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"Corn can't expect justice from a court composed of chickens." - Anonymous African Proverb
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Water vapor was rising from the pools of water left by the torrential rains in the past few days. The whole place was a tepid steam bath. It usually was quite arid: if it were to ever rain, it would be only these few months. But the humidity was not the issue. Wherever water went, the mosquitos followed, and the entire place was a breeding ground for those blood-sucking pests. No wonder malaria was still a problem even in these days.
Even though the sun had yet to rise, the harsh beams of floodlights flooded the cell through its only window, between thick bars of steel. There was practically no difference whether the lights were switched on or off and the only way to tell time was a ubiquitous plastic clock that was hung on the wall. Aaden Mohamed Mahmoud laid out his prayer mat and began his morning prayers, trying his best to ignore the occasional buzzing and swatting whenever he felt something landing on him. Peeking at the guard while he was prone on the mat, his chants did not wake him up. This was confirmed by the audible snores echoing from his gaping mouth. Aaden had been here long enough to recognize the patrol schedules and it would not be another hour before there was a shift change. Time was of the essence and he could not afford to waste even a single second. He got to his feet, headed towards the window, produced a piece of scrap metal he managed to hide away from the guards, and proceeded to chisel this steel bar he had been working on since it started to rain. Despite the uncomfortable humidity and mosquito-borne parasites, at least the copious rainfall helped mask the grinding of metals in the past few nights. Although the rain had stopped tonight, putting him at a higher risk of being discovered, Aaden was quite determined to get out of this concrete cell. His wife and children were waiting for him at home and being in here was not going to feed them.
Snap.
The makeshift chisel halved from the accumulated abrasion. Aaden’s heart sank. He picked up the broken piece that fell onto the floor and took a good look at it. It looked salvageable, it would probably still work. He then fixed his eyes on the small dent he barely made on the bar, even a fingernail was probably thicker than whatever he did and he still had about two more inches to cut through. His eyes landed on the clock, decided to call it a day, and stored the two pieces of metal in a carefully hidden place. Aaden wondered if he would ever get out at this rate, or whether it would be quicker to just serve his whole sentence. From what he knew, this entire prison was probably built in the last few years. Every night when the guards were less alert, Aaden would look for every nook and cranny that showed any sign of structural weakness for his potential escape route. In the end, he concluded that his best bet would be through the steel bars. But even if he managed to chisel through them, then what? The entire complex was patrolled by more armed guards and there were watchtowers towering everyone that was in it. Then there were the barbed-wire-laced electric fences and beyond that, probably miles and miles of desert before he could reach Somalia again. That was if he could manage to overcome all of these hurdles.
Unable to stop his train of thought from ruminating again, Aaden helplessly rolled up his prayer mat, curled up in his bed, and tried to get more rest as he could. It was futile. Aaden felt like he was constantly falling into a bottomless pit as his mind kept replaying memories of why he ended up here in the first place like a broken recorder.
It had been decades since the first conflicts of the Somali civil war erupted and the whole country had been in shambles since. It was a time when nobody dared to venture out of their homes, especially alone. Regional warlords scramble to fill the power vacuum of the defunct government. separatists declared independence for Somaliland in the north, and militant jihadists were plaguing the lawless south. Despite foreign peacekeeping forces from the African Union, the entirety of Somalia was still essentially a warzone. As a teenager, Aaden dared not to even walk the streets near his house without his trusty AK-47, passed down from his grandfather. It was rusting and missing a few parts, but it still did its job to keep his family and him alive. There was so much uncertainty. Nobody knew when their hunger would be filled by the next meal, nobody knew when their thirst would be quenched by the next sip of water, nobody knew when their next breath would be their last. But one thing everyone was certain: life was hell.
The Federal Government was created after several attempts to instigate a central authority to stabilize the country. These promises the politicians proclaimed were empty to Somalis like Aaden. The fact that there were terrorists roaming freely in the streets of the capital and terrorizing her citizens was a disgrace to any respectable government. However, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the assassination of the President while he was visiting Merca, a port city near Mogadishu, and its fall to the Jihadists. It was then the Federal Government decided to finally do something. A phone call to Beijing was made and negotiations were almost immediately signed as soon as they were proposed. As part of the Sino-Somali Friendship Agreement, in exchange for the People Liberation Army’s involvement in quelling the jihadist insurgency, Mogadishu pledged to fully integrate Somalia into China’s Neo-Silk Road to benefit both countries’ economically. They were killing two birds with one stone. For the first time in Aaden’s life, things seemed to be changing for the good. What could possibly go wrong?
In weeks of deployment, the South Sea Fleet reached the Horn of Africa. To compare it with Zheng He’s treasure fleet was an understatement. The news of their arrival spread the country like wildfire. Aaden knew it was a stupid idea in hindsight, but the thought of these mysterious foreigners from the Orient who decided to help bring peace to his country out of their goodwill really stroked his unyielding curiosity. It was then he snuck out with his rifle to the shore to look at this so-called grand fleet he kept hearing about. It was there he could finally fathom what he had heard. The entire visible horizon was grey with warships, striking the air with towers and towers of radar detectors. Colossal cannons pointed high in the sky, as though they were soldiers saluting in a military parade at him. The grand fleet was battle-hardened from the Reunification of Taiwan, joined by a contingent from an overseas naval base in nearby Djibouti. Dozens of destroyers, aircraft carriers, heavy cruisers, and submarines were led by the battleship Yanan, sailing under the Five-starred Red Flag, ready to crush even more rebels. For the first time in his life, Aaden finally felt what hope was like.
What the Federal Government could not do in decades, the PLA did in a month. Enroute to the Horn of Africa, every detectable pirate ship on sonar was sent to Davy Jones' locker. For the first time in recent history, these seas were safe for fishermen and merchants to sail through. Jihadist-captured Merca was reduced to ashes with Chinese artillery shells in a week. Jilib, the headquarters of the jihadist group, fell within another. Other major rebel settlements were captured in the next. By the end of the month, there was virtually no sign of a walking militant jihadist in Somalia. This military maneuver was critically appraised by military strategists all around the world, some even going as far as commenting this operation being remarkably more successful than the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. At least, the Somali Civil War came to a close in the south. For the first time in his life, Aaden left his rifle at home. The air did not smell of gunpowder. Gunshots were replaced by the haggling and chattering of store owners and customers. With an empty ceramic jar, he headed to the village well to fill it up, and it was then when he first met his wife.
The agreement was fulfilled, but it left half of the country a war-torn wasteland. Politicians were left scratching their heads as even the trade policies in the Neo-Silk Road were not enough to patch up the damages done. Feeling it was their responsibility to fix the collateral damage of this act of liberation, hordes of Chinese businessmen decided to extend their hands to the government as a symbol of goodwill and thousands of development project contracts were signed very promptly. A year had not even passed and there were already towering skyscrapers in Merca in place of its ruins. Aaden’s village finally got connected to the country’s highway and railway network. More houses and local infrastructure was built and the sprawling settlement even nearly got promoted into a city. Seeing things that could not be even better, Aaden finally decided to tie the knot and start a family. He was sure that his children would not know the bitter taste of war.
It was only a matter of time the Federal Government realized they had no way to pay back all the debt from all these Chinese projects. Furthermore, knowing that the South China Fleet could just arrive at their doorsteps in days and also a sizable PLA deployment still in the country for peacekeeping missions, Mogadishu had no choice but to sign another agreement with Beijing. By nullifying half of what the Federal Government owed to these Chinese businessmen, the port city of Merca would be temporarily under Chinese sovereignty on a 999-year-lease. Pretty much as good as forever even with the lifespans of 30 generations.
That was many years ago when that happened anyways. Aaden always knew that Merca held opportunities for him to feed his family fuller than in the capital. The Chinese were always very generous when it came to salary, at least to Somali standards. He was lucky enough to land a contract as a transport operator in a newly constructed naval base there. Aaden even applied to get a passport just for this, since he never had to leave the country. Just the thought of going to a nearby city and having to do security checks at a border checkpoint in Somalia’s very soil perplexed him. Once the papers were all in order, he bid farewell to his loving family and headed to this Chinese city in his country.
Being surrounded by signs with strange characters made of complicated strokes on massive LED complexes that covered cloud-reaching skyscrapers was truly an overwhelming experience for Aaden. Everything here was nothing quite like Mogadishu, the largest city he had ever visited. His jaw dropped open and eyes darted back and forth, pressing his face on the window to savor the sights of this foreign city throughout the ride to the naval base he was going to work in. Once there, Aaden was greeted by a comfortable bed and filling meals. Oh, how he wished that the rest of his family could be here with him. With the thought of them benefiting from his labors, Aaden made sure he did his very best every day.
A few months passed and it was going to be Eid al-Fitr soon. Aaden’s annual leave was approved then so that he could return and celebrate with his family. Then he could finally see them not just through a 6-inch screen, but with his very own eyes. He wanted to pick his children up to see how much they’ve grown. He wanted to taste the Cambuulo his wife promised to cook for him. The grueling heat was harsh to him in this month of Ramadan but Aaden was determined to pull through this. His toil would make his family happy. His train of thought immediately jammed on the brakes when he suddenly spotted a Chinese soldier on his back, with his knee at an unnatural angle.
“A- are you okay, sir?” Aaden leaped out of his truck and tried to speak in his best Mandarin.
Visibly distressed, the soldier shook his head. He was clearly in too much pain to speak.
“Wh- Who did this to you? What happened?” Aaden panicked as his eyes scanned up and down the soldier’s body. His right shin was touching his thigh and Aaden could not help but cringe whenever that came to sight. The tarmac beneath him was dyed crimson from his gaping wound. The soldier’s breathing was quick and shallow. He looked as pale as a ghost. Aaden knew he was going to die.
“H- Hold on!” Aaden wrapped his arm around his neck as he tried to lift him up. “I’ll get you to a hospital!”
Unfortunately, Aaden’s efforts were futile. The soldier had already bled to death before he could get any help. His heart was full of sorrow and all he could do was to pray for him and his family. As he was waiting to fill in some paperwork, two Chinese men in black suits approached him, “Are you the one who found Sergeant Li Fang?”
“Yes, sir.” He nodded. “I saw him lying on-”
“You are under arrest for manslaughter with intent, under Article 232 of the Socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics. Anything you say will be used against you.” One of them announced, as the other handcuffed him from the back.
No. This can’t be happening. Aaden thought. This can’t be true.
The trio ripped themselves from the stares at the hospital and Aaden sat between his captors in a police car. Before he knew it he found himself in front of a judge with the two suited men pressing him down in his seat.
“Y-Your Honor! Please believe me!” Tears were welling up in Aaden’s eyes, “I’m innoce-”
“Silence!” The boom of the gavel echoed in the courtroom. “It is not your turn to speak! One more sound and you will be in contempt! Please continue your testimony, Prosecutor Zheng.”
“Yes, your honor. As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted by this unevolved ape, the victim was clearly severely injured when the defendant arrived at the scene. The defendant decided that he was going to take the victim to the hospital, but unfortunately the victim passed away on the way there. Surely, it is the defendant’s fault for such negligence as it had caused not only the victim's death, but a family has lost their loving son and China has lost a capable soldier! The defendant should be harshly punished for his sins!” A middle-aged man with glasses slammed the table as he condemned Aaden. His spit was visibly flying in all directions as he spoke.
“And what does the defendant have to say?” The judge paid no interest to Aaden and flipped over a few sheets of paper in her file.
“I… I-” His tongue was stiff and his throat was frozen. His words just would not leave his mouth.
“I’ve heard enough!” The judge grasped her gavel impatiently and slammed it once more. Once the room returned to silence, she announced, “I hereby declare you, Aaden Mohamed Mahmoud, guilty for manslaughter. You will be sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years.”
With that, he found himself in blue overalls with a serial number, locked behind bars. His uncomfortable clothes reminded him of his Muslim brethren in those Uyghur concentration camps he had heard of as a child.
The guards had confiscated his phone when he came in. There was really no way to contact his family. Just the thought of them worrying why he did not show up for Eid was already too heartbreaking for him. As a few tears rolled down his cheeks, Aaden tried to remind himself to stay strong as he laid on his bed, blankly stared at the ceiling, waiting for nightfall, and to continue with his escape plan. What seemed like hours passed when the rattling of steel gates startled him as it caught him off guard.
“Salaam alaykum¹, brother.” A tall and lean Somali in the same clothes as him stepped into his cell before guards locked them shut again. “My name is Suleymaan.”
“Wa alaykum salaam², brother.” Aaden sat up and offered a handshake. The two cellmates sat on their beds, across each other. Finally, there was someone else who would listen to his troubles and concerns. He could not help it but tell him everything in his mind. From the moment he landed his contract to the very first day he was a prisoner. Hours passed like minutes and before they knew it, the sun was already setting, “So, what are you in for?”
“I also work at the naval base as you, but I was a cleaner for an admiral, not a driver like you.” Suleymaan already felt like he had a connection with Aaden after hearing his story, “Anyways I have been working there for a few years until the admiral got a promotion and went back to China. So after this, I was working for a new admiral, but I did not like him.”
“And why is that?” Aaden interrupted. His experience with his former Chinese superiors was relatively a good one. One of them was even patient enough to teach him enough Mandarin to get around the city without any difficulty. Sometimes, they would even take him to restaurants and try out China’s myriad of cuisines. He felt sorry for him to have such a bad experience at work.
“He was very rude to me unlike his predecessor and always shouted at me for nothing. But this is not the main point.” Suleymaan frowned as he recalled his tale, “He was friends with a former K9 specialist, so he was given this German Shepherd as a gift. The dog was very fierce and barked loudly. You could hear it barking down a few blocks. Wherever the new admiral went, the dog always followed him. I think that the dog liked to bully me because whenever it saw me it liked to bark at me and even chase me around!”
“Oh no, that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen!” Aaden frowned as a memory emerged subconsciously. Back in the waning days of the civil war, when his village was under control of a warlord clan, his mercenaries would often patrol the streets and harass almost every villager they bumped into, usually with insults or demanding food and money. The image of an old man with nothing to offer being mauled alive by dogs was still etched clearly in his mind. At least those days were long gone.
“Precisely!” Suleymaan snapped at the opportunity to agree immediately. “Then one day when I was cleaning the admiral’s office when he was out for a smoke, the evil dog came out of nowhere and bit me in the leg! It was so painful, I screamed as loud as I could but no one could hear me. I tried to pull the dog’s mouth apart but it didn’t work, and it bit even harder! See! Look at my leg!”
Suleymaan lifted his trouser legs to reveal a mere shaft that looked like skin wrapping bone. A healthy chunk of his right calf was missing and around it was clearly lined with bite marks that sank deep into his flesh. An ambiguously whitish translucent thing looked like it was wiggling around in one of the holes created by the bite marks. Aaden thought the smell was probably a blocked pipe from the neighboring cell, but this confirmed the source. Resisting the urge to let bring up his last meal, Aaden clenched his jaw and hoped that it would work.
“I’m sorry you had to see that. But there was nothing I could do!” Suleymaan covered himself up, “So I did what I could to save my life! I crushed my hands around the mad dog’s neck! It would have killed me if I didn’t kill it first!
