Seven Days

Another night I cannot sleep...it's 4 a.m.
Someone's rooster is announcing morning and in one hour I will begin to hear the sounds of India waking up - men coughing up masala from the night before, and the coconut peddler (or maybe he won't come, if he misses Raj Kumar).

I go outside to our tiny balcony to see if I can figure out where the neighbors keep their creature but we are surrounded by apartment buildings; it must be on a balcony of it's own somewhere, I suppose.
But it isn't the rooster keeping me awake, it's my socially gifted anxiety.

I've been to some unusual places on this planet - but none that were at odds with my country, none that had been so villified as the gravitational center to The Axis of Evil - enemy number one - the negative media darling...
But in the end, there isn't anywhere I wouldn't go - the old promise to myself holds true: "Always accept an invitation."

There are seven days between me and Tehran, and I can feel it.