KURDS

Then five men wearing vaguely Turkish uniforms flagged me down on the road. When you're in a military zone, you stop for anybody who looks even remotely military. The largest of them blocked the front of my truck, while a skinny, toothless teenager pointed an AK-47 automatic rifle at me through the driver's side window.

I exhaled impatiently. A lot of times attitude will get you through these situations.

As two more armed men huddled in the roadside ditch watching me, their leader, a beady-eyed man with a scar on his face and two holstered pistols hanging from straps across his chest, examined the contents of my truck. I tried not to move and kept the engine idling. The leader, whom I'll call Hassan, mumbled something under his breath, walked to my window, and rammed the muzzle of one of his pistols into my left temple. Then he started yelling.

I couldn't understand a word he was saying, but the message was loud and clear. This was not simply another checkpoint. My hands were sweating as they gripped the steering wheel and one of my legs was twitching uncontrollably. I heard the hammer of his pistol cock.

By now I had realized who they were: PKK rebels, a militant faction of Kurdish political refugees who had crossed the border into Southern Turkey and been declared "undesireable aliens," by the Turkish government. They were fighting to gain an independent state for the Kurdish people, but they had been denied refugee status and their cause received little attention from the United Nations. So they had turned to roadside hijackings to support themselves. I was terrified. They didn't give a shit who I was or where I was from. They just wanted my truck and all the supplies, and they were going to blow me away to get it. I had already heard reports of people being shot in this region, and even dismembered. Just a week earlier, two British journalists had come back in body bags.

I heard Hassan rattling the door handle, but it was locked. This gave me an extra few seconds to think. I thought of nothing. Then Hassan grabbed my arm, which was hanging out the window, and threw it back into the cab. Right then, I knew that as soon as he could get the door open, I would be dragged out into the road and shot. All my innocent, neutral, Canadian logic had evaporated. I was in survival mode now.

I snapped. My hands shot to the roof of the car, startling Hassan. His pistol retreated slightly from my head. Suddenly and very loudly, I started babbling. I flailed my arms like an excited preacher and began reciting the Muslim call to prayer. I was in pure panic. Through my muddy windshield, I saw the large guard snap to attention. For a brief moment, everyone, including myself, wondered what the hell was going on. I was out of control. I finished the prayer and childhood memories came pouring out of my mouth--then some hockey statistics, a John Wayne impersonation, things that were just stuck in my mind. The rebels didn't speak English, but that didn't seem to matter. As long as I kept talking, saying something, anything, they weren't killing me.

Then I got a new idea. There were several boxes of Snickers bars among my supplies. I had opened one of them earlier in my trip, and now I grabbed the remaining bars and passed one through the window. The teenager snatched it away and began to eat ravenously. Hassan glared at him with contempt; it was unclear whether out of military discipline or anger for grabbing the peace offering so quickly. I wasn't sure and I didn't care. I simply thrust another Snickers out the window. The teenager grabbed that one too.

For this he received a powerful crack on the head from Hassan. The half-chewed Snickers bar came flying out of his grinning, toothless maw and landed on the ground. There was a moment of silence as everyone stared at it. I could see the large man at my front bumper craning his neck to see what the fuss was all about.