When Bombs Fall
What must it feel, in remote corners of the earth when Western bombs fall on their lands? There you are, doing your chores, getting by on a quiet day, breathing in the breeze as you think about them, the people of your house, nurturing something that happened last time, that moment, resenting something else, many things—and then BOOM! BANG! Or Krrrr . . . Whatever the hell that sound was . . .? You worry about the fields, next season’s crops . . . You call out names, loudly you think, or perhaps just in your mind, your lips moving, the tongue uttering something. It’s like your heart, like something else, something much bigger, had a fall, making you shrink. You’re gonna fall, you feel it, your weak knees, but you walk fast, “Where are they?” you mean to say, “Come back here!” and you start to cry . . .
This night’s particularly gloomy. What are they gonna do to us? is what’s on everybody’s mind. Everyone that’s left. The ones not fighting. Those who never wanted to fight. So what’s gonna happen to the water supply? Are they also gonna tax us? Will it be on paper this time? Are there gonna be tall, white men in town? They gonna marry our daughters? Our wives? I never did like the old mayor, proud, corrupt, but, you know, he was one of us. This farm has been my father’s, and his father’s, and his father’s father . . . Where is my son? Still haven’t found him, that rascal. He’ll get a beating, he’ll see . . . Something’s in my head. Something must have gotten in my head. It hurts . . . I have to lie down.
It’s been a few days since they found us. They kept us in these run-down huts, guarded. I wonder what those guns would feel like in my hands, my finger on the trigger . . . I recognize this hut that I’m in. It’s the house of that strange man in town that nobody wanted to talk to, the miser. Neat house. Proper. So this is where he’s kept everything . . . He’s not here now. They beat us up. They found out that one of us, the kid, a scholar, could speak their language. There are twelve of us here, and less than half, including the kid, the scholar, mostly men, have been talking. “So when we get an agreement, we’ll set up at the old mayor’s house, do a census, find out who didn’t . . .” “Don’t worry about the mayor. He’s dead!” “They’re not gonna stay here that long. But while they’re here, we should make sure . . .” “Fuck those rebels! Resistance fighters got nothing to do with their lives. I wanna get back to my farm!” “You, since you can understand them, you talk to them. You’ll give them our terms . . .” “I’ll be in charge of the treasury.” “Soon enough we’ll manage things on our own. A white man wouldn’t stay in this heat-stricken godforsaken land. Why would he want to? They’ll leave eventually. Or they’ll burn. Burn in hell . . .” “Give them the girls they want. Maybe they’ll give us weapons . . .” “That’s right, I lost them all, my daughters! But if I didn’t . . .” “Don’t worry about the priest. He’ll shut up. Or get shot.” “What do we do with the lands of the dead?” “Distribute equally?” “Among us.” “Amen.”
[Image from Vietnam by Nick Ut]
