The cabin shakes violently as I quiver in my seat inside this roaring mechanical bird putting together all the tiny pieces in this ever so big puzzle of my life, what do my children look like, what will my wife think of me, what does she look like and will she ever forgive me for abandoning them. It’s been twenty years of living in Australia twenty years since I’ve last seen my family twenty long heart piercing years of thoughts, grieving and hearing my wife’s goodbyes as my newborn cries this image stuck on repeat like a broken record ticking over in my head. I left my family in the war torn country of Iraq a place where I shared their culture share beliefs this place I once called home. You are condemned in your home like a convicted criminal in his concrete confines of his jail cell. Every day death strikes to take his souls to the afterlife as the bombs drop from the metal birds in the sky and the whistling rain of exploding fire showers the earth. This rain of death bulldozers any poor soul in its path. I chose to leave my culture, my family, my friends even my wife in hope to find a better life by selling myself to these domineering people smugglers who forced me to embark on a discovery with 100 other refugees on a boat which gave an eerie ghost presence filled the air as we boarded the boat looked like it been raided by pirates with hundreds of cannon holes on portside smoke filled the air from the engine room we sailed into the sunset for 12 days. The first day people became ill and could not stop vomiting I had no-one, no contact with my wife or my newborn child warm tears hugged my face as I dreamt of holding my newborn the tears soon grew into rapids gushing out of my eyes as the thought of my wife flashed into my mind briefly, crash the floating scrap metal hit a monstrous wave sending people over board the smell of stomach bile and fear was present in the air. The haunting screams of the women and children echoed in the small fishing boat I crashed into the ship’s deck as the force of Mother Nature bowed over the boat hurling people over board like stunt dummies on a Hollywood movie set the continuous strike of the remorseless wave’s dragged body into David Jones locker. Finally after six days of relentless battering the storm released its grasp on the tiny fishing boat and the captain set sail for the unknown once more. Everyone is going crazy I haven’t seen land in ten days now I feel weak there is no food on the boat and very little protection from the exhausting element then suddenly the captain comes out roaring and frantically waving his hands telling us to hide the whole but goes quiet the creaking of the wooden ship is all that is heard until a sharp piercing voice yells over the P.A system STOP THE BOAT NOW! I haer the captain swearing as he violently turns the engines of and gets ready to be boarded be this mysterious boat. There is silence suddenly from the unknown boat a quick concession of ear ringing bangs is heard everyone panics and reveals themselves from hiding these white ghost like figures with guns and uniforms forced us to board there ship one sleepless day later we hit the desolate shores of Christmas island I couldn’t speak
