The Country from Hell
Closing your eyes tightly and plugging your ears with your fingers, you wait for the ringing to stop. As you are finally engulfed once again in silence, you wonder regretfully what important opportunity you might have just forfeited. You turn your head sideways and stare at that useless computer sitting on your desk. It doesn't belong here in your dingy little apartment. If your cousin really wanted to help you, she'd have bought you a new refrigerator so you wouldn't always have to be gagging on the stench of rotten cabbage. The computer seems to be laughing at you, sitting there smugly in all its pristine uselessness. If you don't get it fixed today, you think you really will throw it out the window.
Dropping the laptop carelessly into a worn shoulder bag, you walk into the next room where your grandmother has fallen sound asleep in front of the television, snoring as usual. You wonder how much longer she has to live. You walk down the long gray hallway with its single flickering bulb hanging from the ceiling, down the cement stairs and out onto the overgrown yard littered with broken custia bottles. Hot isn't even the word for the weather today. Looking into your purse, you realize that you have just enough for a cab fare to the one place in the city that can replace your ridiculous American part. A car pulls over instantly, almost before you've raised your hand. Most of the cars on the street are in fact taxis, run by six legitimate companies and two crooked ones that make up for all the holes in the public transportation system. Almost all cars in Iad are Mintis, the national brand named after your fabled Mintirian ancestors. They look like boxes and run like demented donkeys, but they sure do last forever.
The taxi drops you off in front of City Hall, number 6 Memorandum Street. Two damp-looking Iadian flags hang limply at the entrance. Your knees feel weak; sweat is dripping slowly down your thighs. There is no relief, anywhere.
With a true Iadian scowl on your face, you walk slowly down the street, tightly clutching the little piece of paper with the name, address and telephone number of Socrates Computers in your fist. Passing City Hall, you find yourself at 2 Memorandum Street. Where is number 4? You stop dead in your tracks, looking in both directions. A woman walking towards you stares with annoying Iadian nosiness, so you glare back at her. You can feel the heat rising up from the dirty sidewalk, through your body and all over your face. A sweat breaks at your temples and you swipe it angrily away with the back of your hand. Why can nothing be easy in Iad? Why do numbers disappear? Why is it so hot in summer and so cold in winter? Why can't anyone smile?
Then you see it-a narrow alley that you had missed both times you walked by it. On the inside wall of the alley, under a tattered blue advertisement for a defunct radio station, is a faded number 4. At the end of the alleyway is a steel gate. Opening the gate, you find yourself in a deserted courtyard. Grass grows long through cracks in the asphalt; a decomposing Minti sits tilted against a wall, cinderblocks supporting what were once its two right tires. The Minti looks sad to you, so you frown compassionately back at it.
You look to the right. There is a flight of crumbling white steps leading to a door you can't see on the second story. To the left, at the end of the courtyard, is an open door surrounded by empty Bear-Beer cans. There is no signage anywhere. Well, you have a 50-50 chance, but with your Iadian luck, you'll probably choose the wrong one. So where the hell is Socrates Computers?
Dropping the laptop carelessly into a worn shoulder bag, you walk into the next room where your grandmother has fallen sound asleep in front of the television, snoring as usual. You wonder how much longer she has to live. You walk down the long gray hallway with its single flickering bulb hanging from the ceiling, down the cement stairs and out onto the overgrown yard littered with broken custia bottles. Hot isn't even the word for the weather today. Looking into your purse, you realize that you have just enough for a cab fare to the one place in the city that can replace your ridiculous American part. A car pulls over instantly, almost before you've raised your hand. Most of the cars on the street are in fact taxis, run by six legitimate companies and two crooked ones that make up for all the holes in the public transportation system. Almost all cars in Iad are Mintis, the national brand named after your fabled Mintirian ancestors. They look like boxes and run like demented donkeys, but they sure do last forever.
The taxi drops you off in front of City Hall, number 6 Memorandum Street. Two damp-looking Iadian flags hang limply at the entrance. Your knees feel weak; sweat is dripping slowly down your thighs. There is no relief, anywhere.
With a true Iadian scowl on your face, you walk slowly down the street, tightly clutching the little piece of paper with the name, address and telephone number of Socrates Computers in your fist. Passing City Hall, you find yourself at 2 Memorandum Street. Where is number 4? You stop dead in your tracks, looking in both directions. A woman walking towards you stares with annoying Iadian nosiness, so you glare back at her. You can feel the heat rising up from the dirty sidewalk, through your body and all over your face. A sweat breaks at your temples and you swipe it angrily away with the back of your hand. Why can nothing be easy in Iad? Why do numbers disappear? Why is it so hot in summer and so cold in winter? Why can't anyone smile?
Then you see it-a narrow alley that you had missed both times you walked by it. On the inside wall of the alley, under a tattered blue advertisement for a defunct radio station, is a faded number 4. At the end of the alleyway is a steel gate. Opening the gate, you find yourself in a deserted courtyard. Grass grows long through cracks in the asphalt; a decomposing Minti sits tilted against a wall, cinderblocks supporting what were once its two right tires. The Minti looks sad to you, so you frown compassionately back at it.
You look to the right. There is a flight of crumbling white steps leading to a door you can't see on the second story. To the left, at the end of the courtyard, is an open door surrounded by empty Bear-Beer cans. There is no signage anywhere. Well, you have a 50-50 chance, but with your Iadian luck, you'll probably choose the wrong one. So where the hell is Socrates Computers?