The Feeling of Killin'

     Juma Gul tied the mule to a beam partially buried under rubble created after a missile struck a school. Ghwazz would have to wait for the water he needed. The boys sprang from the cart and ran hard down the lane to the street which led to the front of the police station. Many people crowded the walkway. Several small boys were playing tag, making it difficult for burka clad women to get by.

     Aga was not keeping up. He had one hand in his pocket holding something heavy. He lost his chitrali in the crowd, and found it only after it had been stepped on by many shuffling feet. He planted it awkwardly on his head with one hand.

     “Come on Aga, hurry. We have to find her.”

     When Aga looked up, he saw Juma Gul running down the street. He took several steps before freezing. It was him. He saw enough of the beard to know. Hate welled up in him, born of pain and degradations which had been thrust upon him. He remembered the rough hands, and how the man always demanded his money back. The man would growl that it was Aga’s fault for letting it slip out. It was always his fault because he was loose and used up. His dancing was so horrible, the man would claim, it never got hard anyways. But it did. The pain proved the lie.

     His hand squeezed hard on the pistol in his pocket, and everything slowed down.

He saw himself walking to the red beard. He heard the air rush into his nostrils. The man was squatting next to his scooter watching for Mammy’s approach. The Kalashnikov hung from Red Beard’s neck on a jagged cord. The predator scanned the crowd waiting to strike with violence. He believed he was defending Allah, and all Muslims, from unacceptable behavior. Glory was to be his. He saw her approaching from a distance. A sound, an uncertain feeling caused him to turn toward Aga. “Ah, it is you. What is it you want? More of me? Go now. I have business.”

     Aga pulled the pistol out of his pocket and breathed harder. He pointed it at the man. He hated the red beard and the man it covered.

     “Oh look at you, little boy with a little gun, and a bottom too big to be a dancing boy.” A wolf like grin crept across his face. “Do you think your little gun scares me? I only see Paradise in its barrel. Be gone, or else I will really make you squirm the next time we… play. You like to feel my fists on your head when we do it. I know these things.”

     After the gun fired, it clattered from Aga’s hands onto the walkway. Smoke blew back into his face. He smelled the gunpowder. Sounds came to him as if he had stuck his head into a spent shell casing. Words became tinny and hard to hear. Aga felt bodies bumping him while he watched the blood spot grow bigger and bigger. The man that the gun shot starting making chewing motions like a camel gnawing grass.

     Red Beard stared hard at nothing. He clutched at his chest. He stumbled backwards, falling over his scooter. The would-be jihadist felt something sticky on his hands before seeing the deep blue sky. Had it always been so blue he wondered? A ring of darkness closed in on him as a crowd formed.

Some pointed, and one skinny man under a large turban yelled that he saw it all. Before the police arrived, the entire crowd decided that they had seen the man trip over his scooter, and shoot himself. An unseen hand had snatched the gun from the walk and left the area. It was good to find such a valuable item in crowded Kabul.

     Aga heard screaming, and felt bodies bumping against him. Then he focused on Juma Gul, who had him by the shoulders shaking him. Everything had happened so fast. Juma Gul spun Aga around, and the boys raced to the lane and Ghwazz.

     When Aga crawled up onto the wagon he was much older.