaking and wobbled each time that he wanted to say something. His face had pockets of bright red like the outlines of continents on the plant, when viewed from outer space. His hand held onto her mother's upper arm with such intensity and yet little heft that everyone felt the inner emotional stir in the slight man with the mustache and the prim slacks and collar shirt.
STORY CONTINUES
Over on the other side of the first row, was Talti. The other kids called him "Nail Head." He was hot headed. And, when his head exploded in anger, he'd drive his rage into whatever was in front of him like a nail is driven into wood. His facial expressions were as simple and plain as his mind – big cheeks, big jaw, and steady eyes looking out. His body was large, yet his muscles had little definition. He wore simple pants, a button down shirt, and workman boots.
Normally, he would have sat in the very last row. However, he had gotten into a fight earlier and the teacher had placed him into the front row. The other kids had called him "Lyssa." He didn't know what it meant. When he want on a rampage, the kids only loved harder at him. He did not know that Lyssa is the Ancient Greek goddess of fury and raging madness.
Now Talti was sitting next to Klaus, the German immigrant who was dressed in Islamic cleric garb and was more pious than piety itself. Klaus wore a black rolled turban. His body was in a black robe with buttons running down the front. Beneath the robe, he was wearing black tights that showed through the slits in the robe that went from the heels to the hip. Klaus sat with an erect spine twirling his mustache and diligently moving his eyes across the lines of a Koran. He also had a neatly trimmed blond full beard.
"Your holy act does not full me," blared Talti at Klaus.
"Indeed, I am unworthy in the eyes of thee. Though, my love for the glimpse of hope to one day kiss his feet keeps me steadfast," replied Klaus.
"You failed. A real religious man has to greet in the name of Allah before speaking of other matters."
"My apologies for being uneducated and not born into Islam. Hau Salami und Ei Krum," replied Klaus.