“Exactly!” Aaden sat at the edge of his bed all riled up. He believed that animals usually would not be so violent unless triggered or conditioned by such cruel masters, as he had witnessed, “So what happened next?”
“When the admiral came back and saw his dog lying on the floor, he was furious!” Suleymaan raised his fist as a gesture of anger, “He shouted, scolded me, and even kicked me! He said the dog’s life was worth more than mine and I would pay dearly for this! The admiral should be locked up instead of me for neglecting his filthy dog! These people have no respect for human life. I rather go back to Somalia to work instead, even if they don’t pay me as much.”
Dumbfounded by Suleymaan’s reason for being here and sensing his resentment against his captors, Aaden decided to share his plan to escape after the coast was clear. After all, two men chiseling was better than just one.
“Oh good. I like the idea.” Suleymaan lowered his voice, “There is no way I will spend 20 years of my life here!”
Aaden hushed him for speaking too loud. The guards could become suspicious if they talked too much. With a few basic hand gestures, he let Suleymaan know the time when they had to get to work. Until then, the two laid on their beds for they would need to rest. Aaden was baffled by how his cellmate had to serve double his time for something like that. And I thought Somalia’s justice system was absurd, he thought.
The clock’s hand struck at the right hour and as expected the cell was still illuminated by the floodlights outside. Suleymaan’s sonorous snores resonated from the other side of the cell, oddly enough, was in synchrony with the sleeping guard’s in the corridor.
“Psst.” Aaden shook Suleymaan on the shoulder, “Get up. It’s time.”
“What?” Suleyman reluctantly opened his eyes and squinted as he adjusted his bearings, “Already? Tell me what to do.”
“Here. you’ll need this.” Aaden produced one of the broken pieces of his makeshift chisel and handed it to him. “Should be quite self-explanatory. Head back to bed immediately and pretend to sleep if you hear any footsteps.”
He nodded and the two cellmates then headed over to the window. Aaden continued with the dent he made so far, while Suleymaan pondered to decide which bar he should pick, then chose the one furthest from Aaden’s to make more space between them. Maybe an hour or two passed, as Aaden’s fingers started to hurt where he was holding the metal piece.
Clack. Cluck. Clack. Cluck.
Aaden’s eyes widened as he turned his head towards the other side of the room. He anxiously patted Suleymaan on his shoulder for his attention, urgently pointed at his bed with a finger in front of his lips, then slipped back to it. He tried to lie as still as possible but his heart felt like it was going to pop out of his chest at any moment as adrenaline was coursing through his veins. Expecting his accomplice to do the same, Aaden was petrified to see that Suleymaan was still standing by the window, as if his instructions were far from clear. In the blink of an eye, Suleymaan darted to the opposite side of the room and began frantically slamming onto the railings by the cell door, shouting at the sleeping guard at the top of his lungs and echoing down the entire prison corridor, “Officer! He’s trying to escape! He’s trying to escape through the windows!”
The clacking and clucking intensified as Suleymaan continued to howl like a mad dog. The snores stopped and more footsteps could be heard approaching their cell. With a clink and a clank, Aaden could hear the cell door swoop open and two rifles were pointed at him.
“It’s him, officer!” Suleymaan pointed at him, with a face of disgust as if he were a rat just spotted crawling out of a sewer pipe, “It’s him!”
“Alright, put your hands up slowly. No funny business.” One of the guards said in a stern voice. “Now turn around and lie flat on the floor. No sudden movements.”
“Or we’ll fucking shoot you.” The other guard added, annoyed that his sleep was disturbed.
Aaden had no choice but to comply with their orders. He could feel the cold shackles being cuffed around his wrists. An unexpected forceful yank brought him up to his knees, making him nearly fall on his side from losing balance. The moment when he got on his feet, a metal muzzle was already dug into his back. Aaden flinched from the pain and walked wherever the rifle led him. Through the cell door, he and the guard disappeared down the seemingly endless corridor.
“Now, about my reward...” Suleymaan turned to the other guard with a smile on his face, satisfied with his service, “You’ll put in a good word for the warden right?”
“What’s your serial number again?” The guard asked.
‘Er... 21… 21719, sir.“ Suleymaan looked down at his tag on his uniform before looking back at the guard. His grin grew wider on his face, though it quickly transformed into a grimace. A fist sank uncomfortably deep into his gut, promptly sending him flying across the room and hitting his head into the wall.
Struggling to get up, Suleymaan was on his elbow, rubbing his belly as he was retching out acid on the floor. The ache on his head was unbearable as well, feeling as if it had nearly split open right there. He could feel a warm trickle down his temple, joining up the sour fluid at the edge of his mouth, down his chin before dripping the floor scarlet. Confused, he whimpered, “What was… What was that for?”
“That’s from Admiral Zhang.” The guard gave a cruel smirk, then spat something foul and viscous that landed squarely on the prisoner’s face, ‘And that’s for selling your ‘friend’ out, traitor.’
“You’ll still... You’ll still put in a word for me right?” Suleymaan was choking and struggled to get words out of his mouth.
“Oh yeah, that? No. You don’t deserve it, traitorous mutt.” The guard headed back to the door and locked it shut, “And now that you’ve woken everyone on this block by ratting him out, good luck surviving here.”
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Down the winding corridors, Aaden was unaware of his cellmate’s fate, not that he cared at all. How could he be so careless? He should have known. How could he have trusted someone he just met? What a fool I’ve been, he thought. If only that damned Suleymaan was not put in the same cell as him, none of this would have happened at all. More importantly, there was no way he would be leaving this place before Eid, or even in the next 10 years. Why was all of this happening to him? If only he did not stop for the soldier and ignored him, or decided not to work on that day, or not even work in Merca at all, none of this would have happened. He wondered what they would do to him. Lengthen his sentence maybe? Another 5 years? 10? 20? Or even his whole life? Was he able to see his wife and children ever again? Were they going to send him to some Muslim re-education camp in China he often heard about? Nothing but the worst possible outcomes he could imagine were racing through his mind.
He felt a cool breeze against his face. He was outside. For quite a while actually. All of this ruminating did not make him even realize that. Squinting past the bright floodlights the watchtowers shone on him, he could see high rise buildings shifting between vibrant colors with their millions of LED lights just behind the silhouette of barbed wire sitting on the ashen concrete walls.
As the two were heading towards a corner of the perimeter, Aaden found himself joined by a few more armed guards. A part of him thought of just making a run for it. Another part of him simply slammed down this absurd idea, there was no way he could outrun six guns and he was practically a fish out of water. In the midst of the crunching of gravel beneath their feet, he could hear a guard trying to talk softly to another, as if he did not want Aaden to overhear them.
“What charge should we use? What about disturbance of peace?” One of them muttered.
“No disturbance of peace doesn't give you that. Use… Use promotion of separatism.” The other replied after a bit of thought.
“"Oh okay, let's use that.” He agreed.
Eventually, they approached closer to the corner. Aaden noticed that the sandy ground was stained with a rusty tinge. A metallic scent he was way too familiar with shot up his nose. He had an idea of what was going to happen already.
“Go over there and turn around.” The guard behind him ordered. Once Aaden stood in front of the six guards, he continued, “Prisoner 24601, you have been caught red-handed for an attempted prison escape. By doing so you have committed Article 64 of the Socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics, which is punishable by lengthening your jail sentence by another 15 years. However, we also suspect that you have been promoting ideas of separatism. You have committed a grave crime of secession, sedition, and subversion against the Central People's Government under the National Security Law. You are a person too dangerous to be kept alive. Now, you will be sentenced to death.”
He fucking knew it. This was the end of the road.
“Ready!” All guards lifted their rifles and they clicked as their magazines were loaded.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in.
“Take aim!”
“Sorry, Caaliyah. I won’t be back for Eid.”
----
¹ Peace be upon you.
² Peace be upon you too.

"Corn can't expect justice from a court composed of chickens." - Anonymous African Proverb
----
Water vapor was rising from the pools of water left by the torrential rains in the past few days. The whole place was a tepid steam bath. It usually was quite arid: if it were to ever rain, it would be only these few months. But the humidity was not the issue. Wherever water went, the mosquitos followed, and the entire place was a breeding ground for those blood-sucking pests. No wonder malaria was still a problem even in these days.
Even though the sun had yet to rise, the harsh beams of floodlights flooded the cell through its only window, between thick bars of steel. There was practically no difference whether the lights were switched on or off and the only way to tell time was a ubiquitous plastic clock that was hung on the wall. Aaden Mohamed Mahmoud laid out his prayer mat and began his morning prayers, trying his best to ignore the occasional buzzing and swatting whenever he felt something landing on him. Peeking at the guard while he was prone on the mat, his chants did not wake him up. This was confirmed by the audible snores echoing from his gaping mouth. Aaden had been here long enough to recognize the patrol schedules and it would not be another hour before there was a shift change. Time was of the essence and he could not afford to waste even a single second. He got to his feet, headed towards the window, produced a piece of scrap metal he managed to hide away from the guards, and proceeded to chisel this steel bar he had been working on since it started to rain. Despite the uncomfortable humidity and mosquito-borne parasites, at least the copious rainfall helped mask the grinding of metals in the past few nights. Although the rain had stopped tonight, putting him at a higher risk of being discovered, Aaden was quite determined to get out of this concrete cell. His wife and children were waiting for him at home and being in here was not going to feed them.
Snap.
The makeshift chisel halved from the accumulated abrasion. Aaden’s heart sank. He picked up the broken piece that fell onto the floor and took a good look at it. It looked salvageable, it would probably still work. He then fixed his eyes on the small dent he barely made on the bar, even a fingernail was probably thicker than whatever he did and he still had about two more inches to cut through. His eyes landed on the clock, decided to call it a day, and stored the two pieces of metal in a carefully hidden place. Aaden wondered if he would ever get out at this rate, or whether it would be quicker to just serve his whole sentence. From what he knew, this entire prison was probably built in the last few years. Every night when the guards were less alert, Aaden would look for every nook and cranny that showed any sign of structural weakness for his potential escape route. In the end, he concluded that his best bet would be through the steel bars. But even if he managed to chisel through them, then what? The entire complex was patrolled by more armed guards and there were watchtowers towering everyone that was in it. Then there were the barbed-wire-laced electric fences and beyond that, probably miles and miles of desert before he could reach Somalia again. That was if he could manage to overcome all of these hurdles.
Unable to stop his train of thought from ruminating again, Aaden helplessly rolled up his prayer mat, curled up in his bed, and tried to get more rest as he could. It was futile. Aaden felt like he was constantly falling into a bottomless pit as his mind kept replaying memories of why he ended up here in the first place like a broken recorder.
It had been decades since the first conflicts of the Somali civil war erupted and the whole country had been in shambles since. It was a time when nobody dared to venture out of their homes, especially alone. Regional warlords scramble to fill the power vacuum of the defunct government. separatists declared independence for Somaliland in the north, and militant jihadists were plaguing the lawless south. Despite foreign peacekeeping forces from the African Union, the entirety of Somalia was still essentially a warzone. As a teenager, Aaden dared not to even walk the streets near his house without his trusty AK-47, passed down from his grandfather. It was rusting and missing a few parts, but it still did its job to keep his family and him alive. There was so much uncertainty. Nobody knew when their hunger would be filled by the next meal, nobody knew when their thirst would be quenched by the next sip of water, nobody knew when their next breath would be their last. But one thing everyone was certain: life was hell.
The Federal Government was created after several attempts to instigate a central authority to stabilize the country. These promises the politicians proclaimed were empty to Somalis like Aaden. The fact that there were terrorists roaming freely in the streets of the capital and terrorizing her citizens was a disgrace to any respectable government. However, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the assassination of the President while he was visiting Merca, a port city near Mogadishu, and its fall to the Jihadists. It was then the Federal Government decided to finally do something. A phone call to Beijing was made and negotiations were almost immediately signed as soon as they were proposed. As part of the Sino-Somali Friendship Agreement, in exchange for the People Liberation Army’s involvement in quelling the jihadist insurgency, Mogadishu pledged to fully integrate Somalia into China’s Neo-Silk Road to benefit both countries’ economically. They were killing two birds with one stone. For the first time in Aaden’s life, things seemed to be changing for the good. What could possibly go wrong?
In weeks of deployment, the South Sea Fleet reached the Horn of Africa. To compare it with Zheng He’s treasure fleet was an understatement. The news of their arrival spread the country like wildfire. Aaden knew it was a stupid idea in hindsight, but the thought of these mysterious foreigners from the Orient who decided to help bring peace to his country out of their goodwill really stroked his unyielding curiosity. It was then he snuck out with his rifle to the shore to look at this so-called grand fleet he kept hearing about. It was there he could finally fathom what he had heard. The entire visible horizon was grey with warships, striking the air with towers and towers of radar detectors. Colossal cannons pointed high in the sky, as though they were soldiers saluting in a military parade at him. The grand fleet was battle-hardened from the Reunification of Taiwan, joined by a contingent from an overseas naval base in nearby Djibouti. Dozens of destroyers, aircraft carriers, heavy cruisers, and submarines were led by the battleship Yanan, sailing under the Five-starred Red Flag, ready to crush even more rebels. For the first time in his life, Aaden finally felt what hope was like.
What the Federal Government could not do in decades, the PLA did in a month. Enroute to the Horn of Africa, every detectable pirate ship on sonar was sent to Davy Jones' locker. For the first time in recent history, these seas were safe for fishermen and merchants to sail through. Jihadist-captured Merca was reduced to ashes with Chinese artillery shells in a week. Jilib, the headquarters of the jihadist group, fell within another. Other major rebel settlements were captured in the next. By the end of the month, there was virtually no sign of a walking militant jihadist in Somalia. This military maneuver was critically appraised by military strategists all around the world, some even going as far as commenting this operation being remarkably more successful than the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. At least, the Somali Civil War came to a close in the south. For the first time in his life, Aaden left his rifle at home. The air did not smell of gunpowder. Gunshots were replaced by the haggling and chattering of store owners and customers. With an empty ceramic jar, he headed to the village well to fill it up, and it was then when he first met his wife.
The agreement was fulfilled, but it left half of the country a war-torn wasteland. Politicians were left scratching their heads as even the trade policies in the Neo-Silk Road were not enough to patch up the damages done. Feeling it was their responsibility to fix the collateral damage of this act of liberation, hordes of Chinese businessmen decided to extend their hands to the government as a symbol of goodwill and thousands of development project contracts were signed very promptly. A year had not even passed and there were already towering skyscrapers in Merca in place of its ruins. Aaden’s village finally got connected to the country’s highway and railway network. More houses and local infrastructure was built and the sprawling settlement even nearly got promoted into a city. Seeing things that could not be even better, Aaden finally decided to tie the knot and start a family. He was sure that his children would not know the bitter taste of war.
It was only a matter of time the Federal Government realized they had no way to pay back all the debt from all these Chinese projects. Furthermore, knowing that the South China Fleet could just arrive at their doorsteps in days and also a sizable PLA deployment still in the country for peacekeeping missions, Mogadishu had no choice but to sign another agreement with Beijing. By nullifying half of what the Federal Government owed to these Chinese businessmen, the port city of Merca would be temporarily under Chinese sovereignty on a 999-year-lease. Pretty much as good as forever even with the lifespans of 30 generations.
