The only candle flickering in the vast powerless home threatened to blow out at any minute. I carved some wax off the edges surrounding the wick. The few trickling drops left inside the basin's tap tricked me into thinking that the water was back.

I was unprepared. I had no torch, charge-up light, or even tea candles. My fridge's content thawed away, and when I tried to wipe the dirty water leaking from it, a photograph fell from its door: My recently, resentfully-departed, friend and colleague. Her voice at the University of Kurdistan was ignored, too. Her voice, mine, and that of tens of others, were all ignored.

It takes a candlelit evening amongst nothing but empty walls and floors - in the apartment I am being evacuated from - to remind me of everything and everyone I miss. So I am using up what's left of my laptop's battery to write these words.

We spend our lives trying to forget people, but we forget - during the process of forgetting - that their presence in our lives is exactly what we need. With the ethical and the unethical, and the heartache they cause - we need them. And so years spin, decades move on fast, and although we manage to keep busy, we never forget. Although the mind is occupied, the heart still aches for their presence that cannot be replaced. And so, we submit to society's demands and set of ethical laws, and move on. And darkness crept into what used to be my home, I remember each and ever one I miss, and those I will miss. That feeling I have been holding in my throat claws its way out of my mouth, then my eyes, and then it settles back onto my chest for the rest of the inbreathing night. Nothing but still, silent darkness.

One day, I set out on a journey to find home. I wrote the word home in almost every piece of writing I produced. I came to establish the first English-language culture magazine in Iraq. I also thought I could easily finish my novel. And, one of the projects would be to produce a movie, too. I may, in the process, help a person or two. Change a life, or two. Inspire young people - maybe. What I found instead, were people that changed me. Inspired me. Helped me. And there were people who reminded me of emotions that I have long forgotten how to use.

And so a volcano erupted, and I found myself on a very, very different journey of what I thought I might take here.

One year following my arrival, an American lady, that is now one of my idols, became my employer. Being always unprepared for interviews, I sat there and poured out genuine feelings and plans, which she believed. So I began working for the University of Kurdistan - Hawler. What came next was beyond my belief.

A journey that I feel one article would do no favour to. I plan to write about it in several parts here. What's left of Saddam Hussein's shadow will no longer silence Iraqis.

I fear you, not.