America: Write Your Own History

After my two-month stay in Milan I became a vagabond, travelling the world and subsisting on various odd jobs. It was a fun two years; I got to go as far east as Shanghai and Tokyo, as far west as Santiago, and as far south as Cape Town and Melbourne. So I was ecstatic when my friend Arianne, from high school, invited me to come stay with her family for a few weeks; she was visiting them on her mandated two weeks of vacation time.

Now Arianne Khorasani, she was an interesting figure. (Dang it! I keep saying that phrase for everyone. Must've been because Mr. G uses it for everyone.) As Sec Gen of our Model UN delegation, she ran the club efficiently, caring for the novices both short-term and long-term, and inspiring us veterans to do the same. But she was more than just Sec Gen. She held awesome house parties, for instance, that lasted until three in the morning. She always baked cakes during these parties, and those cakes were awesome. She was also quite theatrical, exaggerating her emotions all the time even when she didn't need to. I wonder why she never took drama.

Despite being bound to a wheelchair ever since that shooting, she had a pretty good life. She majored in biochemistry at college and took a job in the government developing the new field of genetics. It was weird how she decided to stay in the USSA even when the rest of her family went back to Iran after Foster took power. Considering that the current government likes her to some extent, I feel envious. But I'm also proud of her for what she did.

Our meeting back in Iran was the first time we saw each other in person since high school graduation. I saw her with her parents in a waiting line at the Isfahan airport, sitting in a wheelchair with her parents clasping on one handle each. Arianne was wearing a long dress that day, golden with sequins. Her hair was long and straightened, her eyes were beautifully accented by eyeliner, her face was fresh and renewed. When she saw me, she opened her arms and showed a big grin on her face. I smiled back. I ran towards her and embraced her with a great bear hug. "Welcome back, Danielle!" she whispered.


It was the first of July - less than a week into my visit - when we heard the news of the coup, that the ayatollah was no longer the head of the Republic of Persia. In his place would be a military general, who would, instead of being involved in petty religious squabbles like what the ayatollah did, would work to make Iran a modern, secular, democratic nation. Theoretically, anyways, because as soon as the general finished his speech he was shot and killed by someone in the audience. From that point on there were a dozen or so figures claiming that they were the head of state of Iran. Two dozen or so decided that it was high time to break away from the government.

To be fair, it should not had been so surprising; the country had been falling apart for the last decade or so; the ayatollah only had control in the major cities, with the countryside being host to various bandits and self-proclaimed "states." But at least in the city, it was business as usual: people went to work, put food on the table, and had fun. Getting killed was the last thing on their minds.

At first, there was nothing. No protests, no riots, no bombs or guns or whatever. But we were astute enough to know that such a situation was just a facade, that it would get ugly fast. So we decided to leave. But though the decision to leave was itself easy, the specifics were difficult. First was Arianne's condition; transportation usually wasn't very accommodating for people like her, especially emergency transportation. Second was where should we go. Obviously America was out, and France and Britain were too far away. In the end we chose Turkey. We would go west from Isfahan, hopefully survive the thousands of miles, and end up in a relatively stable and free nation.

As with everything in life, that was easier said than done.


We were in a mountainous area, where plant life was sparse and rocks covered the dusty brown ground, when the incident happened. The Khorasani family and I were travelling in the back of a truck, with eight other people. We left Arianne's wheelchair back at Isfahan; it was too bulky, and we needed all the space we could get. We figured that three of us could carry her if she ever needed to go someplace. We also carried no guns, but that was because the Khorasani family never owned any guns. That could've been helpful.

A bunch of men in military fatigues, whose faces were covered with black bandannas, asked the driver to stop. The driver obliged and talked with them for what seemed like fifteen minutes. The men then decided to check us passengers out. Opening the back door, they scanned the lot of us before they pointed at Arianne and I.

The guy who opened the door spoke something in Persian. Arianne translated their words for me. "We want these two pretty ladies, including the foreigner. Do that, and nobody gets hurt. Disobey us, and everybody dies and we still have the ladies."

"Um, okay," I said in English. I stood up and motioned to get out, so I figured that they understood my body language anyways. Man, I wish I knew Persian, I thought. My mom was Persian, but she was born in the US, so her Persian was subpar. My family and I never talked in Persian (or in Polish) at home. So I'm screwed.

The guy in front said something in Persian again. "Well, the foreign lady is complying," Arianne translated. "What about the lady in the gold dress? She looks fine. Why isn't she complying?"

Then a bearded man, who was sitting opposite to us during the trip, stood up. "Listen," Arianne translated. "First, that woman is disabled. She was shot during her adolescence, and now she has to use a wheelchair. Second, you guys should know that women don't just, and shouldn't just, answer to men who wish to rape them!"

Rape? I thought. I quickly sat back down.

The bearded man walked onto the ground to the side of the truck. He continued arguing with the other guy for what seemed like an hour, under the blazing sun. They were talking so fast and so emotionally that even Arianne was unable to translate what they were saying.

