lucyoncolorado

In which I'm caught up in a war in various Asian countries...


I'm in the gaudy lobby of a five star hotel in Central Asia. The floors are gold marble, and they shine with reflected light from chintzy chandeliers hanging high up in the ceilings. R and I are standing in a large open hall before a broad cedar front desk behind which is a seating area with heavy hand-carved adirondack chairs on thick green carpets placed before a roaring fire. The clientele is clearly international. Some stand near us with their luggage, others are thumbing through magazines in the seating area.

I tell R that the hotel can't seem to decide if it wants to be the Ritz or a mountain lodge. A woman standing next to us responds that the nouveau rich of developing countries never know how to decorate a place, then she leans closer and says that the building isn't structurally sound either. The whole thing will crumble in a decade.

People around us start to stare and point at the woman. I think that it is because they can hear her complaints, so we step away to make it obvious that we are not together. But she gathers more attention so I look at her more closely. She is dressed in a long billowy black frock and a black ski mask. She wears black leggings and combat boots beneath her skirts, and she carries a black backpack. Somehow, I realize she is a Chechnyan militant, but before I can react, she opens her frock to reveal a belt of guns and bombs. She tells us all to drop down to the floor.

I'm lying prone on the cold marble, as are all the other guests in the hotel. Young men dressed in black run about with tie wraps binding our wrists behind our backs while the woman stands in the middle of the lobby shouting her demands. We are her hostages. She wants to negotiate with Putin. He'll raid the place and we'll die, I think to myself. I'm less afraid than I am astonished that this is actually happening to me. I'm actually a hostage to terrorist rebels calling for negotiations with Putin. Then I reflect on my astonishment. This sort of thing happens to people; the history of the world is full of regular folks having their lives destroyed because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Violent political turmoil, global warfare- why did I assume I'd be safe?

But then, someone comes up to the woman with a pink slip of paper. The woman glances at it and then calls my name. I do not respond. I do not know what that piece of paper bodes for me, and I think it is better to take my chances with the rest of the bunch. She calls my name again. I remain silent. Then she walks over to me and asks why I'm ignoring her. I see that my name is on my luggage. She must have read it while we were discussing the hotel decor.

I stand up and look her in the eye. She asks again why I ignored her. I respond that her accent is so heavy that I didn't understand my own name. She tells me that I'm wanted in the office and hands me the pink hall pass. She tells me that R can come along too. It's so strange that at first we just stand there dumbfounded. This must be some sort of trick?

No, she answers. We have been called down to the office where we are to begin negotiations for the release of the hostages. Did we listen carefully to her demands? I did not. I walk to the lobby desk and take out a pencil. I try to write down the demands that she is dictating, but it's no good. I can't form letters, and every time I think I've written something correctly, it changes when I look back at it. I lie and tell her that I'm writing down what she says. I hold the paper so that she can't see it and pretend to understand.

We exit the lobby with our pink slip and my scribble paper and enter a labyrinth of empty halls and escalators. We wander around lost for what seems like hours. One of the escalators descends to a giant fountain around which people are gathered; when we come across it for the third time we realize we are going in circles. We stop to look at the window, and we see Russian fighter jets flying over head. We know that the hotel will soon be under siege and that there will be no negotiation so we abandon the other hostages and run out towards the parking garage.

R and I are driving in the front seat of our car with my grandmother in the back. We are driving as quickly as we can away from the hotel which is now taking aerial bombing as well as internal explosions. It's in flames behind us. There is debris and military vehicles all over the roads. We know we must head straight for the freeway, but the on-ramps and overpasses are treacherous. We realize now that we are in Afghanistan, and that the infrastructure here was shabby even when it was new due to the corruption and graft involved in construction contracts and funding. We'd rather not drive on those roads, but at this time we have no choice.

All around us, the countryside is burning. Bombs are falling from the sky and explosions fill the space behind us. The freeway is even more chaotic than usual. Cars, oxcarts, military tanks, pedestrians, rickshaws and livestock fill the roads, traveling in all directions. Meanwhile, vehicles are exploding all around us either due to bombing or landmines, we can't be certain. We have no choice but to continue to drive straight forward, but all in front of us we see cars exploding and people being shot. A big rig in front of us suddenly explodes and the freeway fills with fire. It's like a summer blockbuster popcorn movie, only it is happening in front of my eyes.

My grandmother and I scream at R to turn around, to not drive towards the violence and fire. He responds that we have no choice. It seems unlikely that we could carry on through such a thing and survive, and I think to myself that I will probably die here. It's such a reckless thing to do, but deep down I cling to the possibility that we will make it. Statistically, some of us will survive, and I wonder what the chances are that it will be us. Everyone must think this way. I also consider how terrible it will be to burn alive, and I wonder if the impact will kill us before the fire does. With horror, I imagine being mangled and trapped inside a wrecked car, slowly burning to death.

But we do make it, somehow. Next thing I know, all three of us are hiding in the trash-strewn dilapidated courtyard of a Soviet style concrete apartment block. A dirty-faced child with long stringy hair and a torn woolen sweater motions at us to follow her. We approach her, and she pinches the inside of my arm. The skin briefly turns pink then fades. The child laughs and says, "your skin is like chicken." She tells us she will take us to where the white people stay. It seems an odd thing for her to say, especially considering that R is not white, but I look around and see that we are now in India where the people are generally obsessed with white skinned Westerners and where simply having white skin entitles you to access the bubble of fancy air conditioned malls, hotels, sky rises and servants that make up the daily life of most Western expats living there. Fearing the explosions and violence surrounding us, I'm grateful for the privilege. It might well save us.

We enter a second apartment block, this one full of overweight and middle aged Westerners, mostly Brits but some Americans as well. They are all sheltered in a large dark room, sitting in chairs that they've pulled together to form a circle. They are having tea, and my grandmother takes her place with them. They are clearly all afraid, and they interrupt one another discussing theories about how they will get out of here. Maybe a helicopter will save them. Maybe the news media will learn they are here. Maybe they can bribe a warlord to give them passage.

I walk across the hall to the bathroom and look at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes look dead. They always look dead in my dreams, I think. Oh, then. I must be dreaming. This calms me down considerably. I walk back into the room where the frightened Westerners are gathered. I tell them that I am dreaming. They have nothing to be afraid of since this is not real.

I'm standing before a set of heavy double doors. There is wooden paneling on the doors about three quarters of the way up, but the top of the door is divided into small square windows. A middle aged woman walks over to me. She has her hair piled up on top of her head and she wears several necklaces. She is wearing a lot of makeup, and all of her accessories match. I wonder how long she spends getting ready in the morning. I look into her eyes and can tell she is terrified. I tell her that she isn't real. She opens her mouth to answer, but instead she just makes a strange soundless movement with her jaw. I laugh at her. None of this is real, I tell her. We don't have to figure a way out of it. I'll wake up soon, and it will be all over.