That was many years ago when that happened anyways. Aaden always knew that Merca held opportunities for him to feed his family fuller than in the capital. The Chinese were always very generous when it came to salary, at least to Somali standards. He was lucky enough to land a contract as a transport operator in a newly constructed naval base there. Aaden even applied to get a passport just for this, since he never had to leave the country. Just the thought of going to a nearby city and having to do security checks at a border checkpoint in Somalia’s very soil perplexed him. Once the papers were all in order, he bid farewell to his loving family and headed to this Chinese city in his country.
Being surrounded by signs with strange characters made of complicated strokes on massive LED complexes that covered cloud-reaching skyscrapers was truly an overwhelming experience for Aaden. Everything here was nothing quite like Mogadishu, the largest city he had ever visited. His jaw dropped open and eyes darted back and forth, pressing his face on the window to savor the sights of this foreign city throughout the ride to the naval base he was going to work in. Once there, Aaden was greeted by a comfortable bed and filling meals. Oh, how he wished that the rest of his family could be here with him. With the thought of them benefiting from his labors, Aaden made sure he did his very best every day.
A few months passed and it was going to be Eid al-Fitr soon. Aaden’s annual leave was approved then so that he could return and celebrate with his family. Then he could finally see them not just through a 6-inch screen, but with his very own eyes. He wanted to pick his children up to see how much they’ve grown. He wanted to taste the Cambuulo his wife promised to cook for him. The grueling heat was harsh to him in this month of Ramadan but Aaden was determined to pull through this. His toil would make his family happy. His train of thought immediately jammed on the brakes when he suddenly spotted a Chinese soldier on his back, with his knee at an unnatural angle.
“A- are you okay, sir?” Aaden leaped out of his truck and tried to speak in his best Mandarin.
Visibly distressed, the soldier shook his head. He was clearly in too much pain to speak.
“Wh- Who did this to you? What happened?” Aaden panicked as his eyes scanned up and down the soldier’s body. His right shin was touching his thigh and Aaden could not help but cringe whenever that came to sight. The tarmac beneath him was dyed crimson from his gaping wound. The soldier’s breathing was quick and shallow. He looked as pale as a ghost. Aaden knew he was going to die.
“H- Hold on!” Aaden wrapped his arm around his neck as he tried to lift him up. “I’ll get you to a hospital!”
Unfortunately, Aaden’s efforts were futile. The soldier had already bled to death before he could get any help. His heart was full of sorrow and all he could do was to pray for him and his family. As he was waiting to fill in some paperwork, two Chinese men in black suits approached him, “Are you the one who found Sergeant Li Fang?”
“Yes, sir.” He nodded. “I saw him lying on-”
“You are under arrest for manslaughter with intent, under Article 232 of the Socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics. Anything you say will be used against you.” One of them announced, as the other handcuffed him from the back.
No. This can’t be happening. Aaden thought. This can’t be true.
The trio ripped themselves from the stares at the hospital and Aaden sat between his captors in a police car. Before he knew it he found himself in front of a judge with the two suited men pressing him down in his seat.
“Y-Your Honor! Please believe me!” Tears were welling up in Aaden’s eyes, “I’m innoce-”
“Silence!” The boom of the gavel echoed in the courtroom. “It is not your turn to speak! One more sound and you will be in contempt! Please continue your testimony, Prosecutor Zheng.”
“Yes, your honor. As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted by this unevolved ape, the victim was clearly severely injured when the defendant arrived at the scene. The defendant decided that he was going to take the victim to the hospital, but unfortunately the victim passed away on the way there. Surely, it is the defendant’s fault for such negligence as it had caused not only the victim's death, but a family has lost their loving son and China has lost a capable soldier! The defendant should be harshly punished for his sins!” A middle-aged man with glasses slammed the table as he condemned Aaden. His spit was visibly flying in all directions as he spoke.
“And what does the defendant have to say?” The judge paid no interest to Aaden and flipped over a few sheets of paper in her file.
“I… I-” His tongue was stiff and his throat was frozen. His words just would not leave his mouth.
“I’ve heard enough!” The judge grasped her gavel impatiently and slammed it once more. Once the room returned to silence, she announced, “I hereby declare you, Aaden Mohamed Mahmoud, guilty for manslaughter. You will be sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years.”
With that, he found himself in blue overalls with a serial number, locked behind bars. His uncomfortable clothes reminded him of his Muslim brethren in those Uyghur concentration camps he had heard of as a child.
The guards had confiscated his phone when he came in. There was really no way to contact his family. Just the thought of them worrying why he did not show up for Eid was already too heartbreaking for him. As a few tears rolled down his cheeks, Aaden tried to remind himself to stay strong as he laid on his bed, blankly stared at the ceiling, waiting for nightfall, and to continue with his escape plan. What seemed like hours passed when the rattling of steel gates startled him as it caught him off guard.
“Salaam alaykum¹, brother.” A tall and lean Somali in the same clothes as him stepped into his cell before guards locked them shut again. “My name is Suleymaan.”
“Wa alaykum salaam², brother.” Aaden sat up and offered a handshake. The two cellmates sat on their beds, across each other. Finally, there was someone else who would listen to his troubles and concerns. He could not help it but tell him everything in his mind. From the moment he landed his contract to the very first day he was a prisoner. Hours passed like minutes and before they knew it, the sun was already setting, “So, what are you in for?”
“I also work at the naval base as you, but I was a cleaner for an admiral, not a driver like you.” Suleymaan already felt like he had a connection with Aaden after hearing his story, “Anyways I have been working there for a few years until the admiral got a promotion and went back to China. So after this, I was working for a new admiral, but I did not like him.”
“And why is that?” Aaden interrupted. His experience with his former Chinese superiors was relatively a good one. One of them was even patient enough to teach him enough Mandarin to get around the city without any difficulty. Sometimes, they would even take him to restaurants and try out China’s myriad of cuisines. He felt sorry for him to have such a bad experience at work.
“He was very rude to me unlike his predecessor and always shouted at me for nothing. But this is not the main point.” Suleymaan frowned as he recalled his tale, “He was friends with a former K9 specialist, so he was given this German Shepherd as a gift. The dog was very fierce and barked loudly. You could hear it barking down a few blocks. Wherever the new admiral went, the dog always followed him. I think that the dog liked to bully me because whenever it saw me it liked to bark at me and even chase me around!”
“Oh no, that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen!” Aaden frowned as a memory emerged subconsciously. Back in the waning days of the civil war, when his village was under control of a warlord clan, his mercenaries would often patrol the streets and harass almost every villager they bumped into, usually with insults or demanding food and money. The image of an old man with nothing to offer being mauled alive by dogs was still etched clearly in his mind. At least those days were long gone.
“Precisely!” Suleymaan snapped at the opportunity to agree immediately. “Then one day when I was cleaning the admiral’s office when he was out for a smoke, the evil dog came out of nowhere and bit me in the leg! It was so painful, I screamed as loud as I could but no one could hear me. I tried to pull the dog’s mouth apart but it didn’t work, and it bit even harder! See! Look at my leg!”
Suleymaan lifted his trouser legs to reveal a mere shaft that looked like skin wrapping bone. A healthy chunk of his right calf was missing and around it was clearly lined with bite marks that sank deep into his flesh. An ambiguously whitish translucent thing looked like it was wiggling around in one of the holes created by the bite marks. Aaden thought the smell was probably a blocked pipe from the neighboring cell, but this confirmed the source. Resisting the urge to let bring up his last meal, Aaden clenched his jaw and hoped that it would work.
“I’m sorry you had to see that. But there was nothing I could do!” Suleymaan covered himself up, “So I did what I could to save my life! I crushed my hands around the mad dog’s neck! It would have killed me if I didn’t kill it first!
“Exactly!” Aaden sat at the edge of his bed all riled up. He believed that animals usually would not be so violent unless triggered or conditioned by such cruel masters, as he had witnessed, “So what happened next?”
“When the admiral came back and saw his dog lying on the floor, he was furious!” Suleymaan raised his fist as a gesture of anger, “He shouted, scolded me, and even kicked me! He said the dog’s life was worth more than mine and I would pay dearly for this! The admiral should be locked up instead of me for neglecting his filthy dog! These people have no respect for human life. I rather go back to Somalia to work instead, even if they don’t pay me as much.”
Dumbfounded by Suleymaan’s reason for being here and sensing his resentment against his captors, Aaden decided to share his plan to escape after the coast was clear. After all, two men chiseling was better than just one.
“Oh good. I like the idea.” Suleymaan lowered his voice, “There is no way I will spend 20 years of my life here!”
Aaden hushed him for speaking too loud. The guards could become suspicious if they talked too much. With a few basic hand gestures, he let Suleymaan know the time when they had to get to work. Until then, the two laid on their beds for they would need to rest. Aaden was baffled by how his cellmate had to serve double his time for something like that. And I thought Somalia’s justice system was absurd, he thought.
The clock’s hand struck at the right hour and as expected the cell was still illuminated by the floodlights outside. Suleymaan’s sonorous snores resonated from the other side of the cell, oddly enough, was in synchrony with the sleeping guard’s in the corridor.
“Psst.” Aaden shook Suleymaan on the shoulder, “Get up. It’s time.”
“What?” Suleyman reluctantly opened his eyes and squinted as he adjusted his bearings, “Already? Tell me what to do.”
“Here. you’ll need this.” Aaden produced one of the broken pieces of his makeshift chisel and handed it to him. “Should be quite self-explanatory. Head back to bed immediately and pretend to sleep if you hear any footsteps.”
He nodded and the two cellmates then headed over to the window. Aaden continued with the dent he made so far, while Suleymaan pondered to decide which bar he should pick, then chose the one furthest from Aaden’s to make more space between them. Maybe an hour or two passed, as Aaden’s fingers started to hurt where he was holding the metal piece.
Clack. Cluck. Clack. Cluck.
Aaden’s eyes widened as he turned his head towards the other side of the room. He anxiously patted Suleymaan on his shoulder for his attention, urgently pointed at his bed with a finger in front of his lips, then slipped back to it. He tried to lie as still as possible but his heart felt like it was going to pop out of his chest at any moment as adrenaline was coursing through his veins. Expecting his accomplice to do the same, Aaden was petrified to see that Suleymaan was still standing by the window, as if his instructions were far from clear. In the blink of an eye, Suleymaan darted to the opposite side of the room and began frantically slamming onto the railings by the cell door, shouting at the sleeping guard at the top of his lungs and echoing down the entire prison corridor, “Officer! He’s trying to escape! He’s trying to escape through the windows!”
The clacking and clucking intensified as Suleymaan continued to howl like a mad dog. The snores stopped and more footsteps could be heard approaching their cell. With a clink and a clank, Aaden could hear the cell door swoop open and two rifles were pointed at him.
“It’s him, officer!” Suleymaan pointed at him, with a face of disgust as if he were a rat just spotted crawling out of a sewer pipe, “It’s him!”
“Alright, put your hands up slowly. No funny business.” One of the guards said in a stern voice. “Now turn around and lie flat on the floor. No sudden movements.”
“Or we’ll fucking shoot you.” The other guard added, annoyed that his sleep was disturbed.
Aaden had no choice but to comply with their orders. He could feel the cold shackles being cuffed around his wrists. An unexpected forceful yank brought him up to his knees, making him nearly fall on his side from losing balance. The moment when he got on his feet, a metal muzzle was already dug into his back. Aaden flinched from the pain and walked wherever the rifle led him. Through the cell door, he and the guard disappeared down the seemingly endless corridor.
“Now, about my reward...” Suleymaan turned to the other guard with a smile on his face, satisfied with his service, “You’ll put in a good word for the warden right?”
“What’s your serial number again?” The guard asked.
‘Er... 21… 21719, sir.“ Suleymaan looked down at his tag on his uniform before looking back at the guard. His grin grew wider on his face, though it quickly transformed into a grimace. A fist sank uncomfortably deep into his gut, promptly sending him flying across the room and hitting his head into the wall.
Struggling to get up, Suleymaan was on his elbow, rubbing his belly as he was retching out acid on the floor. The ache on his head was unbearable as well, feeling as if it had nearly split open right there. He could feel a warm trickle down his temple, joining up the sour fluid at the edge of his mouth, down his chin before dripping the floor scarlet. Confused, he whimpered, “What was… What was that for?”
“That’s from Admiral Zhang.” The guard gave a cruel smirk, then spat something foul and viscous that landed squarely on the prisoner’s face, ‘And that’s for selling your ‘friend’ out, traitor.’
“You’ll still... You’ll still put in a word for me right?” Suleymaan was choking and struggled to get words out of his mouth.
“Oh yeah, that? No. You don’t deserve it, traitorous mutt.” The guard headed back to the door and locked it shut, “And now that you’ve woken everyone on this block by ratting him out, good luck surviving here.”
----
Down the winding corridors, Aaden was unaware of his cellmate’s fate, not that he cared at all. How could he be so careless? He should have known. How could he have trusted someone he just met? What a fool I’ve been, he thought. If only that damned Suleymaan was not put in the same cell as him, none of this would have happened at all. More importantly, there was no way he would be leaving this place before Eid, or even in the next 10 years. Why was all of this happening to him? If only he did not stop for the soldier and ignored him, or decided not to work on that day, or not even work in Merca at all, none of this would have happened. He wondered what they would do to him. Lengthen his sentence maybe? Another 5 years? 10? 20? Or even his whole life? Was he able to see his wife and children ever again? Were they going to send him to some Muslim re-education camp in China he often heard about? Nothing but the worst possible outcomes he could imagine were racing through his mind.
He felt a cool breeze against his face. He was outside. For quite a while actually. All of this ruminating did not make him even realize that. Squinting past the bright floodlights the watchtowers shone on him, he could see high rise buildings shifting between vibrant colors with their millions of LED lights just behind the silhouette of barbed wire sitting on the ashen concrete walls.
As the two were heading towards a corner of the perimeter, Aaden found himself joined by a few more armed guards. A part of him thought of just making a run for it. Another part of him simply slammed down this absurd idea, there was no way he could outrun six guns and he was practically a fish out of water. In the midst of the crunching of gravel beneath their feet, he could hear a guard trying to talk softly to another, as if he did not want Aaden to overhear them.
“What charge should we use? What about disturbance of peace?” One of them muttered.
“No disturbance of peace doesn't give you that. Use… Use promotion of separatism.” The other replied after a bit of thought.
“"Oh okay, let's use that.” He agreed.
Eventually, they approached closer to the corner. Aaden noticed that the sandy ground was stained with a rusty tinge. A metallic scent he was way too familiar with shot up his nose. He had an idea of what was going to happen already.
“Go over there and turn around.” The guard behind him ordered. Once Aaden stood in front of the six guards, he continued, “Prisoner 24601, you have been caught red-handed for an attempted prison escape. By doing so you have committed Article 64 of the Socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics, which is punishable by lengthening your jail sentence by another 15 years. However, we also suspect that you have been promoting ideas of separatism. You have committed a grave crime of secession, sedition, and subversion against the Central People's Government under the National Security Law. You are a person too dangerous to be kept alive. Now, you will be sentenced to death.”
