Let me start this off first and foremost by saying that I don't believe in god, ghost, spirits, whatever else. That's 'cos I'm an intellectual of course. I don't believe in anything that doesn't show their face. And as far as I am concerned, neither should you.

Take the Yellow Shirts for example. Can you see their face? No, 'cos their faces are covered by Gucci sunglasses. Even if they ever were removed, you'd probably see deceit and the thirst to exploit in their eyes. Or something like that. Definitely mirroring the Yellow Shirts of America, that's for sure. What else to keep a progressive party divided than to privileged white anger, and direct it in the wrong direction? Before I get side-tracked, I don't believe in an ideology that underestimates the man kicked down, or the fact they don't know if they want capitalism or a dictatorship. Flip flop hoes.

Back to the topic of God. I don't believe in him. I can't bring myself to. Doesn't seem like a cool dude, if I'm being honest. What kind of guy just twirls the world and just watch everybody go buck wild on it? That's like, entertainment. Sadistic entertainment.

However, when the little girl kicked a ball at me a couple blocks down from the IDC, I hesitated. She was covered from head to toe in some type of garment. It was a niqab but I didn't know that. I was only about five, I wasn't an intellectual then. Yet.

I can't put it into words, something about her vibe was off. Something about her very spirit drew me in, starkly contrasting my wariness. And har har— don't bother pointing out my bout of spirituality. It's different from religion. Nonetheless, I kicked the ball back because my mom taught me well, even though I didn't get to see her a lot.

The girl was surprised. Pretty sad if I do say myself, but who am I to talk when I had zero friends. She even began to approach me, even abandoning the ball. When she was close enough, she asked barely above a whisper if I believed in God. I merely shrugged. Then I could see her eyes smile. To be honest, I'm a proud atheist, but it was a little early in our acquaintance to discuss politics and religion.

"I am Asiah. Lisa, you are destined for greatness."

From there we played some more, then she somehow snuck me into the IDC. We sat in the crowded room in the detention center, and I looked at the foreign faces from the west of Asia.

"They abandoned us here. The west, our own governments, and the U.N," she explained. "I only came back to see my ummah struggling. The place that holds Mecca sold us out for dollars. Imagine that!"

I followed along and nodded like I understood. I didn't, but from the sound of it, it was pretty ed. I think the word she was looking for was exploitation though, I heard my father say that a lot when he ranted about the yellow shirts. He joined the red shirts sometime before this prologue and I hadn't seen much of him after that, just like my mother.

"We need someone who will fight for people like us. People like you," she picked up a stack of big books from the corner of the room. The Communist Manifesto, Huey Newton autobiography, some law books. "I'm going to educate you. Because the only way to fight people with guns is with words and laws they don't even follow." I only stared at her. "My book collection isn't that big now, but that'll change in the future, you think, right?"

I nodded again in response. Little did I know, she was right.

Over those few years, I did end up believing most of the things Asiah told me. For instance, she swore up and down she was the youngest wife of her prophet Muhammad, and she was sent down from heaven to punish Saudi Arabia for their crimes. This may sound absurd, and I'm with you