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Fanlib Retrospective, Part Five
As the end of the contest neared, I was getting progressively more bitter and angry at the world. It's then I decided to branch out from posting subject matter about the bible advertisers didn't want into posting subject matter about current events advertisers didn't want.
The story that resulted was equal parts seething rage and flamebait, and due to time restrictions/an inability to look up Iraq videos at the time without becoming overcome by crushing despair, the factchecking for some setting details is lacking. It's a songfic, so it can't be posted on Fictionpress, and honestly for the previous reasons it probably shouldn't anyway. So, instead, here's
Hadji Girl.
I was out in the sands of Iraq
And we were under attack
"So goddamn hot," the soldier, Boone, next to him groaned. "Why'd the ragheads have to live in such a godforsaken hellhole?"
"Cuz they're godforsaken Muslim ragheads, that's why," Justin retorted. He watched the Iraqi buildings for motion as they drove past. The insurgents could be anyone, could be lurking anywhere. The houses were shabby and dull, many falling down and others badly patched up. There was trash everywhere, open sewers in places, the broken trunks of hideous, withering palm trees dotting the landscape as they drove by. The air was thick with a choking dust, filling his mouth and lungs as the hummer rumbled along the unpaved road, seeming to hit each and every rock and pothole along the way and jolting him from side to side into the burning hot metal of the car's side. Stuck in a godforsaken third-world hellhole. He hadn't signed up for this crap. Who would want to live like this..? But the Iraqis weren't grateful to American troops for all they'd done for the damn country. They couldn't care less how they lived. All they cared was making sure the Americans didn't.
If they'd been at home, he'd have called the streets empty. As it was, he swore at the sight of anyone he saw. The reason people were on the streets was to set car bombs and alert snipers they were coming. "What I want to know is, how the hell they can stand it." Some of them were chattering conspiratorially in small groups, eying the hummer as it drove past with predatory eyes, dressed in loose, layered dark outfits that could hide an armory within them. Others talked in guttural grunts into the cell phones the Americans had brought into the country in the first place as they watched, spreading the news, alerting the rest of their cell. The insurgents could be anyone. The insurgent supporters were everyone. It was just a matter of catching them in the act, before they could do too much damage or killed one his buddies or some hapless American contractor who'd come to help the ungrateful murderous bastards. There had been nothing all day. Nothing but boredom and crushing heat and the Iraqis everywhere, talking to each other as they watched the hummer drive by and planning their next move. When he'd signed up, he hadn't realized how much of war was waiting for the attack to come.
Up ahead, he saw a large group look up, see the American car coming toward them with its painted army colors, and run through the doors into one of the buildings, and he jerked upright in his seat.
"Hey!" he shouted, pointing. "Little hadji bitches have something to hide. Pull over, quick!"
And I, well, I didn't know where to go.
And the first think I could see was
Everybody's favorite Burger King
So I threw open the door and I hit the floor.
He kicked the door in. "Alright! No one move!" he shouted.
One of the insurgents immediately tried to dart to the side, for a gun or maybe a bomb trigger or maybe something else, and Yoshiaki, standing at Justin's side, shot him instantly. The man went down with a shriek.
"Screams like a girl," he said, and they laughed sharply.
The rest of the Iraqis were still, looking at them with guarded eyes. One of them started to talk in English. It was heavily accented to the point it could barely be understood and reminded Justin of a monkey that had been badly taught to speak. "Shut up," he said, and waved the barrel of his M-16 at him. The man's mouth closed with an almost audible snap, and Justin couldn't help but grin for a second.
The men he'd seen earlier were clustered in one side, around a table. The place looked like it was a restaurant, made of the same shabby material that everything else was. The windows had strips of tape across them to try to prevent the glass from flying everywhere if a blast went off. There were bullet holes in the back wall.
Restaurants were a cover for insurgents. They could gather and plot there. Money could be funneled to various terrorist cells under the guise of business.
The terrorists were looking at him with wide, wild eyes, but they didn't move. "Get up against the wall!" Justin barked.
They didn't move. "I said move!" he shouted, gesturing again with the gun.
The man who had spoken before said something quickly in what sounded like Arabic. Tobey clubbed him with the butt of his gun a second later, and the man went down to his knees clutching his bleeding head.
The men moved.
"The only thing these fuckers understand is violence," growled Boone in annoyance.
"Think this bastard's alive," Madock said, staring down at the insurgent who had been shot earlier.
Boone fired again. "Now he's not."
Some of the terrorists against the wall shifted threateningly. Justin swung his gun toward them quickly. "Don't get any ideas," he said. "Hey, Yoshi, think we should take 'em all or not?"
"Yeah. Madock, you can call in."
Tobey kicked the cowering man at his feet.
"Allah," gasped the man with each kick. "Allah! Allah!"
"Listen to him shout," Tobey said with a laugh, and kicked him again.
"Allah!" shouted the man, cowering with his hands over his head.
"God," Justin said with disgust. "What a coward." He kicked him. "Stand up and fight, you bastard! I thought all you raghead bastard hadji want those seventy-two virgins!"
