I found myself awfully motivated at that moment. Not too many people might agree, but it's kind of funny how a man finds himself to want to do more things when there's a barrel of a shotgun aimed at his head. I didn't know how I got there. Matter of fact; I had no idea why I was there to begin with. All I knew, was I was kneeled down in front of a man, wearing a clown costume, aiming a what seemed to be a double barreled shotgun at my head. Life is weird like that. One moment you're hanging out with your friends, having a drink, heavy winds almost dropping you down like pins, the next, there's a clown with a shotgun, screaming at you. I can't tell anything from his muffled screams. Life kind of muted down then and there. All I want is a cigarette. All I ever wanted was a cigarette, and to be left alone. Fucking life.

 His fists feel like God, landing his insensitive wisdom at me, specifically my face. Every punch, a lesson in life. Every fiber of skin ripped out by the sheer force calculated by face plus fist equals to pain, a lecture on reality, and its harsh physics.

"Who are you? Where are you from?" he screams at me.

 At any other time, I'd answer him with something about the question being too philosophically loaded for me to answer him. Not now. More pressing matters are at hand. He cocks his arms back, with the shotgun's butt aimed right at my face. I've heard people talk about the special kind of sting that kind of hit leaves you with. I'm all for experimentation, just not that type. Not now, at least. Maybe one of these days I'll find myself in a red velvet covered den. A woman clad in all leather; a whip in hand, and a mask on her face. Maybe it'd smell just as bad as here, but it'd look better than this concrete shit hole, I hope. I can only tell it's concrete because my knees are pushed on it. There's not much else I can see, nothing but the gun, the man holding it, and the little lamp overhead barely lighting anything.

"Waleed."

Your voice gets muffled when you speak with a mouth full of blood. Note to self: Spit blood out before talking next time. Second note to self: Make sure you don't have to talk with a mouth full of blood ever again. I wish I could see his face. I could at least tell if he's thinking twice about shooting me.

"Waleed. Good. Good. Now tell us, Waleed. Where are you from?"

Us? Shit. There goes any attempt at running away. Although; I have to say, he's nice enough to not have emptied two shells into my head. Truly a gentleman. This is the tricky part. Do I tell him I'm from the West-side and let him know I'm a Muslim, or the east side, and let him think I'm Christian? What'd really be a bitch, is if none of them mattered.

"Musaytbeh."

The truth presents it self.

"Musaytbeh, ey?" he says. "Where exactly?"

"Hay el lijjah."

There's no going back now. If life ends here, what a cunt of an ending it would be. Then again, all ends are cunts. He's not saying anything. He's just standing there, his shotgun's butt still aimed at my head. In the distance, I hear a muffled dialing tone. There's always this anxiety following along with a dialing tone. Will they answer? Will they look at the phone and set it to silent? Is it under some couch? Or maybe there's a prostitute emptying their genitals somewhere, far too busy to answer the phone. The weird part, is even when the phone is ringing, all I want is a cigarette. I'd be lying if I said my pants don't have a few drips of piss on them. I've read somewhere that when people die, they tend to empty their bowels. I wonder if I'd shit myself enough to burden them with the smell. I doubt it. It smells awful here.

"Hello."

I hear it in the distance. He answered. Whoever he is. I'm glad he answered.

"We have a Waleed here, he says he's from Hay El Lijja."

Whoever's talking on the phone is hidden in the dark. The man with the shotgun is standing there, stable as a sturdy building. If he hadn't taught me a few lessons earlier, I would've been sure he was a mannequin. A cruel joke played by someone.

"Waleed what?" says the man calling.

The mannequin moves, and lands a slap on my cheek. Punches are painful, but they can only go so far with the spirits. A slap. A slap has its own way of bringing you down to the level of a child, or somewhere between a toddler out of bounds, and a prostitute that hadn't payed her fees on time.

"Waleed Hamada." I say. It's weird. Names tend to be so meaningless in moments like this. Just a bunch of letters that dictate description. That could be said about all language. Shotgun. Shotgun. Shotgun. If I say it enough times, it no longer means anything, yet, when I look at it, it means life or death to me. Fucking life.

"Ok. Ok." the man in the dark says. "Alright. Bye. Let him go."

The man is moving, and he's not slapping me. That's a good sign. He walks behind me, and unties my hands, helping me up to my feet.

"Sorry for the misunderstanding." the voice in the dark says.

Misunderstanding. I'm just glad this wasn't a mistake.

"Sure." I say. "Can I go home now?"

Everything in me shakes. Everything. I bet if I could unzip my pants, I could see my penis shivering. If I took my shoes off, my toes would be dancing like a clothed belly dancer.

"If you want to." he says. "We'd like to invite you to something. Tea? Cola?"

I pat my pockets. Where the hell are those cigarettes? Obviously not in my pockets. Probably somewhere on the road outside, picked up by some Syrian twelve year old, walking around the streets selling roses, begging people for money, drinks or cigarettes.

"I can go for a cigarette and some coffee."

What I'd really like, is a cigarette, some whiskey and a baseball bat to have my way with some of them. For now, I'll settle for a slow death, quickened with cigarette smoke.