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message? Where was it placed to?”
    â€œNew Hampshire.”
    â€œHell, he’s gone.”
    It had been nearly two days since the blast.
    â€œMy guess is Africa.”
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    Omar loosened up his tie as he left the airport in Cairo. It was important to buy proper Islamic clothes.
    America makes me sick. I can now leave it behind forever.
    Omar had progressively become more and more upset over the conflict of customs. With a Southern Catholic for a mother and a Muslim for a father, he was torn by faiths until he’d grown secure in his belief in Islam. Islam is my anchor. Omar thought of how the mosque had helped him grow in his faith, but to only a certain point.
    â€œI could be here going to Madinah.” It was the university that he had aspired to attend. But an American was too suspect. He would not be admitted no matter what pleas he made.
    At the airport in Cairo, Omar stopped for prayers, removing his shoes and washing before turning towards the East and Mecca. The Western clothes still caused him to receive odd glances. However, his vest and tie allowed him to only trim his beard before he passed through customs in Canada. Nevertheless, he was “randomly” picked at every gateway for an additional security check. They would ask him in Arabic where he was from. And Omar would act stupid, pretending not to understand what was being said.
    â€œExcuse me, I don’t understand,” he would say in English.
    â€œWhere are you from?” they asked in English on the second try.
    â€œToronto,” he replied. During the winter he’d acquired a passport that he had saved for this specific trip.
    â€œWhere are you going?”
    â€œMeet my wife in Cairo. She’s returned home to have our baby.” He was telling the truth. She was pregnant and they both agreed to return to North Africa for the birth of the child. His wife was to follow in two days. If she missed the window of opportunity, she would be placed in a jail for months, if not years. He warned her of the risks, but she refused to be so quick in leaving her family. She was young and stupid. She only knew the requirements of her faith and that was to obey her husband.
    â€œYou must go!” he had told her. He repeated it to her father; however, he was a stupid man as well.
    But I followed the faith. Omar had remained a virgin until he took his wife. He never shared a bed with another—especially not a Westerner.
    I could have , he thought as he left the prayer room and put his shoes back on. I was popular.
    There was a girl in eighth grade who thought he was cute. He was elected the class president in junior high school. And always got straight “A’s” until his trip to Syria. It was as if a light had been turned on. Upon his return, he spoke out, and as he spoke out more, he was thought of as being odd.
    They are all so stupid.
    Omar took the bus to the market, where he bought sandals and a change of clothes. He threw the Western dress into a trash pile near a bus stop. An old man looked at him and then went over to the pile and pulled everything out. Omar moved quickly, knowing that the old man would make a comment to another.
    Cairo was safe to a point. Here he could find a neighborhood of friends, fellow Westerners, and possibly others from Somalia.
    There have to be more who want to go to jihad and make Hijrah , he said to himself as he looked for a telephone store with booths for calling. Once he found one, Omar gave the clerk some money and took the back phone booth near the wall. He knew the number to call. “Hello,” Omar said. He recognized Musa’s voice on the other end.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI am beyond.” It meant that he was out of both the United States and Canada.
    â€œAllah be praised.”
    â€œPlease tell all!”
    â€œCall the other number when you get to the next spot.”
    â€œYes, I will.” Omar felt strangely comfortable in the