Going Home

Thin. Gaunt. Dirty. Diseased. Imprisoned a long time. Now I await my release. A handover, they call it.
Then they come, the three, standing out from everyone else. Lanky white guy. Old muslim man. And the doctor. She talked to me in English. I didn't understand the old man's French. They left and the lanky guy came back. We got into a nice new car. We drove in through some gates and they took me to a big room. It was a hospital. It was my room. Someone came to cut my hair. Someone bought me bananas but I was still hungry. Then I was alone after another old kind doctor had examined me. He hadn't been afraid to touch me. I lay down until two of the strangers came again to see me. They changed my bed and showed me how to use the toilet. She asked me what I wanted to eat. Hours afterward, the muslim man returned with food for me. This was my first decent meal in a long time. I slept for the first time in years. I took a bath. In the morning I was at the airport with the lanky white man. He was taking me back to my people. I thought of my family. I remembered the day I was taken. At last, I was going home.