MORE THAN THEY

                                MORE THAN THEY                    

    It had been stronger this week, stronger than he had ever felt it; not even in the battle fields some months back had it been this strong; then it had just been its fear eating away bit by bit at his scared soul. Now, now it was whole scale, eating away at both his soul and every point of his weary body. He hadn’t slept at all in three days and the few times he had laid down, his gun had rested in his hands cocked and ready for firing; it really was close.
      He was a soldier in Iraq, fighting a war he felt was completely unnecessary and that had done more harm than good-just like you couldn’t force religion onto someone, so could you not force democracy or freedom on anyone, these are things people had to want –his sentiments were obviously shared by every soldier but no one ever said it out loud lest they be heard by their superiors. If the superiors felt the same way about the same, they didn’t say out loud and especially not to the president who wouldn’t care anyway. He was too for winning and furthermore he himself wasn’t fighting; he had sent them out to kill and be killed; they were the ones who did the fighting for him. He simply didn’t care.
      It was now sunny outside he could see and slowly with a lot of sighing he lifted his weary body to its feet, up from the corner at which he had sat half asleep and went towards the door-less  doorway; leaving behind the helmet he now felt useless; to go enjoy the sun he felt might be his last .
      His right light brown boot tasted the morning sun first and as it tiredly stomped onto the dusty ground, his friends turned .The building he had just exited together with the one directly opposite it {their arsenal}, marked the entrance to the town they were manning and his two friends were at the black and white blockade beside which on either side were sand bags and a machine gun. They didn’t salute, no one did nowadays, they were all tired of it and so were their superiors, here they were friends looking out for each other and some military rules just didn’t count anymore.

          “The others left an hour ago to go get some guy the government claims is a terrorist” Pete said in his usual cheerful mood before spitting; they sometimes got tired of it. 
          “Key word, claims” Martin said swinging his gun to his left shoulder. He was shaking so much so that it was visible on his black skin. “It’s just us three here” he added.
          “Why are we here again?” Mark asked, looking up at the sun blindly; not that he hadn’t about a thousand times before, he just wanted again to hear the reason why this thing was now so close to him.
        “Because the president wants us to die out here Mark; we are the sacrifices, remember?” Pete said. Even behind the chuckles that accompanied the answer it was clear that something was bothering him. Something more than the thirst he usually so fretted his soul over.
          Mark stared at him for five silent seconds and spotted it; he needed to; tears behind his blue eyes which sparkled with faked happiness; he was also afraid, the tears told it all. It wasn’t cold which meant Martin was also scared, maybe they could also feel it, feel it creeping closer, and closing in on them; maybe it was what they were discussing before he appeared. Why had they stopped? He did wonder.
          Death was their topic and it would come eventually they knew; soon.

          Pete had left his wife pregnant, she was due anytime now. He would be called a hero; that’s what his child would be told he was, a hero, but that would be a damn big lie. He was like every other soldier fighting this war; just another sacrifice. He didn’t feel so patriotic right then and so the famous words of Nathan Hales he wouldn’t utter when his time came, he simply hated his country.
          “Yeah, right.” Mark sighed after a long dead silence. “I’m going to have a smoke” he added, turning to the soldiers six meters away in turns before pointing to the far inner-street edge of their arsenal.
          He didn’t smoke they knew, but they also knew that he-like they- felt it, which made them all the more scared.
          On the grey dust beaten off the buildings by bombshells and bullets he left boot prints, maybe the last he’d ever make, his shadow a bit long before him as he traversed the distance headed  towards the now close arsenal’s edge. At the building’s edge he turned right, walked on for about three meters then stopping, leaned heavily on the grey wall before sliding against its rough surface to sit on more grey.
          Cigarette out of left breast pocket and lighter pulled from the right knee pocket he lit the drug and pulled once, twice; he coughed.
            His eyes teary, he looked up at the blue sky hating the cool shadow he was in.