"Allah!" the man kept saying with each kick.
Justin took a step back. He saw movement under the table where the men had been standing. He leaned down and looked under.
A girl's face stared back at him, wide-eyed and frozen, like a rabbit's.
Then suddenly to my surprise
I looked up and I saw her eyes
And I knew it was love at first sight.
Justin stared a moment, then recovered. He walked across the room in long strides like he owned it, leaned down, grabbed her by the arm and yanked her tumbling out from under the table. She was lighter than he expected, the baggy burqua or whatever it was making her look bulkier than she was.
One of the terrorists by the wall shouted something. Boone aimed the M-16 at the man's head. The man's face paled under his dark skin, and he went deathly quiet.
"You with those guys?" Justin demanded.
The girl didn't answer. She was still sitting in a heap on the floor, trying to pull the colored cloth wrapped on her head like a hood more tightly around her face and shivering despite the heat.
He leaned down and shouted in her face. "Hey! Are you with those guys over there?!" He waved his gun toward the terrorists standing against the wall. Boone was looking them over. "Those guys?! Are you with them?!"
The girl just stared back at him with her wide black rabbit eyes. She pulled the scarf down further over her face.
"Hey, knock that off," he said in irritation, grabbing the scarf and pulling it off with a quick jerk to flutter down onto the dirty floor.
Underneath he could see she was pretty, beautiful even with long black hair and a smooth face with lighter, coffee-and-cream colored skin. What was someone like her doing, covering that up? Didn't she know they'd fought a whole war to kick out Saddam and Osama, that they'd put a stop to that kind of crap? He pulled her to her feet. She looked like she was fourteen or maybe fifteen.
One of the terrorists by the wall shouted. Boone had ripped a gold bracelet off his wrist. "Fucking looters," he said. "Just look at this, would you?" He tossed it to Justin, who almost dropped it, not expecting the weight.
"Damn," he said, hefting it. "That's solid gold. What the hell's some dumb terrorist got stuff like this for?"
"I just said, looters. He was probably going to sell it for plastic explosives or some shit."
"Pretty nice," Justin said appreciatively. "Hey," he said again, holding it out to her. "Here, you want it? Solid gold."
The girl shivered. She started babbling away quietly in Arabic, the unintelligible sounds like pretty birdsong.
"I can't understand a word you're saying, you stupid hadji girl," he told her pityingly.
And she said
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
Hadji girl I can't understand what you're saying.
And she said
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
Hadji girl I love you anyway.
"Okay, they said they don't want to bother," said Madock. "Just grab someone. Maybe Squeally here," he said, kicking the man on the floor, who shouted the same nonsense word again.
"Yeah, whatever," Justin said, not paying attention. "Here," he said again, waving the bracelet in her face. "Here - oh goddamnit, they're all too stupid to understand a word." He reached down and grabbed her hand again, pushing the gold bracelet over it onto her wrist. "Here!" he said, more loudly. "It's yours now, I'm giving you it." She didn't seem to understand what was going on and the heavy chain almost slipped over her hand again, then at the last moment she caught it with her other hand, holding it in place.
"Women," he said in amusement. "All they care about is jewelery."
"Sherpa bak allah," she said softly, staring at him with wide black rabbit eyes.
"Sherpa bak allah," he said jokingly in response, repeating the nonsense back like he would have a pet dog's yapping. "Hey, let's blow this joint."
"Hease hees hi oughter," said the man on the floor thickly.
Boone clubbed him in the head. "Shut up, faggot."
"I'm gonna take her home," Justin said to the other soldiers.
"Right."
"Whatever, we've got this under control. Right, Squeally?" The man on the floor yelped as he was kicked again.
Justin reached out and grabbed her arm near the elbow, pulling her toward him. She moved like a well-made doll, neither resisting nor moving along with him. "Home," he said clearly and loudly to her. "Where's your home? Your home?"
She stared at him.
"Your home, where is it?" he repeated louder.
The man on the floor mumbled something fast and guttural. Boone kicked him. "I said shut up!"
The girl lifted a trembling hand and pointed toward the doorway, still open with the frail door half off its hinges now.
"There, see?" he said to the others. "If you're just loud enough you can get across."
"Think they play dumb, personally," said Tobey.
"Don't think they have to play," retorted Boone.
"Okay, come on," he said, pulling on her arm to move her across the floor, to the broken door. She walked smoothly just as he pulled her, like she was moving her feet to keep them under her body but taking no steps of her own without his guidance.
It was beautiful.
Then she said that she wanted me to see.
She wanted me to meet her family
But I, well, I couldn't figure out how to say no.
Cause I don't speak Arabic.
Outside the sun was beating down. He didn't understand how she could stand to wear all those layers of fabric, or wrap the scarf she'd had before around her head, when it was so ungodly hot out all the time. He guessed people like them just got used to it, living without power or air conditioning or freezers most of their lives. Wasn't like they could go swimming either, in the middle of the desert.
