Going Nowhere in Kurdistan - Published in Unmapped Magazine:
http://www.unmappedmag.com/issue-29/going-nowhere-in-kurdistan/ The admixture of emotions one feels after emerging blinking into retina-frazzling Iraqi sunlight after 48 hours spent alone in a windowless, strip-lit, shit-smeared police cell is a tough one to convey: several of the darkest nights of my soul, preceded by some of the most stressful months of my life. The sweet taste of liberty was tempered, salted and leavened by the gnawing truth that after everything that I had been through in recent months, I was still flat, stony-fucking broke. There was just no getting around that bastard. That after all of the sound and fury; after all of the 3am stress-induced panic attacks, after having had a 9mm Glock stuck in my face by ex-henchman of Uday Hussein, after having to smile obsequiously, grimacing whilst chomping on undercooked lamb’s bollocks in an attempt to ingratiate and shake down one of the most surreally menacing hoodlums this side of the Tigris for $100 large. A...