A menacing black plume rose from the ashes of what used to be a village. It probably wasn’t much of a village even before the military ordinance had rained down on it; these people were simple. It was even less of one now.
Not all of the smoke had ascended vertically into the air though; some of it had spread itself across the sand, leaving a haze in the air for a fair way from what could only be described as ground zero, perhaps it too was trying to escape the carnage at its epicentre. It was on the outskirts of this opaque cloud to which I’d made my advance.
The occasional crack of gunfire echoed out across the valley, along with shouting and raised voices. I didn’t know what they were saying, I don’t speak Farsi. And then the shadows began to surface, flickering, becoming ever more defined. The voices became louder, the shadows danced darker and darker as they stalked the border of their unintentional smoke cloud camouflage.
Then came the bullets.
Some were from the men next to me, a few were from the shadows in the fog, and some were mine. Either way, it grew quiet very quickly, and the shadows didn’t dance anymore. But one did move. It was much smaller than the others, and much less lively. Slowly, it made its way to the edge and limped out into focus. The malnourished and gaunt child that stepped out from behind the veil barely had the strength to walk, let alone raise a rifle and fire at trained and grown soldiers.
No one fired.
I reached out to him, despite that festering feeling of trepidation and distrust rising in me. I paid almost more attention to my peripheral vision than to the actual position of the boy in front of me. As I did, a faint whisper which I now realize had been there for a while became a murmur, then a collective of voices, they got louder and louder until they were all shouting at me, unrestrained from all directions.
I snapped my eyes open; back to reality. This wasn’t a dream though, I wish it had been.
Maybe Iqbal wasn’t innocent. Maybe he was only less guilty than the others. Had he been able to lift that rifle with urgency, would he have taken the shot? And he’d still be there, and I would be gone. I’d pulled the trigger on others like him, condemning them for what they might have done - scratch that, would have done – with a lined up rifle. Is it wrong to condemn a boy for what he might have done? Maybe. But many men lie buried on hillsides because they let the apparent innocence of a child in his war-torn homeland stay their weapon. Why think Iqbal would have been any different? He seemed different. These were the perpetual thoughts that contributed to a seemingly incurable case of insomnia. Maybe I should confess this.
Leif Rennes (NZ)
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