There was no one else on the street at the moment. Like scattering cockroaches, Justin thought. If they didn't have anything to hide, they wouldn't vanish at the sight of Americans cracking down on the terrorists in their midst.
A voice came over the speakers that dotted the area, chanting unintelligible syllables mixed with heavy static. The girl crumpled to the ground, her arm pulling out of his loose grasp as she did so.
"Get up," he said, confused. He stared a moment and realized what was going on. "You don't have to bow to speakers," he told her, feeling a sort of tenderness at the sight of her childish obedience, her helplessness to it. "Saddam's dead, you don't have to bow. You don't have to cover your face or any of it." He held her upright, supporting her as her legs seemed to have gone boneless, no longer able to bear her weight. She was shaking like a leaf, murmuring fast, repetitive nonsense - "Durka durka durka durka."
After almost a minute she steadied so he no longer had to support her.
"Look, you've got dirt all over you now," he chastised. The ground under her feet was the same dust and sand as the rest of the country. It lightly covered now the cloth wrap at the bottom of her legs where she'd collapsed to the ground. He bent to try to brush the dust off. Some of it left black streaks on his hand, like there were grains of charcoal mixed in. She stood perfectly still.
"So where's your home?" he asked, straightening again. "Your home?"
She began talking in a soft rapid voice, more pitter-patter birdsong nonsense. She was holding her hangs together to her chest, one at the gold chain bracelet on the wrist of the other.
"Home," he repeated more loudly. "Ho-me?" She shifted timidly on her feet and took a single hesitant step forward, looking at him all the while with her wide black rabbit eyes. He stepped with her, staying at her side. "Right, home," he said. He gestured in the direction she'd stepped. When she looked at him blankly, he grabbed her arm again and pulled her the next step, gesturing in front of them again, and she seemed to understand and started to walk along the dusty unpaved trail that passed for a road in a third-world hellhole like Iraq.
So, she took me down an old dirt trail.
And she pulled up to a side shanty
Justin walked right alongside the girl. She was walking with tiny, mincing steps, shaking like a leaf in the wind and staring at him with wide black rabbit eyes the entire time, like she wanted some cue from him about what she should do, the attentive, world-narrowing focus that reminded him of a devoted dog.
She was beautiful, he thought again, and again he felt something like tenderness for something so harmless, so simple, so afraid.
As they walked she was raising her hand uncertainly by inches, the one with the golden chain around the wrist that he'd given her. When it reached her shoulder she pressed it against the lower part of her neck for a moment, then began to pull nervously at the edge of the amorphous, drape-like thing she was wearing, the burqua or whatever, pulling it higher by millimeters.
He saw what she was trying to do and reached out to grab her hand. She froze in place, like she was nothing more than a simple doll he'd switched off. "Hey," he said gently, pulling her hand down to her side. "Saddam's dead; you don't have to do that. You're beautiful. You're beautiful, you shouldn't hide it. Saddam's dead and you're all free now, you can dress how you like and you don't have to cover yourself up, there's no one telling you how you have to dress." He let go of her hand and in an almost involuntary motion she started to raise it again, halting midway so it was pressed to her chest. He thought she had some idea of what he meant, and continued, "That's what we fought for, for freedom. Not for Mohammed's sick religion, not for telling women they have to submit and cover themselves and stay inside. This - " and he reached out and grabbed the loose material near her shoulder, tugged it to show how it gave, how ill-fitting and baggy it was, " - you don't need it any longer."
She reached up reflexively to where he'd pulled the collar down, and he grabbed her hand again and his fingers brushed against her chest, touching the side of one hidden breast beneath the thin material.
She jerked backward, the first real action she'd taken, his fingers catching on the folds and pulling it further into disarray as she did so.
Justin felt annoyed. "Stop that. I'm not going to hurt you." He reached for her again and she tried to push his hand away, the links of the bracelet on her wrist jangling as she did so, tried to pull her clothing around her tighter, shaking from head to foot, tried to step back again and bumped against the wall. He grabbed her arm, his other hand resting on her chest, pinning her. "Stop that. Calm down."
She said nonsense, her voice trembling, and he hooked his fingers under the collar and pulled it half over her shoulder. "It doesn't mean anything," he told her. "Don't you understand that?" The skin underneath was almost white in the sunlight, like the moon. "I'm not hurting you, hadji girl." With his other hand he grabbed her wrist over the bracelet and said, "I gave you this, didn't I? You took it. I'm not a bad guy. This doesn't mean anything, it's all a lie they tell you to control you." The hand at her collarbone dipped further, touched the top of her breast. "This isn't something bad."
She was still like a doll under him, barely breathing. Then with a sudden convulsive movement she jerked free and tumbled out of his grasp. She sprinted down the road, up to a door that she pounded on and tumbled through out of sight, shouting something he could barely hear but thought was something, "Mohammad jihad allah," or some other nonsense.
He swore and followed. Women. Ungrateful bitches, the lot of them.
And she threw open the door and I hit the floor.
