All the Horrible Girliness

Here is an Iraqi child, waking up begrudgingly for school, one leg thrown out of his bed. Here is another, chewing on a strand of her own hair, nervous because she is the smallest and her father the poorest in the town. At this moment, they are walking around, dreaming of the future, but a number of them - some particular number, we will know it soon - will shortly be obliterated.

Likewise, a particular number of American and Iraqi soldiers are at present living and breathing, with fatherhood ahead of them, perhaps, grandfatherhood, a particular number of nights of mad lovemaking, excellent dinners, neighborly feuds, swims in the ocean, ahead of them - and all of this is to be forfeited, and for what?

...

So in the end, because my information and my intellect are limited, I have to base my opinion on images, reminding myself that, in a world of infinite variety, real-world corollaries of these images actually exist, at this very moment: A vase still holding flowers, a child still singing a nonsense song, a dog still barking at the moon, a building still standing, a son still alive.

Speed up the tape: The vase explodes, the child drops, the dog is flung into a stone wall, the building falls. The father sits in a chair, chewing his lower lip, remembering.

posted by Samus @ 9:39 PM