Time blurs in streaks of light and motion. I scratch out a few more lines in my notebook before the train shifts pitch, slowing under us. The announcement in curt Turkish says enough.

Van.

I lean into the glass, stomach tightening. The platform crawls with uniforms—dark jackets, rifles slung with easy authority, eyes scanning every carriage before we even stop. Men in plain clothes cluster just outside the roped-off zone, murmuring into their collars, faces sharp and unsmiling.

Whatever waits here, it’s no ordinary station stop.

Vigilance is thick in the air, sharper than any border I’ve ever crossed. My fingers trace the edge of my notebook, words bleeding together, mind half a continent away from the page. I keep glancing for him—Asdar—out the window, down the length of the carriage, half-expecting that bulk to materialize, silent and stone-steady. He’s always had a way of vanishing when things turn difficult, slipping into shadow, or myth, as if legend suits him better than daylight and trouble shuffling toward us in Van.

That pang again—restless curiosity, wanting more. When will he let himself be seen? With Asdar, absence is never just absence; it’s the gravity of return, the sense that every corner might offer up his silhouette right when I need him least… or most.

Would he appear on this platform, chalk dust in his beard, eyes glinting with some private message just for me? Or do I have to grow used to borrowing him—his presence—in memory, in the aftertaste of dreams spun out between Istanbul’s warehouses and Maranjab’s sand?

The train hisses—brakes grinding out a rhythm—and uniforms press close. I draw breath, force my heartbeat down, wonder whether he’s already here, moving in the crowd, always unseen. Maybe it’s better not knowing. Maybe the best kind of help is what arrives unseen, without asking. Still, I’d rather his touch, the certainty of his presence.

The line inches forward under harsh fluorescent light, everyone shuffling bags at their feet, eyes fixed ahead to the glass booth where passports are checked and stamped. I’m three people from the counter—close enough to start rehearsing my first words, close enough to imagine the thud of the entry stamp in my passport.

Then a shadow moves beside me.

A hand clamps, gentle but decisive, on my upper arm.

I turn, expecting a bored official waving me toward another desk—but there’s no explanation, just the steady pressure of a hand steering me sideways, out of line.

Behind me, Mitra’s voice slices the thick air—quick, sharp, launching into fast, urgent Farsi. Heads turn, curious at first, but then just as quickly they look away. Karim shifts—half leaning, half bracing himself—but the two men flanking me make their point clear by not moving at all: don’t.

I try, automatically, to catch Mitra’s eye as they guide me towards an unmarked door. She’s still speaking—but her words are growing hotter, her open palm raised in a futile gesture to block my exit. A guard answers with blunt, flat sentences—no warmth, no debate. I see Mitra freeze, shoulders bracing, jaw set. I know that look. She’s just heard there’s nothing more she can do.

My lips begin to form a question, but nothing comes out. The grip on my arm is polite, almost kind, but every cell in me is awake to the fact: this is not a request.

The line closes behind me. The counter and its promise of forward motion disappears behind a wall of bodies.

The unmarked door swings inward. Cold air pools at my ankles, a dim corridor stretching ahead.

My steps echo. One. Two.

The door swings shut, and the noise of the crowd is gone. Only the muffled hum of fluorescents, the cold, and the certainty that whatever happens next, I’m already too far in to turn back.

“What the actual FUCK, really? Again?!”

This is the third time in less than two years. Do I have something pinned on my back that even now that I’ve come to the rescue, crossed borders, and now I’m the snatched?

The thought loops as the engine’s growl vibrates through my spine. I sit with my knees pulled up, the metal floor cold even through my jeans. Somewhere in the shuffle between the unmarked door and here, they tossed a sack over my head. It smells of grain and damp canvas, and it’s doing nothing for the knot tightening in my throat.

Wearing a blindfold sharpens my senses; I count. Left turn. Long straight. Rattle over loose gravel. Someone shifts on the bench opposite — boots creak, fabric scrapes. There are at least two of them back here with me, silent. That’s… not good.

The anthropologist in me notes absurd details: the chemical tang of diesel, the faint sweetness of dried figs stuffed in the sack’s pocket seam, the way my breathing sounds louder than the engine when I force it through my nose. 

The survivor in me knows counting turns and noting smells isn’t academic right now — it’s insurance, in case I need to find my way out later.

A sudden jolt tosses me sideways, shoulder slamming into cold steel. One of them grunts — not at me, just from the bump — and I feel the faintest brush of fabric near my knee. Intentional? Hard to tell. I adjust, straighten my spine, let my wrists sit loose on my thighs like I have all the time in the world.

Rescue missions never look heroic from the inside. They look like this — bruised knees, stale air, and the bitter taste of being moved like a piece on someone else’s board.

Somewhere far ahead in the dark, I tell myself, Asdar’s wolf nose is already on this trail. That thought is more hope than strategy: if I believe it, I can sit still a little longer.

The lorry jounces to a halt, brakes squealing, and the world tilts sideways. Before I can brace myself, rough hands grab my arms, and I’m half-dragged, half-shoved out, sack still hooding my face. 

The ground gives under my boots — gravel, dirty and uneven. There’s shouting just ahead.

I catch flares of Azerbaijani — clipped, urgent street noise tangled with hard consonants and rising pitch. 

Then another tongue cuts through, sharper still, heated and unfamiliar: Zargari? Romāno? It’s musical, quick, carrying the rhythm I remember from old nights in borderland cafés, but the tone is anything but friendly.

For a second, I freeze — is that what I think it is? Romani, on the Iranian border. The anthropologist in me files it away, but right now, survival trumps analysis.

I’m swept around, arms locked behind me by someone tall. The voices escalate. Boots crunch. Someone spits a curse — something that sounds like a threat wrapped in Balkan melody.

Then above the chaos comes a bark, in a deeper, hoarse Romāno, so close it vibrates in my bones.

I.Ph.