Iraqi Blogger: Next Door To Armed Men

One of the bad experiences I had as a child was in a flat the whole family agreed was the ugliest and scariest. My sister named it the Pink House based on the hideous paint coating the exterior walls.

The landlord was so proud of the eyesore of his creation; the super-spacious kitchen, the nice bathroom with the non-flushable toilet, the large rooftop littered with an awful lot of pigeon eggshells and poop, and most importantly, the balcony and the windows, so large to make the landlord proud, but it was recommended that we buy thick curtains and we'd better not draw them!

We had to bear with stuffy rooms. For one thing, we lived next door to the notorious Intelligence Agency, who were said to have warned old residents to not venture peep into their premise, lest we'd be in big trouble. I wondered what Big Trouble meant; were they going to shoot us, or apprehend mum for questioning and then deport her, or send someone to terrorize us or evict us? I could never tell.

I was so curious, but too scared to take a look. I only did it once and saw nothing but trees. But that did not stop the nightmares and sleepless nights of men in uniform breaking into our residence and huge rats nibbling at my toes, which later on, turned out to be a fixture of this house.

The house could make a perfect set for scary movies, particularly after a neighbor saw a creepy figure trying to break her window, who according to the authorities, was a prisoner break attempt.