My Calloused Bare Feet…

My calloused bare feet became glued to the cemented road. My attitude adamant, my eyes frozen and my mind numb. My clothes torn and my hair unkempt. My fists clenched, my adrenaline rushing and my pulse throbbing. The wind blew against me as the clouds gathered above my head. Ridiculing me, mocking me and cornering me. For the first time I felt small. Weak and helpless; a tiny piece of flesh in this vast ever expanding universe.

I looked at what was left of my town. Debris and rubble. The small particles of dust blowing with the wind were parts of real strong buildings just this morning. Strong! The word looked like a fake. My own mind sneered at the word. A word I had decided to discard from my dictionary. It deceived you, cheated you and it didn’t help you when all comes crashing down.

A silence prevailed except for the engine of the machine in front of me. A silence more profound than noise. More profound than voices. More profound than life.

Silence, death, darkness, evil. The second half of this universe stared into me or maybe I stared into it.

“when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”-Friedrich Nietzsche

It stared into me from the silent dark narrow tube attached to the front of the tank right in front of me, just a few paces ahead it was staring at me blankly. The machine stared blankly but the man in it stared with hatred. He stared with arrogance. He thought he had the license to do what he wished. A license from God. He did not need anything else. Everybody in this world plays God and the other is made the devil. In the end, whoever has the might gets to play God. God is mighty. Might is God. Religion on his mind and justice on my mind. It was the age old battle of good and evil. But who was good? Who was evil? Who would decide? All so arcane! We all know that good prevails in the end. But who will tell me what is good? Is altruism always good? Is power always good? Is justice always good? Is logic always good? Is religion always good? My mind was pacing, accelerating with each second, trying to grab the truth, groping in darkness and waiting for luck.

Whatever it is it doesn’t matter any more. The only thing that matters is the tank in front of me. The only thing that matters is death awaiting me. Good was not going to help me now. I am the quarry. Tank the predator. And the man sitting in the tank, intoxicated.

“Religion is the opium of the masses.”-Karl Marx

I surely would have collapsed had my memories not taken care of me. They supported me. They strengthened me. I tried to remember what had happened that morning. How I had left my house, my mother and my sister, and gone to the mosque to say the Friday prayers. How I had come out and saw the surreal scene. The bulldozers annihilating everything! The noise of the blasts! The scent of blood! The cries of the preyed! My father shot right beside me. I had run to my home. My mother’s dead body in the kitchen. My sister lying naked in her bedroom. The surreal scene piercing its way into my brain. I tried to close my eyes. I tried to die. I wanted death. But I had survived. It was all very blurred now. I remembered running out of my home and confronting this tank. But these memories did not weaken me. Instead they strengthened me. They gave me courage to stand up and face the reality.

“..and when prayer is done, disperse in the land and seek of the bounty of God.”-Holy Quran.

Where was my bounty? Where was my reward? But then it all came to me like a flash of lightning. This was my reward. My martyrdom. My sacrifice for my God was my reward.

Then the tank shot. I was turned to smithereens. I had died for my God. He had killed for his God. The hunter and the hunted. Both were the same thing. Both were humans. But your beliefs transform you. Beliefs are powerful. Segregation had been done on the line of beliefs.

Religion prevailed in the end, might prevailed in the end, good prevailed in the end. All so contradictory!

My mother had embraced me in the end. My land had embraced me in the end. My soil had hugged me, kissed me, and welcomed me. All these years I thought I had achieved so much. Fallacies! I was just another page in the countless useless pages of history. I was told I will receive my rewards in the hereafter. I will wait for tomorrow.

“What is human life? Is it not a maimed happiness—care and weariness, weariness and care, with the baseless expectation...of a brighter tomorrow?”-Ernest Renan

All these years, I thought I had changed so much. Fallacies! I was the same. Still soil! I had returned from where I started.