Chicago Air

A Story by Abishai100

A war-veteran/immigrant can look for sanity and dignity after wrought/sought forms of 'chess' like Earth exodus.

A war/peace vignette about sought heroics/sanity/legend, inspired by the war-and-life complications subjects in the under-rated American subculture film Dead Presidents (Chris Tucker). Thanks for reading,

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Amlan Satan moved to the United States (from Algeria!) to study in the Ivy-League (Dartmouth) but remembered his days growing up modestly in the post-revolution city of Algiers and liked his special collection of currency-bill prints/art-stamps in his 'capitalism' album from boyhood-years which he'd think about as he negotiated his New World consciousness after immigration.

AMLAN SATAN: As an adult now, post-grad, I've been posting online for trip-notes before heading off to the Afghan-War.

He left behind his Algerian girlfriend ('Ezzy') who'd spend her time on social-media making pokes and comments/chats with her text-friendly friends in the United States while he was off defending America's position on the terrorism-motivations seen on 9/11 in NYC.

AMLAN SATAN: I remember in Algiers, walking in the bazaars of the streets with my mother; now I think of American shops!

Moving to Chicago (United States) from Algiers was no small move for Amlan Satan and his mother, but they adjusted to the hurdle(s), and growing up in the challenged Windy-City from boyhood-teen age was a thing of intelligence/chess for Amlan, as he developed his own 'trained' sense of patriotism, love of baseball-cards/cinema, before being admitted to Dartmouth (Ivy-League) for his stellar-work(s) in public school in Chicago following the immigration experience in the United States. This is really Amlan Satan's story and less about American experience in generic form.

AMLAN SATAN: Serving with the American force(s) in the wake of 9/11 reminded me why I'd become a citizen-patriot of USA.

Things were not so rosy when Satan (Amlan!) returned home after his time-served in the post-9/11 Middle Eastern US-campaign, and now he'd felt somewhat jaded by the lift to the part of the world mired by Israel-Palestine/petroleum linked globalism rhetoric woe(s)/warfare, and he wanted to return homeland just to readjust into his post-immigration 'imagination' of a life potentially served as a 'normal' and humble civil-servant and took up a sales-associate position at a Chicago baseball-cards store, which paid less than what he'd hoped for but accommodated his post-war stress/trauma with reminders of what he considered 'affably' easy to cheer as a veteran and 'newborn' kind of home-returned patriot (following minor gunshot injury and medal-victory in the Middle East for the USA!).

VETERAN FRIEND: You want to rob the Chicago bank safe-box holding some 'baron' blood-diamond smuggler-shipment inside?

AMLAN SATAN: I'm sick-tired of this American ad-campaign for reticent veterans with no Robin Hood passion or lost passion!

VETERAN FRIEND: That's a 'stranger' sentiment, Satan, but I'm still your 'field-compatriot' and want to feel your pain, bro.

AMLAN SATAN: That's what I hoped; we're both home (Chicago); we'll swap the baron's blood-diamonds for toys with message!

VETERAN FRIEND: This 'Robin Hood' deed for blood-diamond 'chess-stalemate' in Chicago against the baron suits your dream?

AMLAN SATAN: It's better than just selling baseball-cards and pretending I don't know about modern capitalism-woe news.

VETERAN FRIEND: How'd you learn of this baron-diamonds problem in the Chicago bank, Satan?
AMLAN SATAN: I saw a movie about the dilemma and then listened to street-chatter inside my baseball-card store, man.

VETERAN FRIEND: I suppose a 'veteran' just might become a 'laureled' Robin Hood...if we play our wit(s) right, right?

AMLAN SATAN: Excellence; chess and post-war ingenuity...it's a life of more 'wrought' libertine Ego, my war-friend.

VETERAN FRIEND: Alright...let's do it, Amlan.

The bumbling veterans who wanted this "Robin-Hood deed" walked in wearing hats and sunglasses and Coronavirus-masks claiming they'd been undercover agents with Interpol-relation doing a media-insurance corruption disclosure theater cyber-fanzine (prepaid) operation to burn a hole into Baron Ion's rumored 'blood-diamond' safe-box and swap his smuggled Sierra Leone 'conflict-zone' gems with toy beads and leave a media (insurance) note reading, "Will the 'good baron' offer media-insurance notes regarding the 'frills' of capitalism-asset investments and diamond-markets following this (prepaid) media 'stunt' for a story of Chicago executives?"

The underground libertine cyber-journal (Prince) called this strange 'blood-diamond theater' worthy of some 'excellence' in the chess of inventive modern vigilante lore and didn't speculate if the agents/'artists' were of Interpol-relation or of private agency in the United States, but Amlan Satan and his veteran-pal achieved the deed and made a Zurich-commission transfer for some bright folks pursuing an enquiry into Baron Ion's holdings in Chicago, leaving Amlan Satan to flee the city with Ezzy and leave-behind this memory of post-war missionary 'Crusade' to find diamond-market social justice 'passion' as his personal 'psychological response(s)' to the jaded emotions created by wartime demeanor mutation(s)!

VETERAN FRIEND: We really did it, man, my old war-friend, Amlan Satan.

AMLAN SATAN: I'm leaving Chicago with Ezzy now, dude; I advise you not to throw away your blood-diamond hero-commission.

VETERAN FRIEND: Nah, I avoided the post-war 'stigmata' of drug-abuse altogether.

AMLAN SATAN: That's great, man.

INTERPOL: Blood-diamond corruption today threatens the world-gem exchange(s) and makes terrorism woe!

EZZY: I got you this baseball-figurine chess-set/board, darling Amlan; to remind you of the 'cool-stalemates' of ambition-IQ.

AMLAN: You read my soul, honey-bee!

Satan helped keep his Robin Hood secret, lost touch with his Chicago war-veteran/'sidekick' and bought some very fine ancient Algerian jewelry-pieces for his (wife) Ezzy in Zurich and decided to write a special war-memoir and veteran-journal (dual-themed) titled Pawn Emoji.