He fucking knew it. This was the end of the road.
“Ready!” All guards lifted their rifles and they clicked as their magazines were loaded.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in.
“Take aim!”
“Sorry, Caaliyah. I won’t be back for Eid.”
----
¹ Peace be upon you.
² Peace be upon you too.

"Corn can't expect justice from a court composed of chickens." - Anonymous African Proverb
----
Water vapor was rising from the pools of water left by the torrential rains in the past few days. The whole place was a tepid steam bath. It usually was quite arid: if it were to ever rain, it would be only these few months. But the humidity was not the issue. Wherever water went, the mosquitos followed, and the entire place was a breeding ground for those blood-sucking pests. No wonder malaria was still a problem even in these days.
Even though the sun had yet to rise, the harsh beams of floodlights flooded the cell through its only window, between thick bars of steel. There was practically no difference whether the lights were switched on or off and the only way to tell time was a ubiquitous plastic clock that was hung on the wall. Aaden Mohamed Mahmoud laid out his prayer mat and began his morning prayers, trying his best to ignore the occasional buzzing and swatting whenever he felt something landing on him. Peeking at the guard while he was prone on the mat, his chants did not wake him up. This was confirmed by the audible snores echoing from his gaping mouth. Aaden had been here long enough to recognize the patrol schedules and it would not be another hour before there was a shift change. Time was of the essence and he could not afford to waste even a single second. He got to his feet, headed towards the window, produced a piece of scrap metal he managed to hide away from the guards, and proceeded to chisel this steel bar he had been working on since it started to rain. Despite the uncomfortable humidity and mosquito-borne parasites, at least the copious rainfall helped mask the grinding of metals in the past few nights. Although the rain had stopped tonight, putting him at a higher risk of being discovered, Aaden was quite determined to get out of this concrete cell. His wife and children were waiting for him at home and being in here was not going to feed them.
Snap.
The makeshift chisel halved from the accumulated abrasion. Aaden’s heart sank. He picked up the broken piece that fell onto the floor and took a good look at it. It looked salvageable, it would probably still work. He then fixed his eyes on the small dent he barely made on the bar, even a fingernail was probably thicker than whatever he did and he still had about two more inches to cut through. His eyes landed on the clock, decided to call it a day, and stored the two pieces of metal in a carefully hidden place. Aaden wondered if he would ever get out at this rate, or whether it would be quicker to just serve his whole sentence. From what he knew, this entire prison was probably built in the last few years. Every night when the guards were less alert, Aaden would look for every nook and cranny that showed any sign of structural weakness for his potential escape route. In the end, he concluded that his best bet would be through the steel bars. But even if he managed to chisel through them, then what? The entire complex was patrolled by more armed guards and there were watchtowers towering everyone that was in it. Then there were the barbed-wire-laced electric fences and beyond that, probably miles and miles of desert before he could reach Somalia again. That was if he could manage to overcome all of these hurdles.
Unable to stop his train of thought from ruminating again, Aaden helplessly rolled up his prayer mat, curled up in his bed, and tried to get more rest as he could. It was futile. Aaden felt like he was constantly falling into a bottomless pit as his mind kept replaying memories of why he ended up here in the first place like a broken recorder.
It had been decades since the first conflicts of the Somali civil war erupted and the whole country had been in shambles since. It was a time when nobody dared to venture out of their homes, especially alone. Regional warlords scramble to fill the power vacuum of the defunct government. separatists declared independence for Somaliland in the north, and militant jihadists were plaguing the lawless south. Despite foreign peacekeeping forces from the African Union, the entirety of Somalia was still essentially a warzone. As a teenager, Aaden dared not to even walk the streets near his house without his trusty AK-47, passed down from his grandfather. It was rusting and missing a few parts, but it still did its job to keep his family and him alive. There was so much uncertainty. Nobody knew when their hunger would be filled by the next meal, nobody knew when their thirst would be quenched by the next sip of water, nobody knew when their next breath would be their last. But one thing everyone was certain: life was hell.
The Federal Government was created after several attempts to instigate a central authority to stabilize the country. These promises the politicians proclaimed were empty to Somalis like Aaden. The fact that there were terrorists roaming freely in the streets of the capital and terrorizing her citizens was a disgrace to any respectable government. However, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the assassination of the President while he was visiting Merca, a port city near Mogadishu, and its fall to the Jihadists. It was then the Federal Government decided to finally do something. A phone call to Beijing was made and negotiations were almost immediately signed as soon as they were proposed. As part of the Sino-Somali Friendship Agreement, in exchange for the People Liberation Army’s involvement in quelling the jihadist insurgency, Mogadishu pledged to fully integrate Somalia into China’s Neo-Silk Road to benefit both countries’ economically. They were killing two birds with one stone. For the first time in Aaden’s life, things seemed to be changing for the good. What could possibly go wrong?
In weeks of deployment, the South Sea Fleet reached the Horn of Africa. To compare it with Zheng He’s treasure fleet was an understatement. The news of their arrival spread the country like wildfire. Aaden knew it was a stupid idea in hindsight, but the thought of these mysterious foreigners from the Orient who decided to help bring peace to his country out of their goodwill really stroked his unyielding curiosity. It was then he snuck out with his rifle to the shore to look at this so-called grand fleet he kept hearing about. It was there he could finally fathom what he had heard. The entire visible horizon was grey with warships, striking the air with towers and towers of radar detectors. Colossal cannons pointed high in the sky, as though they were soldiers saluting in a military parade at him. The grand fleet was battle-hardened from the Reunification of Taiwan, joined by a contingent from an overseas naval base in nearby Djibouti. Dozens of destroyers, aircraft carriers, heavy cruisers, and submarines were led by the battleship Yanan, sailing under the Five-starred Red Flag, ready to crush even more rebels. For the first time in his life, Aaden finally felt what hope was like.
What the Federal Government could not do in decades, the PLA did in a month. Enroute to the Horn of Africa, every detectable pirate ship on sonar was sent to Davy Jones' locker. For the first time in recent history, these seas were safe for fishermen and merchants to sail through. Jihadist-captured Merca was reduced to ashes with Chinese artillery shells in a week. Jilib, the headquarters of the jihadist group, fell within another. Other major rebel settlements were captured in the next. By the end of the month, there was virtually no sign of a walking militant jihadist in Somalia. This military maneuver was critically appraised by military strategists all around the world, some even going as far as commenting this operation being remarkably more successful than the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. At least, the Somali Civil War came to a close in the south. For the first time in his life, Aaden left his rifle at home. The air did not smell of gunpowder. Gunshots were replaced by the haggling and chattering of store owners and customers. With an empty ceramic jar, he headed to the village well to fill it up, and it was then when he first met his wife.
The agreement was fulfilled, but it left half of the country a war-torn wasteland. Politicians were left scratching their heads as even the trade policies in the Neo-Silk Road were not enough to patch up the damages done. Feeling it was their responsibility to fix the collateral damage of this act of liberation, hordes of Chinese businessmen decided to extend their hands to the government as a symbol of goodwill and thousands of development project contracts were signed very promptly. A year had not even passed and there were already towering skyscrapers in Merca in place of its ruins. Aaden’s village finally got connected to the country’s highway and railway network. More houses and local infrastructure was built and the sprawling settlement even nearly got promoted into a city. Seeing things that could not be even better, Aaden finally decided to tie the knot and start a family. He was sure that his children would not know the bitter taste of war.
It was only a matter of time the Federal Government realized they had no way to pay back all the debt from all these Chinese projects. Furthermore, knowing that the South China Fleet could just arrive at their doorsteps in days and also a sizable PLA deployment still in the country for peacekeeping missions, Mogadishu had no choice but to sign another agreement with Beijing. By nullifying half of what the Federal Government owed to these Chinese businessmen, the port city of Merca would be temporarily under Chinese sovereignty on a 999-year-lease. Pretty much as good as forever even with the lifespans of 30 generations.
That was many years ago when that happened anyways. Aaden always knew that Merca held opportunities for him to feed his family fuller than in the capital. The Chinese were always very generous when it came to salary, at least to Somali standards. He was lucky enough to land a contract as a transport operator in a newly constructed naval base there. Aaden even applied to get a passport just for this, since he never had to leave the country. Just the thought of going to a nearby city and having to do security checks at a border checkpoint in Somalia’s very soil perplexed him. Once the papers were all in order, he bid farewell to his loving family and headed to this Chinese city in his country.
Being surrounded by signs with strange characters made of complicated strokes on massive LED complexes that covered cloud-reaching skyscrapers was truly an overwhelming experience for Aaden. Everything here was nothing quite like Mogadishu, the largest city he had ever visited. His jaw dropped open and eyes darted back and forth, pressing his face on the window to savor the sights of this foreign city throughout the ride to the naval base he was going to work in. Once there, Aaden was greeted by a comfortable bed and filling meals. Oh, how he wished that the rest of his family could be here with him. With the thought of them benefiting from his labors, Aaden made sure he did his very best every day.
A few months passed and it was going to be Eid al-Fitr soon. Aaden’s annual leave was approved then so that he could return and celebrate with his family. Then he could finally see them not just through a 6-inch screen, but with his very own eyes. He wanted to pick his children up to see how much they’ve grown. He wanted to taste the Cambuulo his wife promised to cook for him. The grueling heat was harsh to him in this month of Ramadan but Aaden was determined to pull through this. His toil would make his family happy. His train of thought immediately jammed on the brakes when he suddenly spotted a Chinese soldier on his back, with his knee at an unnatural angle.
“A- are you okay, sir?” Aaden leaped out of his truck and tried to speak in his best Mandarin.
Visibly distressed, the soldier shook his head. He was clearly in too much pain to speak.
“Wh- Who did this to you? What happened?” Aaden panicked as his eyes scanned up and down the soldier’s body. His right shin was touching his thigh and Aaden could not help but cringe whenever that came to sight. The tarmac beneath him was dyed crimson from his gaping wound. The soldier’s breathing was quick and shallow. He looked as pale as a ghost. Aaden knew he was going to die.
“H- Hold on!” Aaden wrapped his arm around his neck as he tried to lift him up. “I’ll get you to a hospital!”
Unfortunately, Aaden’s efforts were futile. The soldier had already bled to death before he could get any help. His heart was full of sorrow and all he could do was to pray for him and his family. As he was waiting to fill in some paperwork, two Chinese men in black suits approached him, “Are you the one who found Sergeant Li Fang?”
“Yes, sir.” He nodded. “I saw him lying on-”
“You are under arrest for manslaughter with intent, under Article 232 of the Socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics. Anything you say will be used against you.” One of them announced, as the other handcuffed him from the back.
No. This can’t be happening. Aaden thought. This can’t be true.
The trio ripped themselves from the stares at the hospital and Aaden sat between his captors in a police car. Before he knew it he found himself in front of a judge with the two suited men pressing him down in his seat.
“Y-Your Honor! Please believe me!” Tears were welling up in Aaden’s eyes, “I’m innoce-”
“Silence!” The boom of the gavel echoed in the courtroom. “It is not your turn to speak! One more sound and you will be in contempt! Please continue your testimony, Prosecutor Zheng.”
“Yes, your honor. As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted by this unevolved ape, the victim was clearly severely injured when the defendant arrived at the scene. The defendant decided that he was going to take the victim to the hospital, but unfortunately the victim passed away on the way there. Surely, it is the defendant’s fault for such negligence as it had caused not only the victim's death, but a family has lost their loving son and China has lost a capable soldier! The defendant should be harshly punished for his sins!” A middle-aged man with glasses slammed the table as he condemned Aaden. His spit was visibly flying in all directions as he spoke.
“And what does the defendant have to say?” The judge paid no interest to Aaden and flipped over a few sheets of paper in her file.
“I… I-” His tongue was stiff and his throat was frozen. His words just would not leave his mouth.
“I’ve heard enough!” The judge grasped her gavel impatiently and slammed it once more. Once the room returned to silence, she announced, “I hereby declare you, Aaden Mohamed Mahmoud, guilty for manslaughter. You will be sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years.”
With that, he found himself in blue overalls with a serial number, locked behind bars. His uncomfortable clothes reminded him of his Muslim brethren in those Uyghur concentration camps he had heard of as a child.
The guards had confiscated his phone when he came in. There was really no way to contact his family. Just the thought of them worrying why he did not show up for Eid was already too heartbreaking for him. As a few tears rolled down his cheeks, Aaden tried to remind himself to stay strong as he laid on his bed, blankly stared at the ceiling, waiting for nightfall, and to continue with his escape plan. What seemed like hours passed when the rattling of steel gates startled him as it caught him off guard.
“Salaam alaykum¹, brother.” A tall and lean Somali in the same clothes as him stepped into his cell before guards locked them shut again. “My name is Suleymaan.”
“Wa alaykum salaam², brother.” Aaden sat up and offered a handshake. The two cellmates sat on their beds, across each other. Finally, there was someone else who would listen to his troubles and concerns. He could not help it but tell him everything in his mind. From the moment he landed his contract to the very first day he was a prisoner. Hours passed like minutes and before they knew it, the sun was already setting, “So, what are you in for?”
“I also work at the naval base as you, but I was a cleaner for an admiral, not a driver like you.” Suleymaan already felt like he had a connection with Aaden after hearing his story, “Anyways I have been working there for a few years until the admiral got a promotion and went back to China. So after this, I was working for a new admiral, but I did not like him.”
“And why is that?” Aaden interrupted. His experience with his former Chinese superiors was relatively a good one. One of them was even patient enough to teach him enough Mandarin to get around the city without any difficulty. Sometimes, they would even take him to restaurants and try out China’s myriad of cuisines. He felt sorry for him to have such a bad experience at work.
“He was very rude to me unlike his predecessor and always shouted at me for nothing. But this is not the main point.” Suleymaan frowned as he recalled his tale, “He was friends with a former K9 specialist, so he was given this German Shepherd as a gift. The dog was very fierce and barked loudly. You could hear it barking down a few blocks. Wherever the new admiral went, the dog always followed him. I think that the dog liked to bully me because whenever it saw me it liked to bark at me and even chase me around!”
“Oh no, that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen!” Aaden frowned as a memory emerged subconsciously. Back in the waning days of the civil war, when his village was under control of a warlord clan, his mercenaries would often patrol the streets and harass almost every villager they bumped into, usually with insults or demanding food and money. The image of an old man with nothing to offer being mauled alive by dogs was still etched clearly in his mind. At least those days were long gone.
“Precisely!” Suleymaan snapped at the opportunity to agree immediately. “Then one day when I was cleaning the admiral’s office when he was out for a smoke, the evil dog came out of nowhere and bit me in the leg! It was so painful, I screamed as loud as I could but no one could hear me. I tried to pull the dog’s mouth apart but it didn’t work, and it bit even harder! See! Look at my leg!”
Suleymaan lifted his trouser legs to reveal a mere shaft that looked like skin wrapping bone. A healthy chunk of his right calf was missing and around it was clearly lined with bite marks that sank deep into his flesh. An ambiguously whitish translucent thing looked like it was wiggling around in one of the holes created by the bite marks. Aaden thought the smell was probably a blocked pipe from the neighboring cell, but this confirmed the source. Resisting the urge to let bring up his last meal, Aaden clenched his jaw and hoped that it would work.