Cause her brother and her father shouted
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
They pulled out their AKs so I could see
He could hear nonsense babble from inside as he came up on the pathetic place the girl had ran into. It was a mess, half-destroyed and badly repaired. It was like someone had dropped a fucking bomb on it, what was wrong with these people? He kicked the door open and rushed in. Inside it was dim and dusty and even more oppressively hot, but he could make out the girl cowering against the wall, another younger one standing next to the couch like she'd just gotten to her feet, and in the center were two insurgents standing in front of the door, both with AK-47s in their hands that they raised at the sight of him. One was an adult, the other around ten. He was shaking like a leaf, shaking with so much excitement and hate that the barrel of the gun was weaving around wildly in the air. What kind of sick bastards think of children as soldiers in a war? What kind of sick bastards give children guns, raise them to kill, to want to kill other people like that? Animals. Animals, all of them.
The adult shouted guttural snarling words at him, waved the gun around like it gave him some kind of right. Animals, he thought again. Stupid animals that had somehow gotten their paws on the weapons of their betters, nothing but bravado and the cowardice of hidden bombs when it came to fighting. Did the guy, did the baby killing terrorist scumbag, really think he'd back down and be captured and beheaded just because some sand nigger yelled a bit?
And they said
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
Not a fucking United States Marine. Not to these dumb animals, stupid monkeys who didn't even know how to handle a fair fight, goddamn cowards who wouldn't dare do more than shout when they couldn't fight dirty, couldn't snipe at a distance or rig car bombs or load themselves up with explosives. He moved slightly on his feet, getting ready, and the dumb hadji bastard actually fired the gun over his head, a goddamn warning shot, it was so absurdly stupid he wanted to laugh so he did, laughed in the insurgent's faces at how stupid they were.
Then Justin dove forward and rolled, grabbing the little five year old girl standing like she was frozen by the couch and pulling her in front of him just as they fired.
So I grabbed her little sister and pulled her in front of me.
As the bullets began to fly
The blood sprayed from between her eyes
The girl didn't even have a chance to scream before the terrorists had killed her. Justin completed his roll, dropping the body and sliding behind the TV for cover from the next shots, which he assumed would be better aimed and not something a child's body could protect him from.
Justin assumed wrong. They dropped their weapons and ran to the obviously dead body, yelling more nonsense. The older one scooped the body from the floor. Its limbs dangled lifelessly like a ragdoll, but he seemed to be taking the time to check to see if she were still somehow alive anyway, wailing low animal cries and rocking back when he realized the truth. A man, crying.
An insurgent, crying.
A baby-killing terrorist piece of scum, crying.
Justin started to laugh. Once he'd started, he couldn't stop.
They were just so stupid.
And then I laughed maniacally
Then I hid behind the TV
And I locked and loaded my M-16
And I blew those little fuckers to eternity.
He aimed his gun and blew the older insurgent's head off. He aimed his gun and blew the younger insurgent's head off. Then he kicked the television over to crash to the floor and walked over to the hadji girl pressed against the wall.
She was staring at him with wide black rabbit eyes, two lines of tears down either side of her face. For a second he thought she said something that sounded like, "La ilaha illa Allah," but he listened and realized he'd misheard and it was only the same nonsense mumbles that he heard as, "Mohammed jihad durka allah."
He reached for her and she didn't move, just lay there against the wall like a porcelain doll, just kept repeating the meaningless nonsense, "Mohammed jihad durka allah," that passed for human speech in that godforsaken third-world hellhole of a place like a talking wind-up doll. He grabbed her wrist hard over the bracelet, crushing it against her skin, furious in the aftermath of the site.
"I gave you this you ungrateful hadji girl," he told her, twisting her arm. Her face was a doll's face and didn't react, like he wasn't, really, hurting her, so he twisted harder because she wasn't a real girl who felt pain, a girl who it would be wrong to twist her arm and hurt, just something to vent his frustration on. "I could have arrested you, collaborating with insurgents, don't think we don't know kids like you are part of it, we've got plenty of the little bastards already locked in Abu Ghraib, don't think anyone would have blinked if I'd decided to bring you in. Don't you understand you ungrateful hadji we fought this war for you and you insist on blowing each other up, insist being insurgents and getting killed when this godforsaken country is coming down around your ears, this godforsaken place full of mindless animals watching your every move when it's hotter than hell would be with every road mined and the cars rigged and children with AKs, we're here in this godforsaken hellhole because of you don't you understand that."
"Mohammed jihad durka allah," the girl continued mindlessly, her face empty with two lines of tears down either side of her face.
He grabbed at the collar of her clothing and tore it open, started to grope her chest. She struggled suddenly and tried to twist away, and he held onto her grimly.
She spat in his face.
"You goddamn hadji girl," he said, and raised his gun to shoot her.
And she smiled as he fired.
Goddamn hadji, all they cared about was getting killed.
And I said
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
They should have known they were fucking with a Marine.
Fun fact: Despite language, subject matter, etc, this story was also rated PG-13, not Adult.
And that's the end of it. Stories have been posted, experiences reminisced, and the site should go down sometime today.
