There was a massive explosion this morning that shook the windows so violently that they were about to break. I didn't wake up to it. Grandma woke me up to ask me if I heard the explosion while the sound of gunshots was ringing out. A few AK shots interspersing many M16 shots and heavy weapons. I told her that some resistance fighters probably ambushed an American convoy. The 19 year-olds from Tennessee or wherever were probably freaking out and shooting up everything in their vicinity while the resistance fighters were probably choosing their shots carefully. I then kicked over and went back to sleep while she fretted away.
This is complacency. I've been here long enough that I'm falling into a routine and starting to ignore bullets and bombs, but I haven't been here long enough that I have seen what those bullets and bombs can do to somebody I love. The mindnumbingly boring daily routine has bred my complacency, replacing the fear I should feel with a little bit of boredom. Strangely, the worst of it has come since I started at the ER and seen firsthand victims of bullets and bombs.
One of the weird things about bullets is that the bullet makes its impact before you ever hear the shot fired, since the bullet's speed is faster than the speed of sound through air. It feels all backward, actually. Like the wall is shooting the soldier.
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Obeid, poppa's youngest son, almost died today. He came to greet poppa and me when we got back from the hospital. I went to close the door and when I came back, Obeid was holding a bullet in his hand, a blissfully ignorant smile on his face as he told me that it hit the wall "right there" - a meter or less away from his head. "It could have killed me!!" he excitedly exclaimed while nodding. He had no idea what that statement meant. His father - who watched the shot come in - was pale, and for the rest of the day would periodically stop whatever he was doing to say "that bullet could have killed him". I never could muster a response.
When we got into the house, poppa told momma like this: "A bullet almost killed Obeid just now". Momma broke her step in the kitchen as she was preparing lunch, and stared at Obeid. "Alhamdulillah wal shukr" - All praise is due to God, and our thanks. It is the same response people give when the bullet doesn't miss - a confession of belief in that what God chooses is always for the best; in Qadr - that what must happen to us must happen. She took off right where she stopped to finish making us lunch.
tarek : )