At night I often dream about it. Even last night, I woke with a start. My breath strong and vibrant. For a moment I wonder where I am, a moment that lasts a lifetime. A journey. I look around and see mixers rusty, dirty mattresses on the floor and many slaves like me to sleep with the rats. Even last night I dreamed my father took me when I was 10 for the first time in Egypt. Dad was an important physician of Asmara in Eritrea and I remember that period as the fairest and most carefree of my life. I remember it as a dream strappatomi by force, like a fairy tale never really happened. I remember that first trip unforgettable. Dad made me play with his camera and I captured it all, the beautiful reflections of the Red Sea, the majestic pyramids, the colorful bazaar. I remember my father's smiling face and his eyes kissed mine. I also remember the first time I saw a desert, where he discovered the mystery of the earth, suggesting that the infinite. The first time I hugged him. The second betrayed me. The dream changes direction, change journey. The other, a journey. I discovered one morning five years ago, I came back from the university, just inside the door I found the whole house upside down. I climbed the stairs and ran with my heart in my throat. Upstairs I found the horrific discovery. My sister Saba raped and killed. My father took him away. They were the soldiers sent by the government. It was only by chance that day I had a conversation with a professor in University who saved me life. I had no choice. The night I ran away, I took my backpack and filled it as best I headed towards the border. Here is my second trip. At the border they told me to ask some Libyan youths, they would give me a ride up through the desert of Sudan in Libya. I paid those guys almost all the savings that I managed to take home. I waited three days hiding in a warehouse along with 40 other people. On the third day they called us were told to move, we loaded up two vans, and 40 in tight like sardines began crossing the desert. Even at that time of night. He was in tears as I watched the Eritrean border away I noticed that this perverse relationship between the trip and the night, or rather, between the escape and the night. Two companions Quiet and inhuman that suddenly tore your memories, like a photo album to pieces. It was the fog that wiped out all that you have been taking out dad and Egypt, and the pictures on the Red Sea. It was the journey that comes back with his face violent. The crossing took 10 days. 10 days close to capacity on that van in the desert. An indescribable stench, people who dropped in the desert, abandoned to a horrible death, people who vomited on him, which reduced the water every day. Hell. My second time with the desert. Terrible and violent like a lion tamed no longer among the cages of the zoo. A Lion that shows the true face I know. Death. We arrived exhausted in Libya. Once there, many of us said it's done. We left the border and there we sold it to others who would take up to Tripoli. I did not have the money to pay them and so when I arrived in Tripoli held as a slave. I worked for them four months, to pay for that trip, as construction worker, was working as an animal 15 hours a day. In the end I ran away. I began to roam the city looking for something to eat, the first time the police stopped me asked me where I was told Libyan, they insisted: Where are you shit! - Eritrea - said. They asked me some money otherwise I would have stopped, I pretended to look in his pockets and ran away. Here's another feature of my journey. Escape anytime, by anyone, like a frightened cat, as he sees human beings, because for me now, the individual is a danger from which escape. He ended up living on the streets to make do with what I could, stealing something to eat here and there. At the end of a day, a man grabbed me by the shirt, I said I know you are a stranger, give me money or worse for you. I replied, but I did not see anything. There was no way to convince him and sent me to the police. There I was beaten and bruised, my back full of frustration and after a while 'I was placed in a container and I shall return to the south of Libya, to be precise in Kufrah since then when I imagine hell as I have in mind done. One day a guy here that helps foreigners in Italy told me that this prison was also funded by the Italian Government. A Kufrah I saw again the face of death. Worst I've seen the death of life. A Kufrah no longer life, even if you're not dead. 60 people were imprisoned in a cell, sleeping on the floor. The women were locked up in another part of the prison and told us that they were raped and tortured. I, too, but I no longer remember. I was 4 years in hell. 4 years when I stopped living. As my life has never existed, when the days are never in the past. Thanks to a friend known in Eritrean prison failed to pay the police, and they gave us in the hands of traffickers. We shall return near Tripoli in a container and worked there another 3 months to put aside money for the crossing. He arrived the day they called us it was night. Again. We were all 30 people on a raft. We set out to cross the desert last. The shorter and more ruthless. The final curtain before freedom. The Mediterranean. It lasted three days. They looked like three years. Off many of us felt ill, pregnant women were thrown overboard by the smugglers. It was the last test. You had to resist or die in the Mediterranean. We arrived exhausted on Lampedusa. I do not remember anything. I just remember that he slept continuously for three days, we closed in Lampedusa and at the end of the journey, after becoming acquainted with death more than a sister, I asked for asylum. Now I am a refugee. Italy felt that I had the right to political asylum, but only after managing to get safely to the end of the journey. Now I work in black in an agricultural field. Now I'm here in this dorm for mice, but my dreams keep me. My journey has no beginning or end. My journey is a nightmare in my head. A betrayal of my soul. A slow death. Aimlessly.
Published Mythos July