Edit: As of 11, Fanlib is finally closed down - insomuch as having a new page up to say they're closed can be considered such.
The story that resulted was equal parts seething rage and flamebait, and due to time restrictions/an inability to look up Iraq videos at the time without becoming overcome by crushing despair, the factchecking for some setting details is lacking. It's a songfic, so it can't be posted on Fictionpress, and honestly for the previous reasons it probably shouldn't anyway. So, instead, here's
Hadji Girl.
I was out in the sands of Iraq
And we were under attack
"So goddamn hot," the soldier, Boone, next to him groaned. "Why'd the ragheads have to live in such a godforsaken hellhole?"
"Cuz they're godforsaken Muslim ragheads, that's why," Justin retorted. He watched the Iraqi buildings for motion as they drove past. The insurgents could be anyone, could be lurking anywhere. The houses were shabby and dull, many falling down and others badly patched up. There was trash everywhere, open sewers in places, the broken trunks of hideous, withering palm trees dotting the landscape as they drove by. The air was thick with a choking dust, filling his mouth and lungs as the hummer rumbled along the unpaved road, seeming to hit each and every rock and pothole along the way and jolting him from side to side into the burning hot metal of the car's side. Stuck in a godforsaken third-world hellhole. He hadn't signed up for this crap. Who would want to live like this..? But the Iraqis weren't grateful to American troops for all they'd done for the damn country. They couldn't care less how they lived. All they cared was making sure the Americans didn't.
If they'd been at home, he'd have called the streets empty. As it was, he swore at the sight of anyone he saw. The reason people were on the streets was to set car bombs and alert snipers they were coming. "What I want to know is, how the hell they can stand it." Some of them were chattering conspiratorially in small groups, eying the hummer as it drove past with predatory eyes, dressed in loose, layered dark outfits that could hide an armory within them. Others talked in guttural grunts into the cell phones the Americans had brought into the country in the first place as they watched, spreading the news, alerting the rest of their cell. The insurgents could be anyone. The insurgent supporters were everyone. It was just a matter of catching them in the act, before they could do too much damage or killed one his buddies or some hapless American contractor who'd come to help the ungrateful murderous bastards. There had been nothing all day. Nothing but boredom and crushing heat and the Iraqis everywhere, talking to each other as they watched the hummer drive by and planning their next move. When he'd signed up, he hadn't realized how much of war was waiting for the attack to come.
Up ahead, he saw a large group look up, see the American car coming toward them with its painted army colors, and run through the doors into one of the buildings, and he jerked upright in his seat.
"Hey!" he shouted, pointing. "Little hadji bitches have something to hide. Pull over, quick!"
And I, well, I didn't know where to go.
And the first think I could see was
Everybody's favorite Burger King
So I threw open the door and I hit the floor.
He kicked the door in. "Alright! No one move!" he shouted.
One of the insurgents immediately tried to dart to the side, for a gun or maybe a bomb trigger or maybe something else, and Yoshiaki, standing at Justin's side, shot him instantly. The man went down with a shriek.
"Screams like a girl," he said, and they laughed sharply.
The rest of the Iraqis were still, looking at them with guarded eyes. One of them started to talk in English. It was heavily accented to the point it could barely be understood and reminded Justin of a monkey that had been badly taught to speak. "Shut up," he said, and waved the barrel of his M-16 at him. The man's mouth closed with an almost audible snap, and Justin couldn't help but grin for a second.
The men he'd seen earlier were clustered in one side, around a table. The place looked like it was a restaurant, made of the same shabby material that everything else was. The windows had strips of tape across them to try to prevent the glass from flying everywhere if a blast went off. There were bullet holes in the back wall.
Restaurants were a cover for insurgents. They could gather and plot there. Money could be funneled to various terrorist cells under the guise of business.
The terrorists were looking at him with wide, wild eyes, but they didn't move. "Get up against the wall!" Justin barked.
They didn't move. "I said move!" he shouted, gesturing again with the gun.
The man who had spoken before said something quickly in what sounded like Arabic. Tobey clubbed him with the butt of his gun a second later, and the man went down to his knees clutching his bleeding head.
The men moved.
"The only thing these fuckers understand is violence," growled Boone in annoyance.
"Think this bastard's alive," Madock said, staring down at the insurgent who had been shot earlier.
Boone fired again. "Now he's not."
Some of the terrorists against the wall shifted threateningly. Justin swung his gun toward them quickly. "Don't get any ideas," he said. "Hey, Yoshi, think we should take 'em all or not?"
"Yeah. Madock, you can call in."
Tobey kicked the cowering man at his feet.
"Allah," gasped the man with each kick. "Allah! Allah!"
"Listen to him shout," Tobey said with a laugh, and kicked him again.
"Allah!" shouted the man, cowering with his hands over his head.
"God," Justin said with disgust. "What a coward." He kicked him. "Stand up and fight, you bastard! I thought all you raghead bastard hadji want those seventy-two virgins!"
"Allah!" the man kept saying with each kick.
