[FICTION]

[01/02/26]

The Volvo Chronicle

Or, the Modern Permutation of the 1932 Emu War

by Aryan Omar Hassan

I found out my Volvo was missing when I read about it in the morning paper.

I live in a small coastal town, the kind of place where petty crimes get their own column. Stolen bicycles, missing backpacks, that sort of thing. But never cars. Not once in the six years I’ve been here.

At first I thought it was a mistake. I'd driven it home at eleven-thirty the night before after picking up cigarettes at the convenience store. But when I looked out my window, the driveway was empty.

The article didn't say much. VOLVO REPORTED MISSING, with a blurry CCTV photo of my car parked outside the doner shop where I worked. I turned the page looking for more information. There were more listings. VOLVO REPORTED MISSING. VOLVO REPORTED MISSING. VOLVO REPORTED MISSING. Hatchbacks, sedans, station wagons. Every model they made.

It had to be organized crime, some kind of coordinated theft. But there wasn't a single article about it. And it was a slow day too. The front page was running a story about a municipal zoning dispute.

I called my coworker. He picked up on the third ring.

"You see the paper?" I said.

"Yeah."

“What are you going to do about your car?"

“Nothing. I've been wanting to upgrade anyway. It's no Toyota."

“You don't think this is strange?"

“What do you mean?"

         "How did they report it so fast? And every Volvo in town?"

         "People talk. We have nosy neighbors."

         "What are the odds?"

         "Low. But not impossible."

         "I suppose."

         "Just do what I did," he said. "Mail in the newspaper clipping and file a police report at the capital. They'll send you a check and won't even ask questions. More than the car's worth. So I heard."

         Sure enough, he was right. The next day I got a check from the central bank for one hundred and ten thousand kronor. Nearly triple what I'd paid for the 240. No questions asked.

         Within a week, half the town was driving imports. BMWs, Audis, even a Lexus. The cashiers at the grocery store all talked about their new cars' air conditioning.

         "What did you buy?" they'd ask.

         "I haven't decided yet."

         "So you won't drive anymore?"

         "No, I still drive. I just need time to think about it."

         And they'd look at me as though I stepped on their cat.

         Truth was, I had an affinity for the 240. Sure, it had been run into the ground by the previous owner, but it was my first large purchase after emigrating.

         As I got older, so did the car. It became a noose around my neck that grew progressively heavier. Every other week it wouldn't start without flooding the engine. The repair bills were more than the car was worth.

         An international student I met at a party in July had offered to buy it outright. That was back during tourist season, the only time our town got any real traffic. The doner shop was open twenty-four hours to catch the drunk tourists, so we worked longer and longer shifts.

         One night that month, or morning really, my coworker made me go with him to some party. He didn't want to show up alone and look like a creep. I owed him that much, I figured. He'd spent all his twenties studying dentistry in Baghdad, which meant nothing here, so now he was trying to make up for lost time by hooking up with random girls before settling down. 

         I stood in the corner of someone's apartment, drinking wine beer from a plastic cup, when she walked up to me.

         "Nice ride you have there," she said.

         She was playing with the curls of her frizzed red hair, twisting them around her finger. She had a thick Aussie accent.

         "European cars are a bit of a commodity to us Australians," she said. "Volvos especially. My father drove one just like this. Same color, even. He bought it used in 1989. It all changed after the war, of course."

         "What war?"

         "The Great Emu War. What else?"

         "Right."

         "They took the Volvos," she said. "The military, I mean. Though, military makes it sound more official than it was. Guerilla, local volunteers, that kind of thing. The Japanese cars couldn't handle the heat, the American ones needed parts you couldn't get, but Volvos kept going. They mounted machine guns on the roofs, tried to use them as mobile units. Herd the emus into kill zones. It didn't work. My father had one just like this. They took it in the second wave. He never got it back."

         She looked out the window.

         "I want to buy it," she said.

         "Buy what?"

         "Your car. I can pay you right now. Fifteen thousand dollars. Cash, if you want, or I can write a check. Whatever's easier."

         I laughed. I'm not sure why. 

         "That's not enough?" she said.

         "It's not about money. I just can't sell it. Not now, anyway. It would feel like selling part of myself, you know?"

         "Sure."

         "I thought the war ended," I said. "Australia lost. The emus won. That's what I read."

