adhān

I was on a bus leaving  a small compound, my days were long back then. I got up in the early hours to catch a bus.  My driver was always finishing up his morning prayer, he had a purple beard and I could tell by the way he looked at me that he did not like me. He was also a very shitty driver, I usually just closed my eyes and dreamed of being back in bed. Adolescent rage was so deeply instilled in my 15 year old soul. I was angry. I remember driving by the Saudi Arabian army as they lined up for their morning salute. Most of them were still wearing slippers. That made me laugh.

By the time I reached The King Fahd National Guard hospital the sun was up. I was hungry. Sometimes I would just wait at the bus stop and smoke cigarettes till my bus came. But sometimes when I was really board I would go to the lab and play with the microscopes, I'd count blood cells and I'd spin shit in the centrifuge.  I loved seeing the plasma separate. I was a lonely kid, this usually happened by 6:30 in the morning.  I always had to catch the bus to school.  It was an event that I rarely missed. Ninth grade history with miss BlackMan was deadly, but hey, what' s a little death over time.

Fuck I still had to take another bus. The bus form the hospital would take me to the center of the compound. It was awesome, by then it was 7:30, I would have already smoked like 6-7 smokes, and listened to a few sides of some of my favorite tapes on my trusty Sony Walkman. I was so angry, in that dessert sun, the first kid waiting at the bus stop always. Watching the scorpion ants on the caked clay ground, often forcing them to fight one another. When the younger children would show up with some of the parents and caregivers, I made sure to be hidden form view when I snuck my last smoke before school.


The third trip into the city was with kids. I wasn't alone. There were other youngsters on the bus with me. They grew to be some of my only friends in the country the whole time I was there. The two boys who sat next to me were three or four years younger then me. But they were savvy of the eastern ways that I was being thrown around by. It made them laugh, they lived with their fathers, rich respected businessmen,  I had usually been up for four hours by that time taking a bus with mom to her work. I wanted to nap, and when I was depressed I did. The world was my oyster kinda....Then I got to school.