Justin took a step back. He saw movement under the table where the men had been standing. He leaned down and looked under.
A girl's face stared back at him, wide-eyed and frozen, like a rabbit's.
Then suddenly to my surprise
I looked up and I saw her eyes
And I knew it was love at first sight.
Justin stared a moment, then recovered. He walked across the room in long strides like he owned it, leaned down, grabbed her by the arm and yanked her tumbling out from under the table. She was lighter than he expected, the baggy burqua or whatever it was making her look bulkier than she was.
One of the terrorists by the wall shouted something. Boone aimed the M-16 at the man's head. The man's face paled under his dark skin, and he went deathly quiet.
"You with those guys?" Justin demanded.
The girl didn't answer. She was still sitting in a heap on the floor, trying to pull the colored cloth wrapped on her head like a hood more tightly around her face and shivering despite the heat.
He leaned down and shouted in her face. "Hey! Are you with those guys over there?!" He waved his gun toward the terrorists standing against the wall. Boone was looking them over. "Those guys?! Are you with them?!"
The girl just stared back at him with her wide black rabbit eyes. She pulled the scarf down further over her face.
"Hey, knock that off," he said in irritation, grabbing the scarf and pulling it off with a quick jerk to flutter down onto the dirty floor.
Underneath he could see she was pretty, beautiful even with long black hair and a smooth face with lighter, coffee-and-cream colored skin. What was someone like her doing, covering that up? Didn't she know they'd fought a whole war to kick out Saddam and Osama, that they'd put a stop to that kind of crap? He pulled her to her feet. She looked like she was fourteen or maybe fifteen.
One of the terrorists by the wall shouted. Boone had ripped a gold bracelet off his wrist. "Fucking looters," he said. "Just look at this, would you?" He tossed it to Justin, who almost dropped it, not expecting the weight.
"Damn," he said, hefting it. "That's solid gold. What the hell's some dumb terrorist got stuff like this for?"
"I just said, looters. He was probably going to sell it for plastic explosives or some shit."
"Pretty nice," Justin said appreciatively. "Hey," he said again, holding it out to her. "Here, you want it? Solid gold."
The girl shivered. She started babbling away quietly in Arabic, the unintelligible sounds like pretty birdsong.
"I can't understand a word you're saying, you stupid hadji girl," he told her pityingly.
And she said
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
Hadji girl I can't understand what you're saying.
And she said
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
Hadji girl I love you anyway.
"Okay, they said they don't want to bother," said Madock. "Just grab someone. Maybe Squeally here," he said, kicking the man on the floor, who shouted the same nonsense word again.
"Yeah, whatever," Justin said, not paying attention. "Here," he said again, waving the bracelet in her face. "Here - oh goddamnit, they're all too stupid to understand a word." He reached down and grabbed her hand again, pushing the gold bracelet over it onto her wrist. "Here!" he said, more loudly. "It's yours now, I'm giving you it." She didn't seem to understand what was going on and the heavy chain almost slipped over her hand again, then at the last moment she caught it with her other hand, holding it in place.
"Women," he said in amusement. "All they care about is jewelery."
"Sherpa bak allah," she said softly, staring at him with wide black rabbit eyes.
"Sherpa bak allah," he said jokingly in response, repeating the nonsense back like he would have a pet dog's yapping. "Hey, let's blow this joint."
"Hease hees hi oughter," said the man on the floor thickly.
Boone clubbed him in the head. "Shut up, faggot."
"I'm gonna take her home," Justin said to the other soldiers.
"Right."
"Whatever, we've got this under control. Right, Squeally?" The man on the floor yelped as he was kicked again.
Justin reached out and grabbed her arm near the elbow, pulling her toward him. She moved like a well-made doll, neither resisting nor moving along with him. "Home," he said clearly and loudly to her. "Where's your home? Your home?"
She stared at him.
"Your home, where is it?" he repeated louder.
The man on the floor mumbled something fast and guttural. Boone kicked him. "I said shut up!"
The girl lifted a trembling hand and pointed toward the doorway, still open with the frail door half off its hinges now.
"There, see?" he said to the others. "If you're just loud enough you can get across."
"Think they play dumb, personally," said Tobey.
"Don't think they have to play," retorted Boone.
"Okay, come on," he said, pulling on her arm to move her across the floor, to the broken door. She walked smoothly just as he pulled her, like she was moving her feet to keep them under her body but taking no steps of her own without his guidance.
It was beautiful.
Then she said that she wanted me to see.
She wanted me to meet her family
But I, well, I couldn't figure out how to say no.
Cause I don't speak Arabic.
Outside the sun was beating down. He didn't understand how she could stand to wear all those layers of fabric, or wrap the scarf she'd had before around her head, when it was so ungodly hot out all the time. He guessed people like them just got used to it, living without power or air conditioning or freezers most of their lives. Wasn't like they could go swimming either, in the middle of the desert.
There was no one else on the street at the moment. Like scattering cockroaches, Justin thought. If they didn't have anything to hide, they wouldn't vanish at the sight of Americans cracking down on the terrorists in their midst.