“I’m sorry you had to see that. But there was nothing I could do!” Suleymaan covered himself up, “So I did what I could to save my life! I crushed my hands around the mad dog’s neck! It would have killed me if I didn’t kill it first!
“Exactly!” Aaden sat at the edge of his bed all riled up. He believed that animals usually would not be so violent unless triggered or conditioned by such cruel masters, as he had witnessed, “So what happened next?”
“When the admiral came back and saw his dog lying on the floor, he was furious!” Suleymaan raised his fist as a gesture of anger, “He shouted, scolded me, and even kicked me! He said the dog’s life was worth more than mine and I would pay dearly for this! The admiral should be locked up instead of me for neglecting his filthy dog! These people have no respect for human life. I rather go back to Somalia to work instead, even if they don’t pay me as much.”
Dumbfounded by Suleymaan’s reason for being here and sensing his resentment against his captors, Aaden decided to share his plan to escape after the coast was clear. After all, two men chiseling was better than just one.
“Oh good. I like the idea.” Suleymaan lowered his voice, “There is no way I will spend 20 years of my life here!”
Aaden hushed him for speaking too loud. The guards could become suspicious if they talked too much. With a few basic hand gestures, he let Suleymaan know the time when they had to get to work. Until then, the two laid on their beds for they would need to rest. Aaden was baffled by how his cellmate had to serve double his time for something like that. And I thought Somalia’s justice system was absurd, he thought.
The clock’s hand struck at the right hour and as expected the cell was still illuminated by the floodlights outside. Suleymaan’s sonorous snores resonated from the other side of the cell, oddly enough, was in synchrony with the sleeping guard’s in the corridor.
“Psst.” Aaden shook Suleymaan on the shoulder, “Get up. It’s time.”
“What?” Suleyman reluctantly opened his eyes and squinted as he adjusted his bearings, “Already? Tell me what to do.”
“Here. you’ll need this.” Aaden produced one of the broken pieces of his makeshift chisel and handed it to him. “Should be quite self-explanatory. Head back to bed immediately and pretend to sleep if you hear any footsteps.”
He nodded and the two cellmates then headed over to the window. Aaden continued with the dent he made so far, while Suleymaan pondered to decide which bar he should pick, then chose the one furthest from Aaden’s to make more space between them. Maybe an hour or two passed, as Aaden’s fingers started to hurt where he was holding the metal piece.
Clack. Cluck. Clack. Cluck.
Aaden’s eyes widened as he turned his head towards the other side of the room. He anxiously patted Suleymaan on his shoulder for his attention, urgently pointed at his bed with a finger in front of his lips, then slipped back to it. He tried to lie as still as possible but his heart felt like it was going to pop out of his chest at any moment as adrenaline was coursing through his veins. Expecting his accomplice to do the same, Aaden was petrified to see that Suleymaan was still standing by the window, as if his instructions were far from clear. In the blink of an eye, Suleymaan darted to the opposite side of the room and began frantically slamming onto the railings by the cell door, shouting at the sleeping guard at the top of his lungs and echoing down the entire prison corridor, “Officer! He’s trying to escape! He’s trying to escape through the windows!”
The clacking and clucking intensified as Suleymaan continued to howl like a mad dog. The snores stopped and more footsteps could be heard approaching their cell. With a clink and a clank, Aaden could hear the cell door swoop open and two rifles were pointed at him.
“It’s him, officer!” Suleymaan pointed at him, with a face of disgust as if he were a rat just spotted crawling out of a sewer pipe, “It’s him!”
“Alright, put your hands up slowly. No funny business.” One of the guards said in a stern voice. “Now turn around and lie flat on the floor. No sudden movements.”
“Or we’ll fucking shoot you.” The other guard added, annoyed that his sleep was disturbed.
Aaden had no choice but to comply with their orders. He could feel the cold shackles being cuffed around his wrists. An unexpected forceful yank brought him up to his knees, making him nearly fall on his side from losing balance. The moment when he got on his feet, a metal muzzle was already dug into his back. Aaden flinched from the pain and walked wherever the rifle led him. Through the cell door, he and the guard disappeared down the seemingly endless corridor.
“Now, about my reward...” Suleymaan turned to the other guard with a smile on his face, satisfied with his service, “You’ll put in a good word for the warden right?”
“What’s your serial number again?” The guard asked.
‘Er... 21… 21719, sir.“ Suleymaan looked down at his tag on his uniform before looking back at the guard. His grin grew wider on his face, though it quickly transformed into a grimace. A fist sank uncomfortably deep into his gut, promptly sending him flying across the room and hitting his head into the wall.
Struggling to get up, Suleymaan was on his elbow, rubbing his belly as he was retching out acid on the floor. The ache on his head was unbearable as well, feeling as if it had nearly split open right there. He could feel a warm trickle down his temple, joining up the sour fluid at the edge of his mouth, down his chin before dripping the floor scarlet. Confused, he whimpered, “What was… What was that for?”
“That’s from Admiral Zhang.” The guard gave a cruel smirk, then spat something foul and viscous that landed squarely on the prisoner’s face, ‘And that’s for selling your ‘friend’ out, traitor.’
“You’ll still... You’ll still put in a word for me right?” Suleymaan was choking and struggled to get words out of his mouth.
“Oh yeah, that? No. You don’t deserve it, traitorous mutt.” The guard headed back to the door and locked it shut, “And now that you’ve woken everyone on this block by ratting him out, good luck surviving here.”
----
Down the winding corridors, Aaden was unaware of his cellmate’s fate, not that he cared at all. How could he be so careless? He should have known. How could he have trusted someone he just met? What a fool I’ve been, he thought. If only that damned Suleymaan was not put in the same cell as him, none of this would have happened at all. More importantly, there was no way he would be leaving this place before Eid, or even in the next 10 years. Why was all of this happening to him? If only he did not stop for the soldier and ignored him, or decided not to work on that day, or not even work in Merca at all, none of this would have happened. He wondered what they would do to him. Lengthen his sentence maybe? Another 5 years? 10? 20? Or even his whole life? Was he able to see his wife and children ever again? Were they going to send him to some Muslim re-education camp in China he often heard about? Nothing but the worst possible outcomes he could imagine were racing through his mind.
He felt a cool breeze against his face. He was outside. For quite a while actually. All of this ruminating did not make him even realize that. Squinting past the bright floodlights the watchtowers shone on him, he could see high rise buildings shifting between vibrant colors with their millions of LED lights just behind the silhouette of barbed wire sitting on the ashen concrete walls.
As the two were heading towards a corner of the perimeter, Aaden found himself joined by a few more armed guards. A part of him thought of just making a run for it. Another part of him simply slammed down this absurd idea, there was no way he could outrun six guns and he was practically a fish out of water. In the midst of the crunching of gravel beneath their feet, he could hear a guard trying to talk softly to another, as if he did not want Aaden to overhear them.
“What charge should we use? What about disturbance of peace?” One of them muttered.
“No disturbance of peace doesn't give you that. Use… Use promotion of separatism.” The other replied after a bit of thought.
“"Oh okay, let's use that.” He agreed.
Eventually, they approached closer to the corner. Aaden noticed that the sandy ground was stained with a rusty tinge. A metallic scent he was way too familiar with shot up his nose. He had an idea of what was going to happen already.
“Go over there and turn around.” The guard behind him ordered. Once Aaden stood in front of the six guards, he continued, “Prisoner 24601, you have been caught red-handed for an attempted prison escape. By doing so you have committed Article 64 of the Socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics, which is punishable by lengthening your jail sentence by another 15 years. However, we also suspect that you have been promoting ideas of separatism. You have committed a grave crime of secession, sedition, and subversion against the Central People's Government under the National Security Law. You are a person too dangerous to be kept alive. Now, you will be sentenced to death.”
He fucking knew it. This was the end of the road.
“Ready!” All guards lifted their rifles and they clicked as their magazines were loaded.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in.
“Take aim!”
“Sorry, Caaliyah. I won’t be back for Eid.”
----
¹ Peace be upon you.
² Peace be upon you too.

"Corn can't expect justice from a court composed of chickens." - Anonymous African Proverb
----
Water vapor was rising from the pools of water left by the torrential rains in the past few days. The whole place was a tepid steam bath. It usually was quite arid: if it were to ever rain, it would be only these few months. But the humidity was not the issue. Wherever water went, the mosquitos followed, and the entire place was a breeding ground for those blood-sucking pests. No wonder malaria was still a problem even in these days.
Even though the sun had yet to rise, the harsh beams of floodlights flooded the cell through its only window, between thick bars of steel. There was practically no difference whether the lights were switched on or off and the only way to tell time was a ubiquitous plastic clock that was hung on the wall. Aaden Mohamed Mahmoud laid out his prayer mat and began his morning prayers, trying his best to ignore the occasional buzzing and swatting whenever he felt something landing on him. Peeking at the guard while he was prone on the mat, his chants did not wake him up. This was confirmed by the audible snores echoing from his gaping mouth. Aaden had been here long enough to recognize the patrol schedules and it would not be another hour before there was a shift change. Time was of the essence and he could not afford to waste even a single second. He got to his feet, headed towards the window, produced a piece of scrap metal he managed to hide away from the guards, and proceeded to chisel this steel bar he had been working on since it started to rain. Despite the uncomfortable humidity and mosquito-borne parasites, at least the copious rainfall helped mask the grinding of metals in the past few nights. Although the rain had stopped tonight, putting him at a higher risk of being discovered, Aaden was quite determined to get out of this concrete cell. His wife and children were waiting for him at home and being in here was not going to feed them.
Snap.
The makeshift chisel halved from the accumulated abrasion. Aaden’s heart sank. He picked up the broken piece that fell onto the floor and took a good look at it. It looked salvageable, it would probably still work. He then fixed his eyes on the small dent he barely made on the bar, even a fingernail was probably thicker than whatever he did and he still had about two more inches to cut through. His eyes landed on the clock, decided to call it a day, and stored the two pieces of metal in a carefully hidden place. Aaden wondered if he would ever get out at this rate, or whether it would be quicker to just serve his whole sentence. From what he knew, this entire prison was probably built in the last few years. Every night when the guards were less alert, Aaden would look for every nook and cranny that showed any sign of structural weakness for his potential escape route. In the end, he concluded that his best bet would be through the steel bars. But even if he managed to chisel through them, then what? The entire complex was patrolled by more armed guards and there were watchtowers towering everyone that was in it. Then there were the barbed-wire-laced electric fences and beyond that, probably miles and miles of desert before he could reach Somalia again. That was if he could manage to overcome all of these hurdles.
Unable to stop his train of thought from ruminating again, Aaden helplessly rolled up his prayer mat, curled up in his bed, and tried to get more rest as he could. It was futile. Aaden felt like he was constantly falling into a bottomless pit as his mind kept replaying memories of why he ended up here in the first place like a broken recorder.
It had been decades since the first conflicts of the Somali civil war erupted and the whole country had been in shambles since. It was a time when nobody dared to venture out of their homes, especially alone. Regional warlords scramble to fill the power vacuum of the defunct government. separatists declared independence for Somaliland in the north, and militant jihadists were plaguing the lawless south. Despite foreign peacekeeping forces from the African Union, the entirety of Somalia was still essentially a warzone. As a teenager, Aaden dared not to even walk the streets near his house without his trusty AK-47, passed down from his grandfather. It was rusting and missing a few parts, but it still did its job to keep his family and him alive. There was so much uncertainty. Nobody knew when their hunger would be filled by the next meal, nobody knew when their thirst would be quenched by the next sip of water, nobody knew when their next breath would be their last. But one thing everyone was certain: life was hell.
The Federal Government was created after several attempts to instigate a central authority to stabilize the country. These promises the politicians proclaimed were empty to Somalis like Aaden. The fact that there were terrorists roaming freely in the streets of the capital and terrorizing her citizens was a disgrace to any respectable government. However, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the assassination of the President while he was visiting Merca, a port city near Mogadishu, and its fall to the Jihadists. It was then the Federal Government decided to finally do something. A phone call to Beijing was made and negotiations were almost immediately signed as soon as they were proposed. As part of the Sino-Somali Friendship Agreement, in exchange for the People Liberation Army’s involvement in quelling the jihadist insurgency, Mogadishu pledged to fully integrate Somalia into China’s Neo-Silk Road to benefit both countries’ economically. They were killing two birds with one stone. For the first time in Aaden’s life, things seemed to be changing for the good. What could possibly go wrong?
In weeks of deployment, the South Sea Fleet reached the Horn of Africa. To compare it with Zheng He’s treasure fleet was an understatement. The news of their arrival spread the country like wildfire. Aaden knew it was a stupid idea in hindsight, but the thought of these mysterious foreigners from the Orient who decided to help bring peace to his country out of their goodwill really stroked his unyielding curiosity. It was then he snuck out with his rifle to the shore to look at this so-called grand fleet he kept hearing about. It was there he could finally fathom what he had heard. The entire visible horizon was grey with warships, striking the air with towers and towers of radar detectors. Colossal cannons pointed high in the sky, as though they were soldiers saluting in a military parade at him. The grand fleet was battle-hardened from the Reunification of Taiwan, joined by a contingent from an overseas naval base in nearby Djibouti. Dozens of destroyers, aircraft carriers, heavy cruisers, and submarines were led by the battleship Yanan, sailing under the Five-starred Red Flag, ready to crush even more rebels. For the first time in his life, Aaden finally felt what hope was like.
What the Federal Government could not do in decades, the PLA did in a month. Enroute to the Horn of Africa, every detectable pirate ship on sonar was sent to Davy Jones' locker. For the first time in recent history, these seas were safe for fishermen and merchants to sail through. Jihadist-captured Merca was reduced to ashes with Chinese artillery shells in a week. Jilib, the headquarters of the jihadist group, fell within another. Other major rebel settlements were captured in the next. By the end of the month, there was virtually no sign of a walking militant jihadist in Somalia. This military maneuver was critically appraised by military strategists all around the world, some even going as far as commenting this operation being remarkably more successful than the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. At least, the Somali Civil War came to a close in the south. For the first time in his life, Aaden left his rifle at home. The air did not smell of gunpowder. Gunshots were replaced by the haggling and chattering of store owners and customers. With an empty ceramic jar, he headed to the village well to fill it up, and it was then when he first met his wife.
The agreement was fulfilled, but it left half of the country a war-torn wasteland. Politicians were left scratching their heads as even the trade policies in the Neo-Silk Road were not enough to patch up the damages done. Feeling it was their responsibility to fix the collateral damage of this act of liberation, hordes of Chinese businessmen decided to extend their hands to the government as a symbol of goodwill and thousands of development project contracts were signed very promptly. A year had not even passed and there were already towering skyscrapers in Merca in place of its ruins. Aaden’s village finally got connected to the country’s highway and railway network. More houses and local infrastructure was built and the sprawling settlement even nearly got promoted into a city. Seeing things that could not be even better, Aaden finally decided to tie the knot and start a family. He was sure that his children would not know the bitter taste of war.
