Outside Iria, southern Syria
He hated his father. He hated his mother. He hated the madrassa. He hated the beatings, the punishment, the molestation, the degradation, the hopeless, endless despair of it. He hated everything he thought of as “before.” Except for the wheat.
He was in the wheat. He was of the wheat.
He had watched the sun go down over the western hills. He was a few hundred meters from the house. Prayers were over, the day’s efforts over, and now he sat among the stalks. The darkness was deep and lovely, a vault of towering stars and silence. A mild breeze rustled the wheat, and it whispered to him. He turned, grabbed a handful of stalks, and brought them close to his eyes.
He observed the genius of the heads, their complexity so staggering that only Allah could have designed them. Intricate, tiny structures, each identical to the other, arranged in rows, waiting to ripen into something life-sustaining. The wheat would become grain, the grain would become bread, the bread would feed the Moslem nation and make it strong.
The wheat had created him. It demanded that his back be strong for the bending, that his legs be limber for the weeding, that his arms and hands be remorseless for the cutting, that his coordination be superb for the flailing. Later, the huge machines reached the commune to take so much of the misery out of the stooped labor. But in his time, it was all muscle: the weeding, the cutting, the flailing. You found a rhythm; you guided the beating stick exactly. It was his gift, and he had it from the start. He flailed more wheat faster, more accurately, than anyone in the province. Afterward, to amuse his brothers and the villagers, he would do tricks, which also came naturally. Put three eggs on a table and, with three cracks of the flail, smash each one perfectly. Toss an egg into the air, toss a second, toss a third, and before any of them reached the ground, whizz the beating stick to intercept them, catching each egg in the center and turning it into a spray of yellow yolk, bringing cheers and laughter. He got so he could do it one-handed, left-handed, and behind his back. He had gifts. He remembered those harvest festivals with joy. He was probably happier then than at any time in his life.
But, of course, the dark times came. Which war was it? He couldn’t remember, there had been so many, and what did it matter? The fear of starvation everywhere, the sounds of hungry babies screaming as their mothers tried to calm them to sleep. Though the killing and dying was far off, the government took everything to support the soldiers, and the imams demanded obedience in their holy quest for survival, then hegemony. Easy to demand, hard to sustain.
To make things worse, a drought had scoured the earth, the clouds going heavy and dark but not bursting, the irrigation was primitive, there was only so much water, and what was left after conscription had to be rationed strictly. Many wondered how Allah could forsake His obedient children so fiercely—but the sniper did not. Instead, he nursed his misery, felt it harden into hatred, and found in it the determination to continue. I will survive, if Allah allows it. I will fight, if Allah permits it. I will die a martyr to Allah. But be pleased, Allah, do not consign me to the meaningless death of a starved peasant in a forgotten backwater of what was once a great empire. That would be waste, and what good—this was apostasy, he knew, but could not deny it—would my death do? Allah must have more in mind for me. He must enable me. Like the wheat, He must let me grow and ripen and do my part. If not, why did He give me the gift of the flail?
Now, so many years later, so many battles fought for Allah, he tried to forget, for memories of the past were of no use at all.
What mattered was tomorrow. The task. You survived the past, you fought as a soldier of Islam, and will do so yet again. You became what you became and were permitted to do your part.
Allahu Akbar, he thought. God is great.
Then he heard the helicopters.