Child of the gun

Gunfire went off as bullets rained like snowfall and all that could be heard were the pops, bangs and the frequent groans of men who had been shot from either faction. The floor was dusty red as the splatter of bullet shells, gunpowder, and blood stained it. all I could see was a spinning room as I covered the bloody gaping hole from my side that I had just discovered before I coughed up blood. Then I realized I had been shot. There was a tingling feeling before the pain felled me and once my head hit the floor, all I saw were glimpses of Iraq, dead bodies dropping to the ground. I was back in the trenches again as a child struggling to comprehend what to do, cowering as my vision went blurry and every war I had been in came to mind to torment me. The piercing screams of children who had been forced to fight for Islam, for their father's glory, honor, and inflated egos. My past had been distant but the blood loss and hitting my head had made the trauma of the past alive again like a bad dream my life flashed before my eyes, "wake up Zayed," my name echoed as I focused to get my thoughts in check.

"Zayed wake up!" The voices of three women called out as one; one from the past, one from the present and one from the future a fractal mirror, in one voice they sang a tale. Each wore a different face yet they spoke as one, "there was once a woman who bore a child, a hated child, despised from the womb. It was different; from a different culture a result of sin" the voices narrated as a sense of euphoria washed over me like the oceans carrying sand from the beaches. "Accusations rose from each culture over its existence battles were fought over its conception; child of woe and sorrow, child without tomorrow, child of torment, yet it was too small to comment." Their voices rang in my mind like a loud gong as I saw myself back in Syria shoveling dirt out of holes for mass graves that had been dug for those who were too weak to conform to the norms forced upon them by their families. I could hear the sounds of deafening cracking whips on children's bare backs, each chewing at their skin, one by one as they whipped us to prove a point.

Deserters of the child army back in Iraq had no place in society and by a whip, they crammed their ideals into our backs and brains. One by one they strung us up on poles with one swing of the arm you could hear the whip strip the skin off our backs as we fell on our knees unable to do anything else. "The fate of the child had already been decided. By its side no one-sided, it was abandoned, for because of its presence it had shunned many; child of shame, child from fame, nothing to frame" tears reverberated in the camp as children called out for their mothers one by one whipped to conviction, "it was birthed in anguish, born on a blood moon, a night where blood roses bloomed; child of the nightingale, child white and pale, child weak and frail."

 As the echoes of the past came boomeranging back to me all I saw was Halima, her sly, secretive smile staining my mind with her memories. Halima, my biggest trial, my love and hate had sprouted from loving her. "They tossed the child out in the cobble streets, naked no linens to cover it no protector by its side; child of loneliness, child of shamelessness, child of recklessness," where was my dearest Halima for whom I received lashes and lashes of conversion? Where was my dearest betrayer? Did she think about me in the dusty dunes in Iraq? did she read my poems? did she pray for my liberation? did she ask Allah for my wellness? All this was rhetoric to my mind which seemed to be engulfed in confusion, from the chaos that was in my head and around me.

"At its disposal many were relived, in pubs and bars ale was served, jesters twisting their bodies to song, cupbearers came bearing expensive wines as they sloshed the child's life down their throats and all that remained in their beings and thoughts was intoxication and faded memories; child of ale, child female, child of try and fail."

Realities were cracking and breaking down there was at once three realities instead of one. Pain throbbed through my body as I heard the trinity voice call to me and when the pain pulsed again, I could see Iraq and Syria and when pain tore through my body once more I was back on the ground bullets showering liberally from the ongoing gunfight. "It dared to dream. It dared to live, a cruel tactic, a trick of reality, a cruel joke by fate. Each time it was brought down, pushed, downcast into mud trenches where it belonged; child of the soil, child of toil and moil, child smeared in sinful oil."

With the ringing sound of the bullet shells falling to the ground came an unsettling reality bullets were the only thing I had known for all of my presence on this earth, bullets had kept me alive and by a bullet, I would return to the ground, "child of the bullet," by bullets was my being made of importance, "child of the gun," by bullets I fell in love, "wake up my gunned down child," by bullets I learned to hate, "rise from the ashes," bullets were all that I had known, "wake up child of the trigger," and it was all that I would continue to know. "Rise child baptized by gunpowder," by bullets I became me. "from the mud arose the hated child, despised from the womb, child of mixed culture and race, child from sin, from the cracks of dust, filth, and muck the unwanted child rose. By its side, the gun sided, in the night of the blood moon, the gun stood as its protector. By the gun at its side, jesters and drunks knelt at the child's feet; child reborn, child without scorn, child no longer a pawn."

The voices and gunfire came, ending in a crescendo as the pain erased the delirium that had blurred my vision and my thoughts cleared. There was a numbness in my side as the room span and all i saw was carmen running to me before everything went dark.