Back to Raqqah

I was cleaning my rifle a few days later at about 2AM when I slid the bolt handle back and locked it in place. Honestly, I knew before that the whole thing was spotless, I just wanted to find an excuse to hold it in my hands again. I turned it from every angle, inspecting what had become a constant in my life. Whether that constant was salvation or condemnation, I wasn’t sure.

I tried to blink away the bleariness from my vision and the responsibility hanging over my head but couldn’t. There was work to be done; tedious things on paper needing to be written and funds to be appropriated and instructions for newcomers to be laid out…. time to stop wasting time.

I pressed the release and the bolt slid forward with a powerful jerk, srrsh-CHKKT. The sound left an unfamiliar ringing in my ears to serve as a reminder not unlike the postcards my old dentist would send to my house back when I still had an address in the world. For a minute, Raqqah appeared through my haze and not so far away I was standing, winter wind whipping the long straps on the dirt-caked backpack slung over my shoulder, in the Emirate’s doorway once again.

"It’s been so long since your last visit! Time to come back. ☺”