A voice came over the speakers that dotted the area, chanting unintelligible syllables mixed with heavy static. The girl crumpled to the ground, her arm pulling out of his loose grasp as she did so.
"Get up," he said, confused. He stared a moment and realized what was going on. "You don't have to bow to speakers," he told her, feeling a sort of tenderness at the sight of her childish obedience, her helplessness to it. "Saddam's dead, you don't have to bow. You don't have to cover your face or any of it." He held her upright, supporting her as her legs seemed to have gone boneless, no longer able to bear her weight. She was shaking like a leaf, murmuring fast, repetitive nonsense - "Durka durka durka durka."
After almost a minute she steadied so he no longer had to support her.
"Look, you've got dirt all over you now," he chastised. The ground under her feet was the same dust and sand as the rest of the country. It lightly covered now the cloth wrap at the bottom of her legs where she'd collapsed to the ground. He bent to try to brush the dust off. Some of it left black streaks on his hand, like there were grains of charcoal mixed in. She stood perfectly still.
"So where's your home?" he asked, straightening again. "Your home?"
She began talking in a soft rapid voice, more pitter-patter birdsong nonsense. She was holding her hangs together to her chest, one at the gold chain bracelet on the wrist of the other.
"Home," he repeated more loudly. "Ho-me?" She shifted timidly on her feet and took a single hesitant step forward, looking at him all the while with her wide black rabbit eyes. He stepped with her, staying at her side. "Right, home," he said. He gestured in the direction she'd stepped. When she looked at him blankly, he grabbed her arm again and pulled her the next step, gesturing in front of them again, and she seemed to understand and started to walk along the dusty unpaved trail that passed for a road in a third-world hellhole like Iraq.
So, she took me down an old dirt trail.
And she pulled up to a side shanty
Justin walked right alongside the girl. She was walking with tiny, mincing steps, shaking like a leaf in the wind and staring at him with wide black rabbit eyes the entire time, like she wanted some cue from him about what she should do, the attentive, world-narrowing focus that reminded him of a devoted dog.
She was beautiful, he thought again, and again he felt something like tenderness for something so harmless, so simple, so afraid.
As they walked she was raising her hand uncertainly by inches, the one with the golden chain around the wrist that he'd given her. When it reached her shoulder she pressed it against the lower part of her neck for a moment, then began to pull nervously at the edge of the amorphous, drape-like thing she was wearing, the burqua or whatever, pulling it higher by millimeters.
He saw what she was trying to do and reached out to grab her hand. She froze in place, like she was nothing more than a simple doll he'd switched off. "Hey," he said gently, pulling her hand down to her side. "Saddam's dead; you don't have to do that. You're beautiful. You're beautiful, you shouldn't hide it. Saddam's dead and you're all free now, you can dress how you like and you don't have to cover yourself up, there's no one telling you how you have to dress." He let go of her hand and in an almost involuntary motion she started to raise it again, halting midway so it was pressed to her chest. He thought she had some idea of what he meant, and continued, "That's what we fought for, for freedom. Not for Mohammed's sick religion, not for telling women they have to submit and cover themselves and stay inside. This - " and he reached out and grabbed the loose material near her shoulder, tugged it to show how it gave, how ill-fitting and baggy it was, " - you don't need it any longer."
She reached up reflexively to where he'd pulled the collar down, and he grabbed her hand again and his fingers brushed against her chest, touching the side of one hidden breast beneath the thin material.
She jerked backward, the first real action she'd taken, his fingers catching on the folds and pulling it further into disarray as she did so.
Justin felt annoyed. "Stop that. I'm not going to hurt you." He reached for her again and she tried to push his hand away, the links of the bracelet on her wrist jangling as she did so, tried to pull her clothing around her tighter, shaking from head to foot, tried to step back again and bumped against the wall. He grabbed her arm, his other hand resting on her chest, pinning her. "Stop that. Calm down."
She said nonsense, her voice trembling, and he hooked his fingers under the collar and pulled it half over her shoulder. "It doesn't mean anything," he told her. "Don't you understand that?" The skin underneath was almost white in the sunlight, like the moon. "I'm not hurting you, hadji girl." With his other hand he grabbed her wrist over the bracelet and said, "I gave you this, didn't I? You took it. I'm not a bad guy. This doesn't mean anything, it's all a lie they tell you to control you." The hand at her collarbone dipped further, touched the top of her breast. "This isn't something bad."
She was still like a doll under him, barely breathing. Then with a sudden convulsive movement she jerked free and tumbled out of his grasp. She sprinted down the road, up to a door that she pounded on and tumbled through out of sight, shouting something he could barely hear but thought was something, "Mohammad jihad allah," or some other nonsense.
He swore and followed. Women. Ungrateful bitches, the lot of them.
And she threw open the door and I hit the floor.
