Hushed Tones

March 12, 2008

It’s beautiful here at night. I can sit outside my building on the stoop tonight and see a perfect crescent moon. Stars glimmer and the wind strays soothingly through the palms. It’s clear and calm and warm out, and while I’m there I can forget that someone died today.

Someone dies every day here and the people live in fear of their own. I talk with the Iraqis I know and work with every day and they are always afraid of something. They share their meals with me, and talk about their families and how they’d like me to visit their homes. They show me pictures of their kids and I show them mine. We share work stories and speak the Universal language of Cops and Robbers. But simply mention Al Qaeda, and proud men will lower their heads and speak in hushed tones. Even in small enclosed rooms they fear the paper thin walls. I wonder if everyday Germans lived like this when Nazis were spoke of in 1940. Good men’s lives are shattered by uttering a name, like the explosion, or two, somewhere outside the wire that always ruins a good day.

-Jim Franks