I asked Ibrahim [name obviously changed] to take me to the mosque to pray tonight. We washed, we lined up, then we began to pray. The Imam, who leads the prayer, started with the standard section - the Fatihah or "the opening". We all say "Amen" when the Fatihah ends, and so we did. The Imam continued, and I got somewhat lost in my own thoughts. While we stood there, listening to the Quran, not so deep in prayer, Ibrahim started to cry.
There's so much pain around that everybody has to hide at least some, or else they would never stop crying. Hide enough, and it turns into a minefield - you never know when something blows up.
For that man in that car on my first day in Fallujah, something blew up when he met me. For me, something blew up when I met him. For Ibrahim, I'm not sure what the trigger was, or what the memory was it triggered. All I know is that something about the words or voice or carpet or the way the light caught his eye set him off.
It's all I'll ever know, the rest left to my imagination. By the time the prayer ended, Ibrahim had regained control. He shook my hand and the hand of the stranger to his left, as is the custom, and then we left.