I woke up in a panic, my heart racing violently, and my breaths quickening as if I were fleeing from a chasm. It was nothing but a terrifying nightmare, but its bitterness seized my throat as I recalled the scene from the beginning: the end of the month was approaching, and the government salary remained trapped in the drawers, not yet disbursed! My obligations are merciless and do not accept a single moment of delay; the rent is waiting, electric generator fees are piling up, internet bills, and then the chronic illness medication bill, which is unavoidable, leading to those mounting debts that weigh heavily on my shoulders.
I hurried to find my phone, eager and fearful to check the date... Oh, the bitter certainty! It is the twenty-fifth of the month exactly, when the countdown to nervous exhaustion begins.
The inverted equation of justice in our country seems completely clear; the citizen is penalized if he delays his obligations, while the government delays the salary without anyone holding it accountable... If rational logic were applied, we would impose sovereign late fines on the treasury for its tardiness (the 25th of the month), to be deducted from their allowances and returned to the citizens who are besieged by hunger, debt accumulation, and generator bills, but justice is only applied to the weak.
No sooner had I awakened to this shock than the national electricity announced its usual demise, and the lights went out with the dawn. I stumbled towards the fridge in search of cold water and any morsel of food, but when I opened its cold door, I found it empty; I had completely forgotten to shop for breakfast the night before due to exhaustion and worries... I picked up my phone, forcing my gaze to the news, and there was a breaking news alert at the top: "The Prime Minister will distribute one million plots of land"... I whispered with bitterness and a sarcastic question: hmmm... again! Another plot of land added to the flood of promises of lands made by predecessors, like someone selling mirages to the thirsty.
The house felt constricted, and then I decided to go out to the bakery to get some "pita bread," hoping it would satisfy my morning hunger. There, my journey of obstacles began; as soon as I took my first steps, I encountered a pack of three stray dogs, their feral barking awakened the ghost of security men from the ugly times, how they used to chase people mercilessly. I pushed aside the fear and moved on, only to run into the second obstacle: crossing the street, which had become a path fraught with death! Thanks to the wheels of the "tuk-tuk" speeding recklessly, caring little for the lives of passersby.
I returned home safely, consumed by a fleeting desire to make a warm breakfast to start a day where I pleaded for a glimmer of hope. I lit the fire, placed the pan, and began frying the eggs and heating the teapot... Moments later, I was startled to find the gas bottle exhaling its last breaths with a choked, intermittent sound, before the eggs were fully fried or the tea even reached halfway hot!
I threw my lighter in despair onto the table and let out a bitter sigh that mingled the scent of empty gas with the bitterness of the closed morning. I looked at the pan where the half-cooked eggs lay and at the lukewarm tea that refused to boil, and I said to myself with dark sarcasm: "Here is the homeland encapsulated in a gas bottle that empties completely before your breakfast is ready... what about the maturity of a nation?"
But just before the silence of despair closed in on me, an unusual glimmer caught my eye on the screen of the phone lying beside me... a phone that had long been a graveyard of promises and zeros... With trembling fingers, I opened the banking app... and for the first time in the history of this cursed calendar, the account wasn't empty... it wasn't just the awaited salary, but enormous amounts had been deposited into my account, with a strange and astonishing note beside them: "Compensation for moral damages, sovereign late penalties, and morning blood pressure allowance." The treasury had decided, in a surreal gesture akin to miracles, to acknowledge everything I had gone through; it covered the cost of the pita bread, compensated me for the barking of the dogs, and even for the breaths of the dead gas bottle!... I sat in stunned silence, watching the numbers light up against the darkness, as I wondered in disbelief: "Is this the government's justice that finally shone out of nowhere?"
Suddenly... I woke up to the thunderous screams of my neighbor, realizing that I was still a prisoner in a recurring nightmare! The neighbor was howling in the middle of the street, cursing the devil, Saddam, and the Freemasons together, considering them the secret gang responsible for the breakdown of his old vehicle that refused to start.