Who the Rats Are

This was for a class. I tried to be as accurate with the information and situation as I could with my resources.

Mohamat

            Everything feels like heaven but it looks like hell. I am tasting the air, and with each step I take, that rotten flavor hangs heavy. Infidels. My rage is peaking.

            I have been purified, so I accept that my mind is racing. In the many times I imagined these glorious moments, I had pictured myself in a state of such euphoria that my thoughts would be overwhelmed. Instead, my thoughts are fluttering by like a thousand feathers behind my eyes. The feathers are dropping from Allah’s hands, so I trust in them. Maybe he wants me to review my soul so I can completely purify my mind before we meet. His will is my will.

            I can see my destination in clear view. The building is new, modest, and filled with joyous laughter, such joy that I can hear it a full block away. I cannot let this seemingly innocent front fool me- I know, in my heart it is a blotch upon my city. It is a gift from Americans, so it is a gift from Satan. Eagerness engulfs me as I approach my target. I am like an angel battling the devil. He is not cunning enough to see my silent ambush. The corner of my lips lifts slightly in an unwilling smile as I realize the great cleverness of Allah.

            My target reminds me of the day I found my destiny. At the time, I was not nearly as filled with the intense, wonderful faith I am filled with now. No, at the time, I was a bystander, only curious in how the events played out. It was supposed to be a peaceful protest and I came to watch my brother. He was young and I was younger. The jihad had already engulfed him in religious fervor and I knew he was willing to do anything. The idea of my own flesh and blood falling for this cause both terrified me and left me in awe. I couldn’t comprehend his mindset. Was he scared to face death? Was he thinking on his own accord? Was he just crazy? That day, I said I went there to support him, but I felt the real reason distinctively as I saw his face snarl and mutate into hideous, furious shapes. I went there because I was fascinated.

            When violence erupted, I shirked back and pulled my wife and daughter beneath my arms. I could hear their breath quickening and maybe I could hear their screams as they tried to pry away and flee the scene. However, I stood there, a stake nailed into the ground, feeling death like a harbinger as I helplessly cried out to my brother. He didn’t hear me, and I understand now, he didn’t care. He faced the Americans, proud and satisfied, as though he had expected all his life this was the moment it would end. Maybe I felt the shot more than he did. When I heard the pang, I slumped to the ground, pulling my wife and daughter with me as I went down.

            At the time, I hated him. Every day, I questioned Allah, asking why my brother was so willing to consume my family with grief. I knew my wife and daughter tiptoed around the house to avoid my outbursts of rage, but I couldn’t help myself. Nothing made sense. The only thing I could do, I realized, was pray. I prayed and prayed and prayed, hoping one day, Mecca would answer my calls.

            Eventually, it did. It was a gradual process. I hadn’t noticed the rats before, but after the death of my brother, it was as though a whole nation of them decided to multiply in my household. Maybe they had always been there and I just hadn’t recognized them yet. I would catch their worm tails disappearing into the crevices of my walls or glimpse their beady red eyes and gnarled teeth as they stole a dropped crumb from my kitchen. At first, I would try to squash them with my bare hands, but they would slyly scamper away too quickly for my reflexes.

As I became more aggravated with their intrusion, I trained myself to recognize their entrance. Their scent was the easiest to detect- I could smell it rooms away. They were putrid, stinking of garbage and feces. At the first whiff of their stench, I would rush into the room it came from and block the largest cracks in the wall. The sinister creatures, already with stuffed cheeks, would always find a way around me. They would run into another room, out a window, or even underneath my own powerful hand back into the crevice they came out of. Eventually, I started hurling anything I could find�"books, shoes, stones�"at the little demons, but they dodged every throw like it was some sort of game.

My frustration turned into an obsession, and soon enough, I wouldn’t even leave my house. I spent long days filling the cracks, setting up traps, and sealing my windows shut. If my wife and daughter were tiptoeing around me before, they weren’t even looking me in the eye now. Any time I was spoken to, I would explode like a raving lunatic, screaming at the invisible rats I knew were in my home somewhere. If my wife touched my shoulder, trying to comfort me, I would whip around and smack her face with the back of my hand. If my daughter tried to play with me, I would tear her doll from her and stuff it in one of the crevices. They learned quickly to leave me by myself. Although I knew in the back of my mind I was like an alien to them, my primary goal, my addiction, was to rid my house of the stink of rats.

Then the day came when I knew how to reclaim my house. As I was busy setting up a new trap, I heard a heavy knock on the door. Frustrated because my concentration had been disrupted, I went to go see who was causing the disturbance. I opened the door to find to find two men, one an Iraqi, and one an American. I listened silently with pursed lips, nodding as though the rhythm was the only movement I could muster. The Iraqi was not a local man and he described the purpose of the intrusion, something about a search for explosive devices and weapons. He saw my eyes were blank and noticed I was only nodding in rhythm, not in comprehension, so he continued explaining the purpose frantically. The American was already inside my house, shuffling through boxes and cabinets.

