I did not slow my step, my thoughts racing as I passed him in front of our gate. Saying a quick prayer, I stopped at the door to our neighbor’s home, the one just after ours. I placed my hand on their latch and pushed. The gate yielded and swung inward with a jarring creak.

Once inside their yard, I pressed my back against the thick trunk of their walnut tree. When I was confident no one inside had heard the gate open, I tiptoed closer to the house. A window glowed from behind a lace curtain. A radio announcer reported on another day bursting with progress in the hands of a regime dedicated to uplifting the people.

I slipped around the corner and stayed lower than the rosebushes abutting the house. I was halfway across the yard but by no means in the clear. I needed to climb over the shared wall that separated this house from mine. I eyed the chicken coop positioned against the wall to see if I could climb on top of it without collapsing the structure.

As if to protest my plans, there was a burst of clucking and fluttering of feathers.

“Ashraf! Turn that radio down or you won’t hear me. Did you not feed the chickens today? You can’t expect eggs from hungry hens.”

Ashraf never fed the hens. I’d heard this very argument a thousand nights from my bedroom.

“I think I know what killed our rooster,” Ashraf grumbled loudly.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

The radio announcer’s voice faded. I stepped closer to the coop and tore the bread I’d brought into pieces, stuffing the chunks through the mesh. The hens began to peck at the ground, their squawks turning into a low, contented clucking. I wasted no time, hoisting myself onto the roof of the chicken coop. The plywood bowed slightly with my weight.

I reached up, curled my fingers around the lip of the wall, and pulled with all my might. The past weeks spent fidgeting in an apartment and picking at food had weakened me. Breathless and terrified that the neighbors would discover me, I tried to pull myself up.

Behind me, a door clanged.

With my forearms scraping against the wall and my foot slipping twice, I gave one more heave and managed to swing my leg over. I eyed the steep drop beneath me as I dangled myself into our empty yard, but before I could think about it too much, I lost my grip and fell to the ground. The impact shot up through my ankles, and I curled into a ball, stifling a groan.

On the other side of the wall, Ashraf cursed the chickens.

Our home was dark and strangely intimidating. I concentrated on my mission as I walked past my mother’s flower beds and a stone birdbath and slipped in through the back door.