Then the guy in the military fatigues took out a pistol and shot him in the forehead.

"Well, that man is done," the fatigue man said. "Who's next?"

Nobody said a word.

"Well, I guess that means 'all of you!' Men, get those two ladies out. Kill everyone else!"

That's when things really started to go to hell. Two man grabbed me by the shoulders, while a bunch of men stormed the truck and grabbed Arianne. The grips those two men had were quite painful; they squeezed until it seemed like my shoulder bones were about to dislocate. They also never seemed to had cut their nails once in their life. So I couldn't imagine what the pain was like for Arianne, who seemed to be held by her limbs, by men who seemed to pulling on her in four opposite directions.

Once they got Arianne and I well out of the way, the men forced everyone else in the truck, including the driver, to evacuate one by one. The driver was first, and he was shot without being able to say a single word. Then an old lady; she was allowed some time to pray and say her last words before the men emptied several rounds of ammunition in her. Then came Arianne's mom. She was crying at both the thought of her dying and her only daughter being raped. The men, moved somewhat, allowed her to have a little more time than the old lady. She, too, was executed in an overkill fashion.

Arianne's dad was next. This can't be happening, I thought. I can't believe that I'm letting this happen. I turned my head to look away from Arianne's dad and his potential executors. Four deaths today, that's four deaths too many, I figured. I spotted a rock. It wasn't a boulder or anything, but it was a decent sized rock. Maybe I can do something, I thought.

I tried to break free, and despite the iron grip of my captors, I succeeded. Perhaps they were shocked that a woman under their control could even break free. They were so shocked, apparently, that they didn't even try to shoot at me when I ran toward's the rock. They were so shocked that they didn't even run out of the way when I threw the rock at one of my captors. The rock connected with my captor's skull, the rock chipped a bit, his skull broke open, and his brain came out.

I didn't think much of it at that time. Pumped up on adrenaline, I was just worried about throwing rocks and making sure they hit. It was only after the killing of their comrade when they started to realize what was happening and started shooting at me. Some of them hit; most of them missed. It doesn't help when there are bullets coming towards you and you have to keep moving, that's for sure.

Both the men and I were so worried about killing each other, we didn't see another car full of armed men approaching us. Those men started shooting at our captors immediately after their car stopped. They responded in kind, ignoring me in the process. They didn't ignore their other hostages, however. They killed Arianne's dad immediately, and decided that instead of taking the others out one by one, they would just gun them down en masse.

They didn't ignore me, or Arianne, for long, though. Two guys came over to me and grabbed me again. "You come...us," one of the guys surprisingly said in a heavily accented English while tightening his grip. As soon as he finished that last word, however, a bullet went through his stomach and he collapsed to the ground. The other man attempted to grab my other shoulder, but I broke free and headed as far from the scene as possible.


I didn't know for how long I was running when that other car caught up to me. Arianne was in it, being held by several of the men on the back of the car. The driver stopped the car, and motioned for me to stop as well.

"Please, come with us," the driver said, in a better English than my captor. "We will drive you to Van."

"Um, okay?" I said.

"We will not rape you."

"If you say so," I said as I hopped into the car. I sandwiched myself between two muscular fighters sporting loaded guns. They looked identical to the people who assaulted us; for example, they also wore black bandannas!

"So, these guys," the driver began, "well, first you should be lucky that neither you nor your friend here were seriously injured in the fighting, even though these guys were shooting bullets at you, and all you had were rocks! But anyways, these attackers were Communist rebels fighting both the representatives of the defunct central government and other rebel groups. They are being heavily funded by the government of the United Socialist States of America. Not just in money and weapons, mind you; the Americans also send drugs. Those guys that attacked your group - they were high on drugs. They usually are high, for they believe it makes the better fighters and is extremely pleasurable. Their morals also loosen, and then things like rape suddenly seem completely acceptable!"

"And you guys are not?" I asked.

"No, we members of the P.R.A.C. strictly refrain from taking drugs."

"Prak?"

"Persian Resistance Against Communism; that is what our English name is shortened to. We are fighters against all manifestation of Communism, the evilest ideology to every grace this Earth. We fight against Communist rebels, like we did just now. We fight against Communist leaders, like the dictators in America. Ha! They believe that two lakes will protect them indefinitely! We shall see about that."

As the driver said those words, I remember the horrors Browder inflicted on me. My family was lost, many of my friends were lost, my innocence was lost. Now the family of one of my best friends...savagely killed by Communists. I had seen too much death in my life. They say that you get desensitized by it eventually, but for me, that hasn't happened yet. Perhaps it never will.

"As we said before, we will take you and your friend to your final destination, in Van. We will be stopping along the way at friendly villages, however, for food and supplies. I hope you won't mind."

Perhaps this P.A.R.C. group will give me the opportunity to exact revenge on Earl Browder. Maybe I should join.