I was dismayed. Something wasn’t right. It was familiar, but it wasn’t right. I took a whiff of the air�"rats. Strange, I couldn’t see a rat, but the smell was too close to be mistaken. Then, it hit me as though everything was fate, falling into place exactly as Allah had commanded. It was the American. He reeked of garbage and feces, invading my house to steal the little I had left.

As though someone had flipped a switch, I instantly flew into a violent, shouting rage. They had already stolen enough from me, did they want to steal my wife now? Did they want to steal my daughter? I clawed as though ripping apart the fabric of space and time in the air. The soldier swung around like clockwork and the next thing I knew, the barrel of a gun was between my eyes. I hushed. Seething fury ate away at my every nerve and burned even more fiercely than when I had expressed it. Silently, I allowed that fury to boil. To this day, it has not stopped boiling.

That night, I left my house. I did not tell my wife. I did not tell my daughter. I left, responding to the mission I was sure Allah had awarded me.

With that memory, I remember my purpose. I had expected my fingers to shake, at least, as I finalized my action, but it was as though my skin had been cooled with calm chamomile. Inside, I am everything but calm. The extreme mixture of ecstasy and hatred fight at odds with each other, seemingly anxious for that last moment. I can only move forward until I reach my target point.

I am here. I stop. I see an American, leaning against the building and idly smoking a cigarette. The possession of my soul with boiling, explosive anger is completed. At once, white fire blinds my eyes. Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the enemy of Allah and your enemy. American. Infidel. Satan. Rat. I am doing this for my lost brother and for the wife I left behind. I am doing this for the future of my daughter. Get out of my house.

 

Safia

            My mother will be very proud of me when she sees what I made today. Our teacher told us to make a picture. I didn’t just make a picture, I made art. I think it’s beautiful. My teacher told me it was, at least.

            In my picture, the war is over. The invasion is over, too. Americans are waving goodbye to my friends and family and everyone is smiling. Above us, there are many angels. Some people in my family have become angels, but it doesn’t make me sad. Every one of my friends has at least one angel in their family. I know that Allah has planned for us all to meet in heaven some day.

            The last moments of school are causing the excitement to gather on my brow, I can feel it. I watch as the clock ticks and I try to absorb what the teacher is saying. Education is my focus for now, my mother says, so I can have a bright future, one that most girls in Iraq would envy. Sometimes the thought that I will have an important, intelligent career someday makes me so giddy I start to smile without thinking. My mother asks why I am smiling, and I tell her that I don’t know. She just laughs.

            I twitch my legs and play with the fabric of my hijab. I realize this is the first time I have been eager to leave school. Usually, the learning thrills me. I had never experienced anything like it before. My school had just been built very recently as part of an American organization’s grant. In my old village, when the idea of girls attending school was mentioned, people scoffed. My mother always told me, in secret, education was a gift, and that I should never sincerely laugh at the idea of a scholarly woman.

            Well, she didn’t always tell me that. She told me after my father died. He is one of my angels. He passed away a few years ago, my mother says, as the victim of a Taliban attack. I was much littler a few years ago, so I don’t remember my father too well. I just know he watches over me with Allah in heaven. My mother doesn’t like to talk about him. I understand. She is grieving. My memory is at peace with my father, so I don’t ask about him.

            After his death, we moved away to another city in fear that we would be targeted again. This city is bigger than my old, rural village, but I have many friends and many dolls. I like it. My mother and I liked it more when we learned they were building a school for girls here. She hid her eyes in her hijab, telling me she was just smiling too much, but I knew she was crying. She tells me it is her dream for me to be an educated woman. That is how we defeat the Taliban: with strong, intelligent women, she says.

            My teacher releases us and my legs spring from my desk. I lurch toward the door, my artwork grasped in jittering, tight fingers. My friends and I laugh as we sprint toward the entrance of the building. I am racing them and my heart is racing myself. I am the first one to the door because I am the fastest. They are very slow and they don’t even step outside by the time I reach the open air. As I skip down the steps, I imagine my beautiful artwork, my masterpiece, of peace and happiness lighting up the sky. My mother will be so proud when she sees this.

            Time slows and I hear my laughter ringing in the air as though it is the only sound. I see an American smoking a cigarette leaning against the side of my school, protecting it, and I wave to him. He begins to lift his hand, but he freezes in mid motion. His eyes widen and his cigarette falls, dancing in the air as it flutters to the ground. My eyes slowly trace the line the American’s eyes make until I reach the sight he sees. There is a man with a strange belt. Then, there is only white fire. I recognized that man.

            Father?