It was only a matter of time the Federal Government realized they had no way to pay back all the debt from all these Chinese projects. Furthermore, knowing that the South China Fleet could just arrive at their doorsteps in days and also a sizable PLA deployment still in the country for peacekeeping missions, Mogadishu had no choice but to sign another agreement with Beijing. By nullifying half of what the Federal Government owed to these Chinese businessmen, the port city of Merca would be temporarily under Chinese sovereignty on a 999-year-lease. Pretty much as good as forever even with the lifespans of 30 generations.
That was many years ago when that happened anyways. Aaden always knew that Merca held opportunities for him to feed his family fuller than in the capital. The Chinese were always very generous when it came to salary, at least to Somali standards. He was lucky enough to land a contract as a transport operator in a newly constructed naval base there. Aaden even applied to get a passport just for this, since he never had to leave the country. Just the thought of going to a nearby city and having to do security checks at a border checkpoint in Somalia’s very soil perplexed him. Once the papers were all in order, he bid farewell to his loving family and headed to this Chinese city in his country.
Being surrounded by signs with strange characters made of complicated strokes on massive LED complexes that covered cloud-reaching skyscrapers was truly an overwhelming experience for Aaden. Everything here was nothing quite like Mogadishu, the largest city he had ever visited. His jaw dropped open and eyes darted back and forth, pressing his face on the window to savor the sights of this foreign city throughout the ride to the naval base he was going to work in. Once there, Aaden was greeted by a comfortable bed and filling meals. Oh, how he wished that the rest of his family could be here with him. With the thought of them benefiting from his labors, Aaden made sure he did his very best every day.
A few months passed and it was going to be Eid al-Fitr soon. Aaden’s annual leave was approved then so that he could return and celebrate with his family. Then he could finally see them not just through a 6-inch screen, but with his very own eyes. He wanted to pick his children up to see how much they’ve grown. He wanted to taste the Cambuulo his wife promised to cook for him. The grueling heat was harsh to him in this month of Ramadan but Aaden was determined to pull through this. His toil would make his family happy. His train of thought immediately jammed on the brakes when he suddenly spotted a Chinese soldier on his back, with his knee at an unnatural angle.
“A- are you okay, sir?” Aaden leaped out of his truck and tried to speak in his best Mandarin.
Visibly distressed, the soldier shook his head. He was clearly in too much pain to speak.
“Wh- Who did this to you? What happened?” Aaden panicked as his eyes scanned up and down the soldier’s body. His right shin was touching his thigh and Aaden could not help but cringe whenever that came to sight. The tarmac beneath him was dyed crimson from his gaping wound. The soldier’s breathing was quick and shallow. He looked as pale as a ghost. Aaden knew he was going to die.
“H- Hold on!” Aaden wrapped his arm around his neck as he tried to lift him up. “I’ll get you to a hospital!”
Unfortunately, Aaden’s efforts were futile. The soldier had already bled to death before he could get any help. His heart was full of sorrow and all he could do was to pray for him and his family. As he was waiting to fill in some paperwork, two Chinese men in black suits approached him, “Are you the one who found Sergeant Li Fang?”
“Yes, sir.” He nodded. “I saw him lying on-”
“You are under arrest for manslaughter with intent, under Article 232 of the Socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics. Anything you say will be used against you.” One of them announced, as the other handcuffed him from the back.
No. This can’t be happening. Aaden thought. This can’t be true.
The trio ripped themselves from the stares at the hospital and Aaden sat between his captors in a police car. Before he knew it he found himself in front of a judge with the two suited men pressing him down in his seat.
“Y-Your Honor! Please believe me!” Tears were welling up in Aaden’s eyes, “I’m innoce-”
“Silence!” The boom of the gavel echoed in the courtroom. “It is not your turn to speak! One more sound and you will be in contempt! Please continue your testimony, Prosecutor Zheng.”
“Yes, your honor. As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted by this unevolved ape, the victim was clearly severely injured when the defendant arrived at the scene. The defendant decided that he was going to take the victim to the hospital, but unfortunately the victim passed away on the way there. Surely, it is the defendant’s fault for such negligence as it had caused not only the victim's death, but a family has lost their loving son and China has lost a capable soldier! The defendant should be harshly punished for his sins!” A middle-aged man with glasses slammed the table as he condemned Aaden. His spit was visibly flying in all directions as he spoke.
“And what does the defendant have to say?” The judge paid no interest to Aaden and flipped over a few sheets of paper in her file.
“I… I-” His tongue was stiff and his throat was frozen. His words just would not leave his mouth.
“I’ve heard enough!” The judge grasped her gavel impatiently and slammed it once more. Once the room returned to silence, she announced, “I hereby declare you, Aaden Mohamed Mahmoud, guilty for manslaughter. You will be sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years.”
With that, he found himself in blue overalls with a serial number, locked behind bars. His uncomfortable clothes reminded him of his Muslim brethren in those Uyghur concentration camps he had heard of as a child.
The guards had confiscated his phone when he came in. There was really no way to contact his family. Just the thought of them worrying why he did not show up for Eid was already too heartbreaking for him. As a few tears rolled down his cheeks, Aaden tried to remind himself to stay strong as he laid on his bed, blankly stared at the ceiling, waiting for nightfall, and to continue with his escape plan. What seemed like hours passed when the rattling of steel gates startled him as it caught him off guard.
“Salaam alaykum¹, brother.” A tall and lean Somali in the same clothes as him stepped into his cell before guards locked them shut again. “My name is Suleymaan.”
“Wa alaykum salaam², brother.” Aaden sat up and offered a handshake. The two cellmates sat on their beds, across each other. Finally, there was someone else who would listen to his troubles and concerns. He could not help it but tell him everything in his mind. From the moment he landed his contract to the very first day he was a prisoner. Hours passed like minutes and before they knew it, the sun was already setting, “So, what are you in for?”
“I also work at the naval base as you, but I was a cleaner for an admiral, not a driver like you.” Suleymaan already felt like he had a connection with Aaden after hearing his story, “Anyways I have been working there for a few years until the admiral got a promotion and went back to China. So after this, I was working for a new admiral, but I did not like him.”
“And why is that?” Aaden interrupted. His experience with his former Chinese superiors was relatively a good one. One of them was even patient enough to teach him enough Mandarin to get around the city without any difficulty. Sometimes, they would even take him to restaurants and try out China’s myriad of cuisines. He felt sorry for him to have such a bad experience at work.
“He was very rude to me unlike his predecessor and always shouted at me for nothing. But this is not the main point.” Suleymaan frowned as he recalled his tale, “He was friends with a former K9 specialist, so he was given this German Shepherd as a gift. The dog was very fierce and barked loudly. You could hear it barking down a few blocks. Wherever the new admiral went, the dog always followed him. I think that the dog liked to bully me because whenever it saw me it liked to bark at me and even chase me around!”
“Oh no, that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen!” Aaden frowned as a memory emerged subconsciously. Back in the waning days of the civil war, when his village was under control of a warlord clan, his mercenaries would often patrol the streets and harass almost every villager they bumped into, usually with insults or demanding food and money. The image of an old man with nothing to offer being mauled alive by dogs was still etched clearly in his mind. At least those days were long gone.
“Precisely!” Suleymaan snapped at the opportunity to agree immediately. “Then one day when I was cleaning the admiral’s office when he was out for a smoke, the evil dog came out of nowhere and bit me in the leg! It was so painful, I screamed as loud as I could but no one could hear me. I tried to pull the dog’s mouth apart but it didn’t work, and it bit even harder! See! Look at my leg!”
Suleymaan lifted his trouser legs to reveal a mere shaft that looked like skin wrapping bone. A healthy chunk of his right calf was missing and around it was clearly lined with bite marks that sank deep into his flesh. An ambiguously whitish translucent thing looked like it was wiggling around in one of the holes created by the bite marks. Aaden thought the smell was probably a blocked pipe from the neighboring cell, but this confirmed the source. Resisting the urge to let bring up his last meal, Aaden clenched his jaw and hoped that it would work.
“I’m sorry you had to see that. But there was nothing I could do!” Suleymaan covered himself up, “So I did what I could to save my life! I crushed my hands around the mad dog’s neck! It would have killed me if I didn’t kill it first!
“Exactly!” Aaden sat at the edge of his bed all riled up. He believed that animals usually would not be so violent unless triggered or conditioned by such cruel masters, as he had witnessed, “So what happened next?”
“When the admiral came back and saw his dog lying on the floor, he was furious!” Suleymaan raised his fist as a gesture of anger, “He shouted, scolded me, and even kicked me! He said the dog’s life was worth more than mine and I would pay dearly for this! The admiral should be locked up instead of me for neglecting his filthy dog! These people have no respect for human life. I rather go back to Somalia to work instead, even if they don’t pay me as much.”
Dumbfounded by Suleymaan’s reason for being here and sensing his resentment against his captors, Aaden decided to share his plan to escape after the coast was clear. After all, two men chiseling was better than just one.
“Oh good. I like the idea.” Suleymaan lowered his voice, “There is no way I will spend 20 years of my life here!”
Aaden hushed him for speaking too loud. The guards could become suspicious if they talked too much. With a few basic hand gestures, he let Suleymaan know the time when they had to get to work. Until then, the two laid on their beds for they would need to rest. Aaden was baffled by how his cellmate had to serve double his time for something like that. And I thought Somalia’s justice system was absurd, he thought.
The clock’s hand struck at the right hour and as expected the cell was still illuminated by the floodlights outside. Suleymaan’s sonorous snores resonated from the other side of the cell, oddly enough, was in synchrony with the sleeping guard’s in the corridor.
“Psst.” Aaden shook Suleymaan on the shoulder, “Get up. It’s time.”
“What?” Suleyman reluctantly opened his eyes and squinted as he adjusted his bearings, “Already? Tell me what to do.”
“Here. you’ll need this.” Aaden produced one of the broken pieces of his makeshift chisel and handed it to him. “Should be quite self-explanatory. Head back to bed immediately and pretend to sleep if you hear any footsteps.”
He nodded and the two cellmates then headed over to the window. Aaden continued with the dent he made so far, while Suleymaan pondered to decide which bar he should pick, then chose the one furthest from Aaden’s to make more space between them. Maybe an hour or two passed, as Aaden’s fingers started to hurt where he was holding the metal piece.
Clack. Cluck. Clack. Cluck.
Aaden’s eyes widened as he turned his head towards the other side of the room. He anxiously patted Suleymaan on his shoulder for his attention, urgently pointed at his bed with a finger in front of his lips, then slipped back to it. He tried to lie as still as possible but his heart felt like it was going to pop out of his chest at any moment as adrenaline was coursing through his veins. Expecting his accomplice to do the same, Aaden was petrified to see that Suleymaan was still standing by the window, as if his instructions were far from clear. In the blink of an eye, Suleymaan darted to the opposite side of the room and began frantically slamming onto the railings by the cell door, shouting at the sleeping guard at the top of his lungs and echoing down the entire prison corridor, “Officer! He’s trying to escape! He’s trying to escape through the windows!”
The clacking and clucking intensified as Suleymaan continued to howl like a mad dog. The snores stopped and more footsteps could be heard approaching their cell. With a clink and a clank, Aaden could hear the cell door swoop open and two rifles were pointed at him.
“It’s him, officer!” Suleymaan pointed at him, with a face of disgust as if he were a rat just spotted crawling out of a sewer pipe, “It’s him!”
“Alright, put your hands up slowly. No funny business.” One of the guards said in a stern voice. “Now turn around and lie flat on the floor. No sudden movements.”
“Or we’ll fucking shoot you.” The other guard added, annoyed that his sleep was disturbed.
Aaden had no choice but to comply with their orders. He could feel the cold shackles being cuffed around his wrists. An unexpected forceful yank brought him up to his knees, making him nearly fall on his side from losing balance. The moment when he got on his feet, a metal muzzle was already dug into his back. Aaden flinched from the pain and walked wherever the rifle led him. Through the cell door, he and the guard disappeared down the seemingly endless corridor.
“Now, about my reward...” Suleymaan turned to the other guard with a smile on his face, satisfied with his service, “You’ll put in a good word for the warden right?”
“What’s your serial number again?” The guard asked.
‘Er... 21… 21719, sir.“ Suleymaan looked down at his tag on his uniform before looking back at the guard. His grin grew wider on his face, though it quickly transformed into a grimace. A fist sank uncomfortably deep into his gut, promptly sending him flying across the room and hitting his head into the wall.
Struggling to get up, Suleymaan was on his elbow, rubbing his belly as he was retching out acid on the floor. The ache on his head was unbearable as well, feeling as if it had nearly split open right there. He could feel a warm trickle down his temple, joining up the sour fluid at the edge of his mouth, down his chin before dripping the floor scarlet. Confused, he whimpered, “What was… What was that for?”
“That’s from Admiral Zhang.” The guard gave a cruel smirk, then spat something foul and viscous that landed squarely on the prisoner’s face, ‘And that’s for selling your ‘friend’ out, traitor.’
“You’ll still... You’ll still put in a word for me right?” Suleymaan was choking and struggled to get words out of his mouth.
“Oh yeah, that? No. You don’t deserve it, traitorous mutt.” The guard headed back to the door and locked it shut, “And now that you’ve woken everyone on this block by ratting him out, good luck surviving here.”
----
Down the winding corridors, Aaden was unaware of his cellmate’s fate, not that he cared at all. How could he be so careless? He should have known. How could he have trusted someone he just met? What a fool I’ve been, he thought. If only that damned Suleymaan was not put in the same cell as him, none of this would have happened at all. More importantly, there was no way he would be leaving this place before Eid, or even in the next 10 years. Why was all of this happening to him? If only he did not stop for the soldier and ignored him, or decided not to work on that day, or not even work in Merca at all, none of this would have happened. He wondered what they would do to him. Lengthen his sentence maybe? Another 5 years? 10? 20? Or even his whole life? Was he able to see his wife and children ever again? Were they going to send him to some Muslim re-education camp in China he often heard about? Nothing but the worst possible outcomes he could imagine were racing through his mind.
He felt a cool breeze against his face. He was outside. For quite a while actually. All of this ruminating did not make him even realize that. Squinting past the bright floodlights the watchtowers shone on him, he could see high rise buildings shifting between vibrant colors with their millions of LED lights just behind the silhouette of barbed wire sitting on the ashen concrete walls.
As the two were heading towards a corner of the perimeter, Aaden found himself joined by a few more armed guards. A part of him thought of just making a run for it. Another part of him simply slammed down this absurd idea, there was no way he could outrun six guns and he was practically a fish out of water. In the midst of the crunching of gravel beneath their feet, he could hear a guard trying to talk softly to another, as if he did not want Aaden to overhear them.
“What charge should we use? What about disturbance of peace?” One of them muttered.
“No disturbance of peace doesn't give you that. Use… Use promotion of separatism.” The other replied after a bit of thought.
“"Oh okay, let's use that.” He agreed.
Eventually, they approached closer to the corner. Aaden noticed that the sandy ground was stained with a rusty tinge. A metallic scent he was way too familiar with shot up his nose. He had an idea of what was going to happen already.
