DAY 365 - MARCH 15, 2012

Protests in Daraa, Idlib, and Homs mark the one-year anniversary of the Syrian revolution. Government crackdowns ensue, staying in line with an unrelenting wave of brutality. Assad supporters stage their own rallies in Damascus, Latakia, and the Druze city of Sweida. The international community, floundering for a plan, appoints former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to head a special envoy tasked with diffusing the Syrian crisis. With the fear of arming terrorist rebels in the background, the US is hesitant to supply the Syrian opposition.

Through the small grate that attaches to the driver's cabin you can hear on the radio that 40 soldiers who attempted to defect in Idlib province, near the Turkish border, have been executed by the regime. You think about how nefarious someone has to be to kill their own. It's disgusting in the same way that cannibalism is disgusting, a new kind of debased human, a new kind of evil. Suddenly you feel the tires of the massive truck slowing down and then squeaking to a stop. You hear forceful voices through the corrugated metal of the shipping container. You make the sign to Emad and Yara, for them to be very quiet, and they start to hold their breath. You re-position yourself behind a box of bedposts and hold your children tightly between your legs. You can only hear footsteps now and then the pulling of the cargo bolt on the doors of the shipping container. You grip a small piece of wood that has broken off of one of the bed frames. As you can hear the soldier enter the container and move closer to you, your hand, holding the wooden stake, lifts ready to strike. He is close enough that you can hear his Kalashnikov knocking the wooden frames as he creeps closer towards you.