Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer
No all-powerful deity would ever admit to this wretched rock being of its hand. What God would lay claim to its deformities and corruptions. To its cancers, to the ripe budding evil that blooms within our cells and the tumours we’ve named: Persecution, Rape and War.
No, sorry, there is no benevolent father. No light riven thing to listen as we bleat and whimper about just how unfair is our lot. There is no God. But there is something next.
I know this, for I have seen it.
They’re called operations but this sortie was anything but. Bullets make for such lousy surgeons. I can’t even remember what it was called. Operation Dismembered Carcass, perhaps.
So, anyway, I held in my hands the pathway to peace. Now melted down and forged into a very, very large gun. Really it was huge and well, anyway, my… my unit it rounds onto Omar Mukhtar Street and I see her, gently whipping keffiyeh slung at her neck. She approaches and before I’ve time to raise my very, very large weapon there is a click…
Paper… Rock… Improvised Incendiary Device…
I look into the eyes of the invader. He is a good man. I look at his weapon as it stirs and I know he is just like me. He wants to be somewhere else… No, no he doesn’t, he wants to be here, only back safe in his house with his family. My eternal home… but where is it?
Where, when the land is now ash?
He… we… vaporize into a wet thud of pulverized viscera and my essence it mixes with his. And as our ruined and gutted husks slap down upon the street as dirtied clothes cast to the floor…
…we… taste each other in the sticky pink mist… and as it settles… it outlines a form.
We see it. We see the moaning white phosphorus pits of its eyes and its scream is a Qassam that falls in the night. It is manifest obstinate wet oily hate and it looks right through us… it looks right through us and it… smiles.
Nasty, grim, and should be required reading for a lot of people.
Many thanks Simon, if only it would make a difference.
I totally agree. A chilling ride. You got me again with this one.
Thank you so much. Very happy you got something from it.
Powerful and chilling … from the opening lines to the closing.
Thank you David, really appreciate you taking the time to read it.
So dark but so anchored in reality. Sad and true. Xx
Thank you very much Emma.
Wow, somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed. This is dark and disturbing. I love it.
Thanks R.J, I’m glad I disturbed you 😉