“Go over there and turn around.” The guard behind him ordered. Once Aaden stood in front of the six guards, he continued, “Prisoner 24601, you have been caught red-handed for an attempted prison escape. By doing so you have committed Article 64 of the Socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics, which is punishable by lengthening your jail sentence by another 15 years. However, we also suspect that you have been promoting ideas of separatism. You have committed a grave crime of secession, sedition, and subversion against the Central People's Government under the National Security Law. You are a person too dangerous to be kept alive. Now, you will be sentenced to death.”
He fucking knew it. This was the end of the road.
“Ready!” All guards lifted their rifles and they clicked as their magazines were loaded.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in.
“Take aim!”
“Sorry, Caaliyah. I won’t be back for Eid.”
----
¹ Peace be upon you.
² Peace be upon you too.

"Corn can't expect justice from a court composed of chickens." - Anonymous African Proverb
----
Water vapor was rising from the pools of water left by the torrential rains in the past few days. The whole place was a tepid steam bath. It usually was quite arid: if it were to ever rain, it would be only these few months. But the humidity was not the issue. Wherever water went, the mosquitos followed, and the entire place was a breeding ground for those blood-sucking pests. No wonder malaria was still a problem even in these days.
Even though the sun had yet to rise, the harsh beams of floodlights flooded the cell through its only window, between thick bars of steel. There was practically no difference whether the lights were switched on or off and the only way to tell time was a ubiquitous plastic clock that was hung on the wall. Aaden Mohamed Mahmoud laid out his prayer mat and began his morning prayers, trying his best to ignore the occasional buzzing and swatting whenever he felt something landing on him. Peeking at the guard while he was prone on the mat, his chants did not wake him up. This was confirmed by the audible snores echoing from his gaping mouth. Aaden had been here long enough to recognize the patrol schedules and it would not be another hour before there was a shift change. Time was of the essence and he could not afford to waste even a single second. He got to his feet, headed towards the window, produced a piece of scrap metal he managed to hide away from the guards, and proceeded to chisel this steel bar he had been working on since it started to rain. Despite the uncomfortable humidity and mosquito-borne parasites, at least the copious rainfall helped mask the grinding of metals in the past few nights. Although the rain had stopped tonight, putting him at a higher risk of being discovered, Aaden was quite determined to get out of this concrete cell. His wife and children were waiting for him at home and being in here was not going to feed them.
Snap.
The makeshift chisel halved from the accumulated abrasion. Aaden’s heart sank. He picked up the broken piece that fell onto the floor and took a good look at it. It looked salvageable, it would probably still work. He then fixed his eyes on the small dent he barely made on the bar, even a fingernail was probably thicker than whatever he did and he still had about two more inches to cut through. His eyes landed on the clock, decided to call it a day, and stored the two pieces of metal in a carefully hidden place. Aaden wondered if he would ever get out at this rate, or whether it would be quicker to just serve his whole sentence. From what he knew, this entire prison was probably built in the last few years. Every night when the guards were less alert, Aaden would look for every nook and cranny that showed any sign of structural weakness for his potential escape route. In the end, he concluded that his best bet would be through the steel bars. But even if he managed to chisel through them, then what? The entire complex was patrolled by more armed guards and there were watchtowers towering everyone that was in it. Then there were the barbed-wire-laced electric fences and beyond that, probably miles and miles of desert before he could reach Somalia again. That was if he could manage to overcome all of these hurdles.
Unable to stop his train of thought from ruminating again, Aaden helplessly rolled up his prayer mat, curled up in his bed, and tried to get more rest as he could. It was futile. Aaden felt like he was constantly falling into a bottomless pit as his mind kept replaying memories of why he ended up here in the first place like a broken recorder.
It had been decades since the first conflicts of the Somali civil war erupted and the whole country had been in shambles since. It was a time when nobody dared to venture out of their homes, especially alone. Regional warlords scramble to fill the power vacuum of the defunct government. separatists declared independence for Somaliland in the north, and militant jihadists were plaguing the lawless south. Despite foreign peacekeeping forces from the African Union, the entirety of Somalia was still essentially a warzone. As a teenager, Aaden dared not to even walk the streets near his house without his trusty AK-47, passed down from his grandfather. It was rusting and missing a few parts, but it still did its job to keep his family and him alive. There was so much uncertainty. Nobody knew when their hunger would be filled by the next meal, nobody knew when their thirst would be quenched by the next sip of water, nobody knew when their next breath would be their last. But one thing everyone was certain: life was hell.
The Federal Government was created after several attempts to instigate a central authority to stabilize the country. These promises the politicians proclaimed were empty to Somalis like Aaden. The fact that there were terrorists roaming freely in the streets of the capital and terrorizing her citizens was a disgrace to any respectable government. However, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the assassination of the President while he was visiting Merca, a port city near Mogadishu, and its fall to the Jihadists. It was then the Federal Government decided to finally do something. A phone call to Beijing was made and negotiations were almost immediately signed as soon as they were proposed. As part of the Sino-Somali Friendship Agreement, in exchange for the People Liberation Army’s involvement in quelling the jihadist insurgency, Mogadishu pledged to fully integrate Somalia into China’s Neo-Silk Road to benefit both countries’ economically. They were killing two birds with one stone. For the first time in Aaden’s life, things seemed to be changing for the good. What could possibly go wrong?
In weeks of deployment, the South Sea Fleet reached the Horn of Africa. To compare it with Zheng He’s treasure fleet was an understatement. The news of their arrival spread the country like wildfire. Aaden knew it was a stupid idea in hindsight, but the thought of these mysterious foreigners from the Orient who decided to help bring peace to his country out of their goodwill really stroked his unyielding curiosity. It was then he snuck out with his rifle to the shore to look at this so-called grand fleet he kept hearing about. It was there he could finally fathom what he had heard. The entire visible horizon was grey with warships, striking the air with towers and towers of radar detectors. Colossal cannons pointed high in the sky, as though they were soldiers saluting in a military parade at him. The grand fleet was battle-hardened from the Reunification of Taiwan, joined by a contingent from an overseas naval base in nearby Djibouti. Dozens of destroyers, aircraft carriers, heavy cruisers, and submarines were led by the battleship Yanan, sailing under the Five-starred Red Flag, ready to crush even more rebels. For the first time in his life, Aaden finally felt what hope was like.
What the Federal Government could not do in decades, the PLA did in a month. Enroute to the Horn of Africa, every detectable pirate ship on sonar was sent to Davy Jones' locker. For the first time in recent history, these seas were safe for fishermen and merchants to sail through. Jihadist-captured Merca was reduced to ashes with Chinese artillery shells in a week. Jilib, the headquarters of the jihadist group, fell within another. Other major rebel settlements were captured in the next. By the end of the month, there was virtually no sign of a walking militant jihadist in Somalia. This military maneuver was critically appraised by military strategists all around the world, some even going as far as commenting this operation being remarkably more successful than the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. At least, the Somali Civil War came to a close in the south. For the first time in his life, Aaden left his rifle at home. The air did not smell of gunpowder. Gunshots were replaced by the haggling and chattering of store owners and customers. With an empty ceramic jar, he headed to the village well to fill it up, and it was then when he first met his wife.
The agreement was fulfilled, but it left half of the country a war-torn wasteland. Politicians were left scratching their heads as even the trade policies in the Neo-Silk Road were not enough to patch up the damages done. Feeling it was their responsibility to fix the collateral damage of this act of liberation, hordes of Chinese businessmen decided to extend their hands to the government as a symbol of goodwill and thousands of development project contracts were signed very promptly. A year had not even passed and there were already towering skyscrapers in Merca in place of its ruins. Aaden’s village finally got connected to the country’s highway and railway network. More houses and local infrastructure was built and the sprawling settlement even nearly got promoted into a city. Seeing things that could not be even better, Aaden finally decided to tie the knot and start a family. He was sure that his children would not know the bitter taste of war.
It was only a matter of time the Federal Government realized they had no way to pay back all the debt from all these Chinese projects. Furthermore, knowing that the South China Fleet could just arrive at their doorsteps in days and also a sizable PLA deployment still in the country for peacekeeping missions, Mogadishu had no choice but to sign another agreement with Beijing. By nullifying half of what the Federal Government owed to these Chinese businessmen, the port city of Merca would be temporarily under Chinese sovereignty on a 999-year-lease. Pretty much as good as forever even with the lifespans of 30 generations.
That was many years ago when that happened anyways. Aaden always knew that Merca held opportunities for him to feed his family fuller than in the capital. The Chinese were always very generous when it came to salary, at least to Somali standards. He was lucky enough to land a contract as a transport operator in a newly constructed naval base there. Aaden even applied to get a passport just for this, since he never had to leave the country. Just the thought of going to a nearby city and having to do security checks at a border checkpoint in Somalia’s very soil perplexed him. Once the papers were all in order, he bid farewell to his loving family and headed to this Chinese city in his country.
Being surrounded by signs with strange characters made of complicated strokes on massive LED complexes that covered cloud-reaching skyscrapers was truly an overwhelming experience for Aaden. Everything here was nothing quite like Mogadishu, the largest city he had ever visited. His jaw dropped open and eyes darted back and forth, pressing his face on the window to savor the sights of this foreign city throughout the ride to the naval base he was going to work in. Once there, Aaden was greeted by a comfortable bed and filling meals. Oh, how he wished that the rest of his family could be here with him. With the thought of them benefiting from his labors, Aaden made sure he did his very best every day.
A few months passed and it was going to be Eid al-Fitr soon. Aaden’s annual leave was approved then so that he could return and celebrate with his family. Then he could finally see them not just through a 6-inch screen, but with his very own eyes. He wanted to pick his children up to see how much they’ve grown. He wanted to taste the Cambuulo his wife promised to cook for him. The grueling heat was harsh to him in this month of Ramadan but Aaden was determined to pull through this. His toil would make his family happy. His train of thought immediately jammed on the brakes when he suddenly spotted a Chinese soldier on his back, with his knee at an unnatural angle.
“A- are you okay, sir?” Aaden leaped out of his truck and tried to speak in his best Mandarin.
Visibly distressed, the soldier shook his head. He was clearly in too much pain to speak.
“Wh- Who did this to you? What happened?” Aaden panicked as his eyes scanned up and down the soldier’s body. His right shin was touching his thigh and Aaden could not help but cringe whenever that came to sight. The tarmac beneath him was dyed crimson from his gaping wound. The soldier’s breathing was quick and shallow. He looked as pale as a ghost. Aaden knew he was going to die.
“H- Hold on!” Aaden wrapped his arm around his neck as he tried to lift him up. “I’ll get you to a hospital!”
Unfortunately, Aaden’s efforts were futile. The soldier had already bled to death before he could get any help. His heart was full of sorrow and all he could do was to pray for him and his family. As he was waiting to fill in some paperwork, two Chinese men in black suits approached him, “Are you the one who found Sergeant Li Fang?”
“Yes, sir.” He nodded. “I saw him lying on-”
“You are under arrest for manslaughter with intent, under Article 232 of the Socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics. Anything you say will be used against you.” One of them announced, as the other handcuffed him from the back.
No. This can’t be happening. Aaden thought. This can’t be true.
The trio ripped themselves from the stares at the hospital and Aaden sat between his captors in a police car. Before he knew it he found himself in front of a judge with the two suited men pressing him down in his seat.
“Y-Your Honor! Please believe me!” Tears were welling up in Aaden’s eyes, “I’m innoce-”
“Silence!” The boom of the gavel echoed in the courtroom. “It is not your turn to speak! One more sound and you will be in contempt! Please continue your testimony, Prosecutor Zheng.”
“Yes, your honor. As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted by this unevolved ape, the victim was clearly severely injured when the defendant arrived at the scene. The defendant decided that he was going to take the victim to the hospital, but unfortunately the victim passed away on the way there. Surely, it is the defendant’s fault for such negligence as it had caused not only the victim's death, but a family has lost their loving son and China has lost a capable soldier! The defendant should be harshly punished for his sins!” A middle-aged man with glasses slammed the table as he condemned Aaden. His spit was visibly flying in all directions as he spoke.
“And what does the defendant have to say?” The judge paid no interest to Aaden and flipped over a few sheets of paper in her file.
“I… I-” His tongue was stiff and his throat was frozen. His words just would not leave his mouth.
“I’ve heard enough!” The judge grasped her gavel impatiently and slammed it once more. Once the room returned to silence, she announced, “I hereby declare you, Aaden Mohamed Mahmoud, guilty for manslaughter. You will be sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years.”
With that, he found himself in blue overalls with a serial number, locked behind bars. His uncomfortable clothes reminded him of his Muslim brethren in those Uyghur concentration camps he had heard of as a child.
The guards had confiscated his phone when he came in. There was really no way to contact his family. Just the thought of them worrying why he did not show up for Eid was already too heartbreaking for him. As a few tears rolled down his cheeks, Aaden tried to remind himself to stay strong as he laid on his bed, blankly stared at the ceiling, waiting for nightfall, and to continue with his escape plan. What seemed like hours passed when the rattling of steel gates startled him as it caught him off guard.
“Salaam alaykum¹, brother.” A tall and lean Somali in the same clothes as him stepped into his cell before guards locked them shut again. “My name is Suleymaan.”
“Wa alaykum salaam², brother.” Aaden sat up and offered a handshake. The two cellmates sat on their beds, across each other. Finally, there was someone else who would listen to his troubles and concerns. He could not help it but tell him everything in his mind. From the moment he landed his contract to the very first day he was a prisoner. Hours passed like minutes and before they knew it, the sun was already setting, “So, what are you in for?”
“I also work at the naval base as you, but I was a cleaner for an admiral, not a driver like you.” Suleymaan already felt like he had a connection with Aaden after hearing his story, “Anyways I have been working there for a few years until the admiral got a promotion and went back to China. So after this, I was working for a new admiral, but I did not like him.”
“And why is that?” Aaden interrupted. His experience with his former Chinese superiors was relatively a good one. One of them was even patient enough to teach him enough Mandarin to get around the city without any difficulty. Sometimes, they would even take him to restaurants and try out China’s myriad of cuisines. He felt sorry for him to have such a bad experience at work.
“He was very rude to me unlike his predecessor and always shouted at me for nothing. But this is not the main point.” Suleymaan frowned as he recalled his tale, “He was friends with a former K9 specialist, so he was given this German Shepherd as a gift. The dog was very fierce and barked loudly. You could hear it barking down a few blocks. Wherever the new admiral went, the dog always followed him. I think that the dog liked to bully me because whenever it saw me it liked to bark at me and even chase me around!”
“Oh no, that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen!” Aaden frowned as a memory emerged subconsciously. Back in the waning days of the civil war, when his village was under control of a warlord clan, his mercenaries would often patrol the streets and harass almost every villager they bumped into, usually with insults or demanding food and money. The image of an old man with nothing to offer being mauled alive by dogs was still etched clearly in his mind. At least those days were long gone.
“Precisely!” Suleymaan snapped at the opportunity to agree immediately. “Then one day when I was cleaning the admiral’s office when he was out for a smoke, the evil dog came out of nowhere and bit me in the leg! It was so painful, I screamed as loud as I could but no one could hear me. I tried to pull the dog’s mouth apart but it didn’t work, and it bit even harder! See! Look at my leg!”