         "Sort of. The media attention was killing tourism. Gold Coast bookings dropped forty percent. It was a PR disaster. So Parliament shut down the military operations. Made it official. But that just meant no funding, no coordination. Now it's just regular people trying to deal with them. And the emus never stopped. They're worse now, actually. More aggressive. They act like gangsters. Show up at your property, trash the place until you give them what they want. Sometimes it's food. Sometimes they just destroy things for no reason. People negotiate with them now. Pay them off. It's extortion, basically."

         "That's insane."

         "My parents lost the farm three months ago. They held out as long as they could, tried to defend it themselves. But you can't fight emus alone. They're too fast, too organized. One morning there were maybe a hundred of them in the yard. They'd trampled the entire barley crop overnight. My father went out with the rifle, but they didn't even move. Just stood there. My mother called me crying. Said they had to sell."

         "I'm sorry," I said.

         Her eyes were wet. She looked like she might start crying.

         "Want to drive around for a while?" I asked.

         "In the Volvo?"

         "Yeah."

         "You mean it?"

         "Sure."

         "Okay," she said. "I'd like that."

         We left the party and drove for two hours straight. Through the suburbs, back downtown, then out toward the water. She talked the whole time, like we'd known each other for an eternity. Her mother's alcoholic boyfriend in Perth, her cousin who threw a molotov cocktail at Taronga Zoo, her brother who dropped out of Australian Defence Force to work at an emu sanctuary near Adelaide.

         "He thinks we can make peace with them," she said. "I love him but, Christ, he's a fucking idiot."

         When we got back to my neighborhood the sun was going down. I parked at the McDonald's and went in and got fries and two ice creams. We walked up the hill behind the parking lot.

         "I know it's next to a shitty supermarket," I said. "But the view's actually pretty good—"

         She knocked the food out of my hand and pushed me down. She was on top of me. Her face was inches from mine. I could feel her breathing. Faster, heavier. Or maybe I was just aware of my own.

         "You were never on their side," she said. "Were you?"

         "What side?"

         "The emus. You never supported them."

         "No. Of course not. What they did, what they're doing, it's terrible."

         I thought she was going to kiss me.

         "My parents are Catholic," she said. "Very traditional. If I slept with someone before marriage they'd disown me. And with everything happening right now, I can't give them one more thing to worry about. You understand?"

         "Yeah."

         "Promise me something."

         "What?"

         "Don't sell this car. I know which emu destroyed our farm. I've seen it. And when the time comes, I want to ram this Volvo right into that fucking bastard. Will you promise me that?"

         "Okay."

         "Say it."

         "I promise."

         We stayed on that hill for another half hour. Maybe forty-five minutes, sitting in the grass watching the light drain from the sky.

         She kissed me deep on the mouth.

         I drove her back to her hotel near the airport. She was flying out the next morning back to Lund to finish her studies. We didn't talk much on the drive. She stared out the window most of the way. When I pulled up in front of the hotel, she thanked me for the day. Said she'd never forget it. Then she got out and went inside.

         We did stay in touch, at least at first. She called once a week, sometimes twice. We'd talk for twenty minutes. She'd tell me about her classes, her roommate. I'd tell her about work, about nothing really. Then the calls became less frequent. Once every two weeks. Once a month. Etcetera.

         She finished her doctorate and took a fellowship at Harvard's Kennedy School. She published a memoir, The Terror of the Tall Bird, that became an unexpected bestseller and spent sixteen weeks on the New York Times list. She appeared on Oprah, then Ellen. Obama picked it for his summer reading list. And eventually she was appointed as the official spokesperson for the UN's newly formed Animal Terrorism Committee.

         The last time she called was two months before the Volvos disappeared.

         "You still have it?" she asked.

         "The 240?"

         "Yeah."

         "It's still here."

         "You haven't sold it?"

         "No."

         "Good. That's good."

         I wanted to ask if she was seeing someone. I tried to think of a way to phrase it so I didn't sound pathetic. Before I could figure it out, she said she had to go.

        "I'll call you soon," she said, and hung up.

ARYAN OMAR HASSAN is the founder of Henar Press, a nonprofit that publishes experimental Kurdish writing, and maintains the Kurdish literary database. Based in Columbus, he has previously lived in Oslo, Stockholm, Sulaymaniyah, Abu Dhabi, and London, and holds degrees from The Ohio State University.