Fifth Entry: The Tourist

So now you know the where. You know the who. You know the what. The when is 2012. Here comes the sizzle.

It was the beginning of autumn when it started. My parents - with whom my relationship was less than favorable - were in Italy for a couple of weeks, and they had allowed me to take residence in their 2-story villa while they were away. It was a hell of a lot more comfortable than my own tiny apartment, so I jumped at the chance to live in relative luxury, at least for a few weeks. In hindsight, I'd probably have been better off in my apartment. 

As it were, I enjoyed the spacious rooms, gold-covered door handles and fully stocked fridge for all its worth. The house itself was located on a hill overlooking the city, and the glass walls that lined the exterior of the house meant that you could see the entire 45 square miles of it. 

I'd made a friend of their gardener - an Iraqi man of at least 60 - who spoke only a few phrases of Danish. His real name was Abdur Razzaq Suhrawardy Moosalib Ikramullah, but I just called him Moose. He was a tough old man. He'd fought hard to get his family away from the war, and now he was absolutely determined to prove that he was a valuable member of society. 

So he worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. I figured he deserved a break, so while I was master of the house, I'd often invite him in for a cold drink. We'd watch the news, and Moose would comment on whatever was going on in the world. He was speaking Arabic, of course, so I couldn't understand anything he said, but he still managed to his point across. Mostly by pointing and saying "Bad!" or "Good!" 

Moose had a way with words. 

It was during one of these sessions that a local report (about how China was buying up the entire world) was interrupted by an emergency news bulletin. A smartly dressed young woman in perfect makeup said that the new strain of bird flu that had been popping up all over the world, had now appeared in Denmark. A police officer described to the camera how a German tourist had come down with a fever after she'd been bitten by some sort of animal. One day she'd wandered into the lobby of the hotel she was staying at, and had violently attacked the first person she ran into, biting and scratching him bloody. He was brought to the nearest hospital where he showed signs of fever, hysteria and dementia. The woman was eventually arrested by the police, though she seemed completely out of her mind. 

"Bad." Moose pointed out, and I was inclined to agree. But it would take more than a tiny little outbreak of bird flu to get me to smart up.