“Whose son are you, boy?”

“I am Yousef’s son,” not bothering to correct him that I am a girl.

“Stay away from this car.”

But I wanted to see the car. I waited till the unknown man disappeared down the hill, and ran back to the car. I had heard of this car, and that it had recently been brought back to my hometown.

At the hilltop behind our house, under a warm yellow morning sun, stood a brown eighties Cadillac, fancy, intact, except for its bullet holes, and blood stains.

My dad said our neighbors had fled to London after the assassination, and their house was left empty. It was a political assassination. I did not know whose side in the war our neighbor was on, it was too complicated, and people switched sides all the time, or formed their own new factions when they disagreed with their main parties.

I do know that one day, my uncle woke up before dawn for his morning prayers, and looked out the window towards our empty assassinated neighbor’s house, and he saw a tall man’s dark silhouette, with bright red eyes, staring back.