          They had fought, he reflected, both small street gun fights and all out heavy artillery field fights. After the big fights-during the street fights- many of them had died; these people were too damn stealthy –the reason they had demolished and removed debris of two blocks on all three sides such that ‘their’ two buildings were surrounded by a two block wide sea of dust. Now no one and no thing could sneak up on the whole twenty five of them; except that which was now; death.
            During the fights in the desert and in the streets he had felt something, not the death he felt creeping upon him now, no; something stronger. Something stronger than their artillery, bigger than the now forgotten reason why they were fighting; something more than they. Something he felt could make them defy orders, something much bigger than their belief in god or gods; the force behind the reason they were fighting.
          All those who had survived those fights had on inquiry said they had felt it but put a finger on it they couldn’t quite. It was that thing that now constituted his dying wish; that he know before he did die what that thing they had all felt was.
            It was quiet, too quiet indeed that he felt like he was part of a movie’s cast and was expecting to hear loud shouts of murderous men bursting onto the scene. Reflecting upon the way these people fought he knew it wasn’t forth coming. His hand on the gun in the valley formed by his raised thighs and abdomen he felt a bit safe, but not as safe as he would have felt if a thug was cutting at his throat in his home town.
            He missed his family he surely did and had rejoiced at the thought of seeing them again when some months back there had been rumors that they’d be pulled out but now- trusting his instincts which rarely failed him- he knew they might never even get to see his body.
            Right then he so envied Martin; he only had one person he felt would miss him; his brother. That Mark felt couldn’t be compared to his wife, children, parents and friends. It was much easier for the brother to move on than it’d be for his wife and five year old son; that’s what his sorrow led him to thinking.
            He wiped a tear. He wouldn’t cry he resolved as he breathed in violently. Though the milk wasn’t yet spilt he felt it better if it were considered so; it was already too late to be saved. He would die here and he had no doubt about it; it made him choke. Made his throat hurt.
            Wars were useless and costly anyone with a brain knew that, that’s why he agreed with a character from a certain book ‘The Book of Rules’ he had read that earth simply lacked wise leaders. He also did concur with a statement in it that belief was the cause of all problems man had which he could now clearly see; now that he felt he was so close to dying. The book he still had; it was in his left knee pocket and between its pages lay a paper on which he had jotted down who he blamed for his soon to come demise and those of many others; their president. He had promised his son in a letter he had sent much earlier that he’d be home in February but after the ousted dictator was hanged on Eid he doubted he’d make it through this day. It angered him more than it did scare him.

         Suddenly the feeling was strong; too strong. He felt engulfed by its fear like the building's shadow covered his body; he found it difficult to breathe. Dropping the self burning cigarette he braced his gun in both hands and listened as he waited; his position unchanged. He wasn’t ready to die yet he knew, he never would and would hence shoot at the first person who came into view and so he listened and waited, feeling death tighten its grip on his heart. It was quiet- the earlier said silence having not left- and he could clearly hear the distant careless steps as the person got closer death’s grip on his pump tightening. He raised the gun to his eye tightening his grip on it and waited as sweat trickled down his temples, then he loosened his grip.
         It was his friend young Ahmed, only nine years old, a mere child who in his entire life had known nothing but civil strife and now, this war. He was walking towards where he sat, kicking a polythene and sisal string football as he did; he reminded him of his son. This young boy he liked, he always came to keep him company and they had both learned a lot from each other; he had taught the kid English and he a bit of their language. The gun gently placed on the grey dust, he sat and waited for the kid death forgotten but why the increase in his heart’s rate he had no idea.
         “Hey do you want to play?” the kid asked halting about a meter from the soldier’s boots the polythene ball before his dusty bare feet.
         “ Sure” He replied , rising up as unseen to him the kid – his friend – pulled out from his green jacket’s right pocket a dagger before directing it to the his belly.
         He wasn’t counting but knew the stabs were more than five and they were still coming, he’d fear death no more since it was already here; it almost made him want to smile. The thing they had all felt during the fights was very much here but was so working against him; he couldn’t even remember- as the kid pushed him towards the wall- that he had a pistol with which he could have killed this murderer. 
         “Why?” he rasped as he reached the ground his bloody hands on his even bloodier belly.
          “I hate your country more than I love you.” came the heavily accented reply before the kid dropping the dagger dashed towards the blockage where Pete and Martin were, shouting for help.
         As he dragged himself towards the building’s edge he waited for an explosion which came just as his right hand reached the building’s edge his bloody fingers out of the shade and into the morning sun. He stopped trying to reach his now probably dead friends and lay there, life quickly draining from him.
         Even as shouts of hundreds of men invoking Allah’s name in their murderous utterances filled the air, he worried not; his wish had been fulfilled. The thing in the battle fields had all along been hate, hate; the worst emotion one can have towards another human being. The other twenty two would also die he knew- especially with these terrorists having acquired their arsenal-and by the way the three armed men were looking down at him, neither the book nor his body would reach his family; they would be burnt, the whole twenty five of them.
         Two shots rang through the air above the men’s shouts announcing that his two friends had been relieved of their misery. After the three standing over him spit at his sweat drenched face he knew he wouldn’t wait for long for his relief; especially after one pointed the gun he had so often clutched so close to at his forehead his eyes full of hate.

          He never felt the bullet that ran through his head exiting above his left ear nor would he feel anything after it. All he felt as darkness quickly engulfed him was hate, hate for the people who had started this war; hate for his president.



                                        BY: RICHARD STEVENSON.