For obvious reasons I cannot disclose my location. In order to forgo constantly calling it "the city where I live" in all of my writing it is imperative that I name my place. The danger is making it so vague that it is worthless or so full of detail that it is a dead giveaway. I could give some river based name (riverton) but since the middle east is largely lacking in the water department, all cities here are built on the few stable water sources. If I got more specific, there would be no need to use pseudonym. I could pick a religiously based name, but that would again describe the whole middle east.
Thus, I shall simply call it Diolkos. Diolkos is a major crossroads for the Arab world. It is a huge city packed full millions of people. The predominant religion is Islam but there is great diversity here with the ranks ranging from radical terrorist factions to more secularized variants. This country has suffered under colonialism several times and is currently suffering under economic colonialism. By and large, people here (Diolks) are simply trying to navigate the corrupted system and go about their lives.