Cause her brother and her father shouted
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
They pulled out their AKs so I could see
He could hear nonsense babble from inside as he came up on the pathetic place the girl had ran into. It was a mess, half-destroyed and badly repaired. It was like someone had dropped a fucking bomb on it, what was wrong with these people? He kicked the door open and rushed in. Inside it was dim and dusty and even more oppressively hot, but he could make out the girl cowering against the wall, another younger one standing next to the couch like she'd just gotten to her feet, and in the center were two insurgents standing in front of the door, both with AK-47s in their hands that they raised at the sight of him. One was an adult, the other around ten. He was shaking like a leaf, shaking with so much excitement and hate that the barrel of the gun was weaving around wildly in the air. What kind of sick bastards think of children as soldiers in a war? What kind of sick bastards give children guns, raise them to kill, to want to kill other people like that? Animals. Animals, all of them.
The adult shouted guttural snarling words at him, waved the gun around like it gave him some kind of right. Animals, he thought again. Stupid animals that had somehow gotten their paws on the weapons of their betters, nothing but bravado and the cowardice of hidden bombs when it came to fighting. Did the guy, did the baby killing terrorist scumbag, really think he'd back down and be captured and beheaded just because some sand nigger yelled a bit?
And they said
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
Not a fucking United States Marine. Not to these dumb animals, stupid monkeys who didn't even know how to handle a fair fight, goddamn cowards who wouldn't dare do more than shout when they couldn't fight dirty, couldn't snipe at a distance or rig car bombs or load themselves up with explosives. He moved slightly on his feet, getting ready, and the dumb hadji bastard actually fired the gun over his head, a goddamn warning shot, it was so absurdly stupid he wanted to laugh so he did, laughed in the insurgent's faces at how stupid they were.
Then Justin dove forward and rolled, grabbing the little five year old girl standing like she was frozen by the couch and pulling her in front of him just as they fired.
So I grabbed her little sister and pulled her in front of me.
As the bullets began to fly
The blood sprayed from between her eyes
The girl didn't even have a chance to scream before the terrorists had killed her. Justin completed his roll, dropping the body and sliding behind the TV for cover from the next shots, which he assumed would be better aimed and not something a child's body could protect him from.
Justin assumed wrong. They dropped their weapons and ran to the obviously dead body, yelling more nonsense. The older one scooped the body from the floor. Its limbs dangled lifelessly like a ragdoll, but he seemed to be taking the time to check to see if she were still somehow alive anyway, wailing low animal cries and rocking back when he realized the truth. A man, crying.
An insurgent, crying.
A baby-killing terrorist piece of scum, crying.
Justin started to laugh. Once he'd started, he couldn't stop.
They were just so stupid.
And then I laughed maniacally
Then I hid behind the TV
And I locked and loaded my M-16
And I blew those little fuckers to eternity.
He aimed his gun and blew the older insurgent's head off. He aimed his gun and blew the younger insurgent's head off. Then he kicked the television over to crash to the floor and walked over to the hadji girl pressed against the wall.
She was staring at him with wide black rabbit eyes, two lines of tears down either side of her face. For a second he thought she said something that sounded like, "La ilaha illa Allah," but he listened and realized he'd misheard and it was only the same nonsense mumbles that he heard as, "Mohammed jihad durka allah."
He reached for her and she didn't move, just lay there against the wall like a porcelain doll, just kept repeating the meaningless nonsense, "Mohammed jihad durka allah," that passed for human speech in that godforsaken third-world hellhole of a place like a talking wind-up doll. He grabbed her wrist hard over the bracelet, crushing it against her skin, furious in the aftermath of the site.
"I gave you this you ungrateful hadji girl," he told her, twisting her arm. Her face was a doll's face and didn't react, like he wasn't, really, hurting her, so he twisted harder because she wasn't a real girl who felt pain, a girl who it would be wrong to twist her arm and hurt, just something to vent his frustration on. "I could have arrested you, collaborating with insurgents, don't think we don't know kids like you are part of it, we've got plenty of the little bastards already locked in Abu Ghraib, don't think anyone would have blinked if I'd decided to bring you in. Don't you understand you ungrateful hadji we fought this war for you and you insist on blowing each other up, insist being insurgents and getting killed when this godforsaken country is coming down around your ears, this godforsaken place full of mindless animals watching your every move when it's hotter than hell would be with every road mined and the cars rigged and children with AKs, we're here in this godforsaken hellhole because of you don't you understand that."
"Mohammed jihad durka allah," the girl continued mindlessly, her face empty with two lines of tears down either side of her face.
He grabbed at the collar of her clothing and tore it open, started to grope her chest. She struggled suddenly and tried to twist away, and he held onto her grimly.
She spat in his face.
"You goddamn hadji girl," he said, and raised his gun to shoot her.
And she smiled as he fired.
Goddamn hadji, all they cared about was getting killed.
And I said
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
They should have known they were fucking with a Marine.
Fun fact: Despite language, subject matter, etc, this story was also rated PG-13, not Adult.
And that's the end of it. Stories have been posted, experiences reminisced, and the site should go down sometime today.
Edit: As of 11, Fanlib is finally closed down - insomuch as having a new page up to say they're closed can be considered such.