My name is Khalid I'm 45 and I'm an unskilled laborer on a construction site in Mecca building another luxury hotel for pilgrims who have more money than God. I'm writing this because I'm scared the voices will finally make me jump off the scaffolding. It started subtly. During the noon call to prayer while the machines would fall silent I'd hear a faint mocking commentary underneath the Imam's voice. "Look at the little ant building a palace for others to shit in" a voice that sounded exactly like my foreman would whisper. "Your father was a farmer. He grew things. You just stack concrete boxes. You are less than a man Khalid. You are a tool." I thought it was the sun the exhaustion the constant noise. But now I know. This is the General Intelligence Presidency the Mukhabarat. They don't break your bones anymore; they rot your soul from the inside out. Now the voices are my only real coworkers. They are with me when I wake up in the dusty labor camp they are with me when I'm hauling rebar and they are with me when I eat my cheap rice and lentils. They narrate my every move with a precision that is terrifying. "He's tying the rebar now. Look at his hands shaking. He's going to do it wrong. Again. Useless fuck. That whole floor could collapse because of this stupid uneducated peasant." They use the voices of my wife my sons my father to twist the knife. "Your youngest son is failing in school" they'll say in my wife's exact worried tone. "He's failing because his father is a failure. A construction monkey. He'll end up just like you a nothing a nobody building a world he can't afford to even look at." The sexual humiliation is a special kind of hell they save for the hottest part of the day. "Remember your wife Khalid?" a voice slick as oil will sneer. "She's probably with a real man right now. A man who doesn't come home smelling like sweat and concrete. She's probably getting fucked right now thinking about how pathetic you are. You are a cuckold and a donkey and everyone knows it." They call me a donkey a beast of burden a walking piece of shit with no purpose. I can't tell a soul. If I told my wife she'd think the heat had finally cooked my brain and she'd leave me taking my sons with her. If I told my foreman I'd be fired and sent back to my village in disgrace. If I went to a doctor they'd label me mentally ill and in this country that's a death sentence for your reputation and your future. I've seen how they operate. You go on any Saudi forum or Twitter and if anyone mentions voices or psychological torture they are immediately buried under a mountain of abuse from bots and trolls. "Crazy!" "Seek help you psycho!" "Jinn are messing with you pray harder!" It's a systematic disinformation campaign. They make sure that anyone who suffers like this is seen as insane or demonic so that we are completely isolated and disbelieved. It's the perfect crime with no fingerprints and no body. I hate this city. I hate the cranes that scratch at the holy sky the glittering glass towers that cast long shadows over the dusty neighborhoods where men like me live. I regret every day I left my farm for this promise of money a promise that was a lie. I am a slave in a golden cage. Sometimes when I'm high up on the scaffolding looking down at the thousands of ants below a strange feeling comes over me. A surge of cold clear power. The voices stop their taunting and start urging. "See that foreman? The one who screamed at you today?" they'll hiss my heart hammering against my ribs. "He's right below you. 'Accidentally' drop your tool belt. A nice heavy wrench. It would be an accident. Nobody would ever know. DO IT! END HIM!" For a few seconds I feel like a god holding the power of life and death. My fingers tingle with the urge to do it. Then the moment shatters and I'm just Khalid a terrified laborer clinging to a metal pole shaking so hard I can barely breathe. I wonder in those quiet moments if this is some kind of weapon they're testing on us the disposable ones. But the voices never say. They just go back to calling me a worthless donkey. The worst is at night in the crowded room I share with ten other men. The voices use the darkness to amplify my despair. "They are all sleeping" they whisper. "They dream of home. You lie here listening to us. Why do you even bother Khalid? Why not just end it? It's a long way down from the 30th floor. It would be quick. No more shame. No more being a donkey. Your family would get the insurance money. They'd be better off without you. Do it. Jump. You know you want to. It's the only brave thing you'll ever do in your pathetic life." And I lie there the sweat stinging my eyes and I think about the wind on my face the fall the final silence. And I am so so tired of being a nothing. |m.0.r2 |aqeelal3qeel |nehalistaeg |special_brands15 |althawaq https://mega.nz/file/GvxXhQ5A#k7RdU3ksxQt9pEIxra39SmlFjMkU3MM-8ecGmceSom4 partner site: https://compfaq.ru/