In the chaos of retreat, a few stand and fight. Some fall back, some take the fight to another time and place. Some remain at their stations to wait and listen.
We sip tea. We watch television. We check our weapons again. Then we change clothes and go home. Entire crowds of men vanish. Some will slip across lines, others across borders.
After days of battering, an eerie quiet begins to hold. They will arrive tomorrow at the latest. They are already here in the suburbs. There is fighting in al-Dora by now. Some say it has reached Firdos and Jihad.
No one is surprised by the men in trucks or by the order to evacuate. Everyone knew they would be coming on a day like today. The instructions are easy to follow. The men in the records office finished their job a week ago and never came back. These men begin unloading boxes from trucks, then drag them into the building. Only a handful of us are left, bewildered. We hang around outside. Then one by one we start to walk away, down the sidewalks and under the arcades on Khulafa Street until we disappear for good.
Behind thick concrete walls, the first explosions sound like thunder. There is a crack of glass as windows splinter in the morning sun. Then silence. Eventually, the silence retreats, though only softly at first. It grows into a roar. Fires burning deep, somewhere out of sight. Scorching winds whipping through empty hallways and offices, corridors and closets. Then from the empty windows, a storm of burning files, folders, and forms erupting into the sky. The flames eventually burn themselves out.
When the first American missiles hit, Baghdad Central Police Station is already an empty shell.