Suleymaan lifted his trouser legs to reveal a mere shaft that looked like skin wrapping bone. A healthy chunk of his right calf was missing and around it was clearly lined with bite marks that sank deep into his flesh. An ambiguously whitish translucent thing looked like it was wiggling around in one of the holes created by the bite marks. Aaden thought the smell was probably a blocked pipe from the neighboring cell, but this confirmed the source. Resisting the urge to let bring up his last meal, Aaden clenched his jaw and hoped that it would work.
“I’m sorry you had to see that. But there was nothing I could do!” Suleymaan covered himself up, “So I did what I could to save my life! I crushed my hands around the mad dog’s neck! It would have killed me if I didn’t kill it first!
“Exactly!” Aaden sat at the edge of his bed all riled up. He believed that animals usually would not be so violent unless triggered or conditioned by such cruel masters, as he had witnessed, “So what happened next?”
“When the admiral came back and saw his dog lying on the floor, he was furious!” Suleymaan raised his fist as a gesture of anger, “He shouted, scolded me, and even kicked me! He said the dog’s life was worth more than mine and I would pay dearly for this! The admiral should be locked up instead of me for neglecting his filthy dog! These people have no respect for human life. I rather go back to Somalia to work instead, even if they don’t pay me as much.”
Dumbfounded by Suleymaan’s reason for being here and sensing his resentment against his captors, Aaden decided to share his plan to escape after the coast was clear. After all, two men chiseling was better than just one.
“Oh good. I like the idea.” Suleymaan lowered his voice, “There is no way I will spend 20 years of my life here!”
Aaden hushed him for speaking too loud. The guards could become suspicious if they talked too much. With a few basic hand gestures, he let Suleymaan know the time when they had to get to work. Until then, the two laid on their beds for they would need to rest. Aaden was baffled by how his cellmate had to serve double his time for something like that. And I thought Somalia’s justice system was absurd, he thought.
The clock’s hand struck at the right hour and as expected the cell was still illuminated by the floodlights outside. Suleymaan’s sonorous snores resonated from the other side of the cell, oddly enough, was in synchrony with the sleeping guard’s in the corridor.
“Psst.” Aaden shook Suleymaan on the shoulder, “Get up. It’s time.”
“What?” Suleyman reluctantly opened his eyes and squinted as he adjusted his bearings, “Already? Tell me what to do.”
“Here. you’ll need this.” Aaden produced one of the broken pieces of his makeshift chisel and handed it to him. “Should be quite self-explanatory. Head back to bed immediately and pretend to sleep if you hear any footsteps.”
He nodded and the two cellmates then headed over to the window. Aaden continued with the dent he made so far, while Suleymaan pondered to decide which bar he should pick, then chose the one furthest from Aaden’s to make more space between them. Maybe an hour or two passed, as Aaden’s fingers started to hurt where he was holding the metal piece.
Clack. Cluck. Clack. Cluck.
Aaden’s eyes widened as he turned his head towards the other side of the room. He anxiously patted Suleymaan on his shoulder for his attention, urgently pointed at his bed with a finger in front of his lips, then slipped back to it. He tried to lie as still as possible but his heart felt like it was going to pop out of his chest at any moment as adrenaline was coursing through his veins. Expecting his accomplice to do the same, Aaden was petrified to see that Suleymaan was still standing by the window, as if his instructions were far from clear. In the blink of an eye, Suleymaan darted to the opposite side of the room and began frantically slamming onto the railings by the cell door, shouting at the sleeping guard at the top of his lungs and echoing down the entire prison corridor, “Officer! He’s trying to escape! He’s trying to escape through the windows!”
The clacking and clucking intensified as Suleymaan continued to howl like a mad dog. The snores stopped and more footsteps could be heard approaching their cell. With a clink and a clank, Aaden could hear the cell door swoop open and two rifles were pointed at him.
“It’s him, officer!” Suleymaan pointed at him, with a face of disgust as if he were a rat just spotted crawling out of a sewer pipe, “It’s him!”
“Alright, put your hands up slowly. No funny business.” One of the guards said in a stern voice. “Now turn around and lie flat on the floor. No sudden movements.”
“Or we’ll fucking shoot you.” The other guard added, annoyed that his sleep was disturbed.
Aaden had no choice but to comply with their orders. He could feel the cold shackles being cuffed around his wrists. An unexpected forceful yank brought him up to his knees, making him nearly fall on his side from losing balance. The moment when he got on his feet, a metal muzzle was already dug into his back. Aaden flinched from the pain and walked wherever the rifle led him. Through the cell door, he and the guard disappeared down the seemingly endless corridor.
“Now, about my reward...” Suleymaan turned to the other guard with a smile on his face, satisfied with his service, “You’ll put in a good word for the warden right?”
“What’s your serial number again?” The guard asked.
‘Er... 21… 21719, sir.“ Suleymaan looked down at his tag on his uniform before looking back at the guard. His grin grew wider on his face, though it quickly transformed into a grimace. A fist sank uncomfortably deep into his gut, promptly sending him flying across the room and hitting his head into the wall.
Struggling to get up, Suleymaan was on his elbow, rubbing his belly as he was retching out acid on the floor. The ache on his head was unbearable as well, feeling as if it had nearly split open right there. He could feel a warm trickle down his temple, joining up the sour fluid at the edge of his mouth, down his chin before dripping the floor scarlet. Confused, he whimpered, “What was… What was that for?”
“That’s from Admiral Zhang.” The guard gave a cruel smirk, then spat something foul and viscous that landed squarely on the prisoner’s face, ‘And that’s for selling your ‘friend’ out, traitor.’
“You’ll still... You’ll still put in a word for me right?” Suleymaan was choking and struggled to get words out of his mouth.
“Oh yeah, that? No. You don’t deserve it, traitorous mutt.” The guard headed back to the door and locked it shut, “And now that you’ve woken everyone on this block by ratting him out, good luck surviving here.”
----
Down the winding corridors, Aaden was unaware of his cellmate’s fate, not that he cared at all. How could he be so careless? He should have known. How could he have trusted someone he just met? What a fool I’ve been, he thought. If only that damned Suleymaan was not put in the same cell as him, none of this would have happened at all. More importantly, there was no way he would be leaving this place before Eid, or even in the next 10 years. Why was all of this happening to him? If only he did not stop for the soldier and ignored him, or decided not to work on that day, or not even work in Merca at all, none of this would have happened. He wondered what they would do to him. Lengthen his sentence maybe? Another 5 years? 10? 20? Or even his whole life? Was he able to see his wife and children ever again? Were they going to send him to some Muslim re-education camp in China he often heard about? Nothing but the worst possible outcomes he could imagine were racing through his mind.
He felt a cool breeze against his face. He was outside. For quite a while actually. All of this ruminating did not make him even realize that. Squinting past the bright floodlights the watchtowers shone on him, he could see high rise buildings shifting between vibrant colors with their millions of LED lights just behind the silhouette of barbed wire sitting on the ashen concrete walls.
As the two were heading towards a corner of the perimeter, Aaden found himself joined by a few more armed guards. A part of him thought of just making a run for it. Another part of him simply slammed down this absurd idea, there was no way he could outrun six guns and he was practically a fish out of water. In the midst of the crunching of gravel beneath their feet, he could hear a guard trying to talk softly to another, as if he did not want Aaden to overhear them.
“What charge should we use? What about disturbance of peace?” One of them muttered.
“No disturbance of peace doesn't give you that. Use… Use promotion of separatism.” The other replied after a bit of thought.
“"Oh okay, let's use that.” He agreed.
Eventually, they approached closer to the corner. Aaden noticed that the sandy ground was stained with a rusty tinge. A metallic scent he was way too familiar with shot up his nose. He had an idea of what was going to happen already.
“Go over there and turn around.” The guard behind him ordered. Once Aaden stood in front of the six guards, he continued, “Prisoner 24601, you have been caught red-handed for an attempted prison escape. By doing so you have committed Article 64 of the Socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics, which is punishable by lengthening your jail sentence by another 15 years. However, we also suspect that you have been promoting ideas of separatism. You have committed a grave crime of secession, sedition, and subversion against the Central People's Government under the National Security Law. You are a person too dangerous to be kept alive. Now, you will be sentenced to death.”
He fucking knew it. This was the end of the road.
“Ready!” All guards lifted their rifles and they clicked as their magazines were loaded.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in.
“Take aim!”
“Sorry, Caaliyah. I won’t be back for Eid.”
----
¹ Peace be upon you.
² Peace be upon you too.

To know Mazda Motor Corp. – its people, its products, its outsized place in the automotive landscape – first you must know Hiroshima, Mazda's home and birthplace.
And so, on this cool morning, I am standing in brilliant sunshine beside a monument that represents the heart and soul of Hiroshima, an aged and broken trade hall from the 1940s that speaks to the courage and resilience of the city. I am also looking at a message to the world – a message of peace, and of reconstruction and invention. This is Hiroshima's story. And Mazda's.
Go back nearly 70 years, to August, 1945. As Mazda president Jujiiro Matsuda is celebrating his 70th birthday, Little Boy is exiting the bomb bay doors of the Enola Gay. In seconds, the first atomic bomb detonates 600 metres directly above the Hiroshima Prefecture Industrial Promotion Hall. The devastation is unimaginable.
Just above this spot, at the hypocentre of the A-bomb explosion, the temperature reaches 3,871 C. One mile from here, hurricane-force winds of up to 310 km/h level buildings. About 140,000 of the estimated 340,000 residents of Hiroshima eventually will die as a result -- the blast itself kills tens of thousands, more are incinerated by the raging inferno, others perish weeks later from radiation sickness.
What is now known as the A-Bomb Dome was, in 1945, an architectural landmark. Little Boy killed everyone in and around the dome, but much of the building survived. It is part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, which includes a museum that traces the history of Hiroshima from local seat of government, to military and industrial town, to A-bomb victim, to survivor. All this is central to understanding Mazda's rise.
In 1945, Mazda was Toyo Kogyo Co. Ltd., a maker of three-wheel trucks and military hardware. Just days after the blast, the company was back building those trucks, and part of company headquarters housed the Hiroshima prefectural government.
By the middle of August, Emperor Hirohito had taken to the radio to announce Japan's surrender, ending the Second World War. And, says Mazda Motor marketing director Mashahiro Moro today, the "determination for peace" and reconstruction had begun. In Hiroshima, that put Toyo Kogyo, and later Mazda, at the centre of a massive rebuilding effort.
Hiroshima, today a city of 1.2 million on the Seto Inland Sea, is a four-hour ride by bullet train from Tokyo. Isolated and largely alone, Hiroshima and Mazda rebuilt together. Today, Mazda accounts for about one-third of Hiroshima's GDP.
Moro says the reconstruction of Hiroshima and the reinvention of Mazda are rooted in the local "never-give-up spirit – the spirit of Hiroshima." As Hiroshima grew, so did Mazda. By the late 1950s, Mazda was making four-wheel vehicles. The Cosmo rotary sports car arrived in the 1960s, the RX-7 in the 1970s, the Miata/MX-5 in the 1980s – and a first win for any Japanese car company at Le Mans, in 1991.
By the early 1990s, Mazda was flying – winning races and awards. This, Mazda insiders say, led to over-confidence. Mazda envisioned an opportunity to challenge the biggest Japanese car companies, Toyota Motor and Nissan Motor. Mazda invested in a wide range of new models and technologies and set up the framework of a luxury brand to be called Amati, one to challenge Toyota's Lexus and Nissan's Infiniti.
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All this stretched Mazda's financial resources to the limit. And when a financial downturn arrived in the early 1990s, Mazda found itself flirting with bankruptcy. Ford Motor, a long-time partner, came to Mazda's financial rescue, starting an ever-deepening relationship that essentially ended in 2008 because Ford needed to focus on restructuring its business to avoid insolvency at another time of financial crisis.
Today, Mazda is independent, executing a product plan with roots to 2006. You know it by the marketing term "SkyActiv" – a suite of design and technology initiatives focused on making vehicles that are efficient and entertaining to drive. Mazda's way forward is clear – to build vehicles that "celebrate driving," says Moro. There's a market for them.
What Mazda in 2013 understands is that "We're not Toyota," says Masamichi Kogai, the CEO of Mazda Motor. Mazda is again profitable after five years of losses and the company plans to grow sales worldwide, aiming for 1.7 million by 2016.
Mazda's recovery plan has Kogai's fingers all over it. Before taking the top job this past summer, he was manufacturing and purchasing chief. In that role, he was central to reorganizing the company in its post-Ford days, along with penning the business plan and creating a lower cost production base so that exports could compete around the world, regardless of the value of the yen (always an issue for Mazda, which exports 70 per cent of its production from Hiroshima to 120 countries, including Canada).
Mazda, says Moro, "wants to punch above its weight." That means fostering sales of premium vehicles without premium sticker prices.
Moro says Mazda isn't BMW, or Audi or Mercedes, and doesn't aspire to be. But to be successful, he says, Mazda needs to offer customers "superb value," adding, "Mazda premium means we offer our own brand value."
The seeds of all this, SkyActiv and such, were planted under Ford management but executed by Mazda.
Today's product development chief, Seita Kanai, worked under Joe Bakaj, now Ford vice-president of global product development. Twice, he has taken me inside the SkyActiv push, all the way to the early days of Mazda's effort in the late 2000s to revamp power-train technology, change manufacturing systems and redesign vehicles. Unlike Toyota and others, Mazda chose to devote scarce resources to refining internal combustion engines – both gasoline and diesel. The bet on gasoline and diesel flew in the face of what was happening in Japan. Hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius and Honda Fit dominated domestic sales in Japan then and still do.
But Mazda persisted and, last year, the first full SkyActiv model – the CX-5 sport-utility vehicle – went on sale.
Worldwide sales have exceeded targets. This fall, the 2014 Mazda3 compact went on sale, also a SkyActiv model. Next year, a new plant opens in Mexico to help Mazda meet global demand for the Mazda3 and to produce the Mazda2.
In 2012, Mazda produced the fifth-most passenger cars among Japanese manufacturers, 830,000, after Toyota (3.17 million), Nissan (1.04 million), Honda (997,000) and Suzuki (897,000).
"The last five years have been tough," says Kogai through a translator at the Tokyo Motor Show. But the emphasis on diesel and gasoline-powered vehicles before moving on to developing hybrid and battery-powered cars was the right choice. Indeed, a hybrid version of the Mazda3 is on sale in Japan, though Mazda won't confirm it for Canada.
Kogai says Mazda is ready for growth. Attractive products and a favourable exchange rate are helping Mazda juice profits to levels not seen in more than a decade. Still, the comeback is in its infancy; nothing is guaranteed.
The new plant in Mexico must come on line. Mazda needs to forge alliances and partnerships with other auto makers to compensate for its small size. Hybrid technology, for instance, is coming from Toyota. A tie-up with Italian auto maker Fiat SpA will help Mazda deliver the new Miata roadster – in conjunction with a new Alfa Romeo sports car, too. And the yen may yet again prove a problem.