Cecil was running. The sun beat down and the pervading noise of cicadas, or locusts, or some loud maraca-like insect beat it’s wings, creating an atmosphere Cecil recognized from documentaries of deserts. The sand beneath his feet, and the dry, desperate conditions of his throat were real enough as he gasped for air and brought his mind around the his situation. This wasn’t a documentary, Cecil was running in a real desert. He was learning as well. Not both at the same time, of course. Cecil was running to catch up with the caravan, and in the past few weeks he had been learning. The language, the culture, and the necessities to survive. Cecil did little else than run, learn, eat (occasionally), and sleep.

The man had set him up with what Cecil discovered was an illicit caravan dealing in kidnapping and human trafficking. Apparently, there was an acceptable form of taking and selling human beings, and a frowned upon form. Cecil was a card carrying member of the latter. He didn’t know this at first, getting his hands dirty only with real, tangible dirt from carrying and pushing and digging. He was kicked around and probably would’ve given up, but an ethereal force spurred him onwards. It may have been stubbornness on Cecil’s part, or his father’s voice saying “Kiddo, there are three despicable crimes in this life: murder, blasphemy, and quitting.” Whatever form of perseverance drove him onward, Cecil was lodged in a business he had only read about. This was real, and real was a rarity in Cecil’s old life: a life he hardly lived at all, really. The memories of coworkers and acquaintances, of family members he hardly spoke to, of pop culture and American history, they took a backseat to his current situation.

Cecil felt, for the first time, free.

In college, Cecil had taken linguistics courses, and forming the basic structures of syntax and subtle clues of body language together into a useable vocabulary had been a surprisingly useful product of those courses. He had taken several courses in Human Relations, Psychology, and Linguistics, hoping to someday be some sort of pacifist or an ambassador or some far off dream he could hardly remember dreaming. Cecil was sure when his professor had said they could one day brandish the skills they picked up in Linguistics, he had meant being lost, misplacing your guidebook, or even a kidnapping or something.

There was that word: “kidnapping.” Isn’t that what had happened to him? It was certainly the business he was dealing in now, and his business partners, a motley crew of rough men, were moving ahead of him. Cecil spat on the ground and wiped his brow, picking up his jog again to catch up. He almost ran into the back of A’zam, doing a clumsy impersonation of a juke before falling on his hands in the sand. A’zam laughed, a barking, terrifying sound, and picked Cecil up. Cecil was unsure of his relationship with this colossus of a man, but he smiled in return,

“Shukran”

Cecil’s deplorable pronunciation for the Arabic word for “Thank you” made A’zam laugh all the harder, showing his fifty percent ratio of teeth to spaces in his mouth. A’zam smacked Cecil on the shoulder and walked on. Cecil winced and stretched out his shoulder before doing the same.