DISCLAIMER: Even though this isn’t a fanfiction, I feel obliged to include a disclaimer here. This is not supposed to be an al-Qaeda or any other Middle Eastern group. Many terrorist groups use sleeper cells. I know, I watch NCIS :). At any rate, anyone who tells me I am being racist or bigoted will have their review promptly deleted.

AUTHOR’S NOTES: This was based on previews I saw for the show Sleeper Cell. The whole concept of undercover work has always fascinated me in some kind of sick way, maybe because it’s similar to acting.

SLEEPER

Sometimes, it is easy for me to forget that I am a sleeper.

I live in this country, my children go to school, my husband is a member of the Kiwanis club, I am president of the PTA. We live here, we work here, we act like we belong here.

But we don’t.

We are trained to blend in, trained to look and act like citizens.

But we’re not.

We could be here for months, years, decades before we get a call. And when we get that call, everything we have become will evaporate like water from a hot stove. We will become agents of our cause again.

Part of me doesn’t want that. I like my life here. I enjoy volunteering at events in my son’s school. I like playing hostess for my daughter’s friends. My children have a better life here than they would have had in our home country.

However, I must never lose sight of the goal. We are terrorist agents, and that is what we are here to do. Until we receive our orders, we are only actors on the stage, playing a role so effectively that nobody has the faintest clue who we are. I must always remember that.

No matter how easy it is to forget.