The following is Ali’s story, told to me in a series of conversations. I have used an alias and made minor changes to identifying details to protect his identity.

I was born and raised in Parachinar, Pakistan. Parachinar borders Afghanistan, and the region has been in sectarian turmoil since the British colonialists left, as elsewhere around the world, after inadvertently or intentionally messing up. So, I was cautioned from an early age to stay alert for danger, as I witnessed repeated petty tribal land quarrels flare up into gruesome warfare in the name of religion. Since our tribe was outnumbered in both men and material, it seemed only a matter of time before one of us became a target.

My family decided that Parachinar was becoming far too dangerous to live in, so we moved to Karachi in 1999, which was then another dangerous place for Shias, though the violence was less overt. The persecution of us Shias continued in Karachi. There was an assassination attempt on my father and me; we survived. I had had enough and decided to leave for Australia. I had no legal path to Australia, but I believed I had run out of time. So I made a decision that would change the course of my life.

A travel agent promised me a fake visa for Australia. I was young and naïve, so I convinced my father to pay for the visa and the tickets. The flight was from Karachi to Dubai, then to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I was detained in KL for five days after immigration officials spotted the fake visa, and I was then deported back to Pakistan. Returning ‘home’ did not bring relief; instead, I felt shame and failure, and the threats were still real. So I tried again.

This time, I tried via Thailand. With a friend in tow, I crossed illegally into Malaysia at Sungai Golok. We stayed in a crummy hotel and waited, careful, suspicious, and fearful, since the people we were dealing with were strangers, but we had no choice. An agent came to get us after about a week. In the dead of night, we boarded a small canoe that splashed through the water and reached a larger but dilapidated wooden boat, which we transferred to. There were six others on board. We were strangers, but we shared the same dream: Australian citizenship.

Our luck ran out within a few hours of setting sail. The boat’s engine sputtered and then died. The fishermen hired to take us to Australia worked frantically to revive it, sweating and cursing in the darkness, but nothing worked – we began drifting.

Day one passed, then two, then three. By day four, we were almost out of food and water. Some of us tried sipping seawater, but we gagged. I had brought some dried fruit, which I shared with the group, but it ran out in minutes. The fishermen had hidden some rice, which they boiled with seawater. They ate it and shared a small portion with us. The boat then developed a leak and began taking in water, so we had to help scoop it out. It became a rhythm for me: bend, fill, stand, hurl. We were fighting the ocean with buckets of water. Within hours, we were dehydrated, sunburned, and drenched. To me, the end was not too far away.

Ships sailed by on the horizon. We waved and screamed at the top of our lungs, but to no avail. A large container ship came close enough for me to read its name: London 2020. But it, too, passed on. That was the hardest, loneliest part for me. The fishermen managed to fix the leak, and we slowly drifted toward the shores of Sumatra, Indonesia, where we were taken to a safe house. But the local police soon surrounded us, and we were unceremoniously driven to a detention center.

The detention center in Medan was harsh, bare, and humiliating. We were placed in a small concrete cell with iron bars at the front and an open toilet inside. The officers stripped us, searched us, and confiscated our belongings. Dignity was stripped away in minutes. In detention, I was no longer treated as someone with a past and a future. I was a problem to be contained. Here, days lost their shape.

Morning and evening no longer felt different. The bars remained, the walls remained, and the waiting remained. It was a silence that seeped into the mind, making time feel heavy and confined. Yet even there, small moments of humanity found their way in. Because the facility had no outer perimeter wall, local children sometimes passed by our cell gate. One afternoon, a young girl reached through the bars, touched my nose, and smiled. She told me I had a beautiful nose. For a brief moment, I forgot where I was. Then she noticed the locket at my neck and asked if she could have it.

I smiled and shook my head. You can’t, I said. My mother gave it to me.

Inside the locket were verses from the Quran. To me, it was more than that. It was from my mother, and carrying it meant carrying a piece of her with me. It reminded me that beyond the bars, beyond the guards, beyond the humiliation, I was still a son. I was still loved. I was still remembered somewhere. Eight days later, we were transferred to the main Belawan Detention Center.

I was placed in Cell 05 with five other men. There was only one bunk bed, so most of us slept on the concrete floor, using our bags as pillows. At night, the concrete pressed against our bones. The air was thick, and rest never felt complete. Or enough.

One day, a detainee named Reza called out through the door to someone in Cell 04. A voice from the other side replied that he had been detained here for three years.

Three years!
To be continued…