Angles

The jarring ring of the phone wakes her up at 3.05 am.
"It can only be...." she thinks.
Fear slowly creeps as she hears the words.
"Madam, I regret to inform you that your husband serving in..............."
The words are drowned by her sobs.
She's a widow with two children at 27.

The buzzing of planes throws the whole village in screams.
"Run! Run!"
Orange bursts of light and a huge sound drowns out the cries.
He runs into his burning hut.
His 7 year old child is dead.
"That infidel country!" he shouts with rage.

He turns on his TV after a call from his frantic wife.
"No it can't be!" he sighs clutching his head.
"Please, Jason, pick up the phone. Please. Please," as he dials his son's mobile number repeatedly.

"God is great!" he shouts with enthusiasm.
Finally, he's discovered his true calling in life!
He's ecstatic with joy.
"Yes, it may require me to pay a high price. But I didn't have much of a life to start of with," he muses as he thought about his cramped one-roomed house in the slums of his country where the rich swim in oil money while the poor barely eke out a living.
He smiled as he thought of the promise of young virgins in heaven to greet him.
It was far better than crying children and smelly rubbish in his cramped neighbourhood.

"We know what you are doing here. Get out or we will kill you." the words were printed in red to emphasize the anger.
"Oh Lord, You know the only reason I'm here is to love them. It's hard to forgive when they want to kill me, " she prayers.
The aid worker then dabbs her tears, and washes her face.
She must go on, the orphans are waiting for their lunch.

No more tears run from her eyes.
This is the 3rd child she's buried since her country was "liberated"
True, she doesn't need to cover her face anymore. But is it worth it to pay that price with the increasing lawlessness in her city? She looks at the poppy fields with the flowers turning pink, "The promised government hasn't brought much change to her family," she shruged.
Has her country ever known peace?

The ringing bells and hot fumes wake him up from his sleep.
He can still remember the images of people jumping from the building.
He reaches out for his tin flask, and the alcohol numbs the pain.
He lost 5 of his best men there.
"I should have been there. They were my men, my responsibility." he sighs.

The boy hears with wide eyed wonder as his uncle describes his father.
"Your father was a warrior. He died for his people. He died to set us free," the uncle says.
The 9 year old boy swells with pride as he clutched the only photo of his father, the one where he smiled as he brandished his gun.
All he ever heard in his village was about his father's heroism. All he learnt since the day he was born was about his people's fight against the enemy state.
"When I grow up, I want to be like him! I want to fight the enemy state! I want to die for this cause" the boy vows in his heart even when he's too young to grapple with the enormity of the cause.

"That man was your father's murderer," she says to her son with venom dripping out of her mouth.
He nods. He remembers the day when he was walking to the grocery shop with his father when suddenly a suicide bomber ripped open his shirt and triggered the bomb. He was luckily to live, but not without losing his hearing from the impact of the blast.
His mother cried for 3 months. His 5 year old sister still asks when would Dad come back. He missed the times where Dad would play ball with him.
"I want to be a soldier to stop these people. These terrorists!" he promised himself.

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Angles.

The view is always different from the angle from which you look from.
The whole world is red when viewed through a red coloured prism.
Like wise, the whole world is cloudy when viewed through a dirty window.

Of course I don't support the cause of terrorism.
It's easier to point the blame without rooting out the cause.

Maybe it's not the time to take sides, but to sideline the differences.

May those who lost their lives be remembered today.

Disclaimer. Again..my apologies if there's any inaccuracies or if it's deemed offensive especially to victims' families. This does not refer to any real life people. It's also delibrate that no countries or specific names are mentioned.
After all, what do I know about politics anyway? and it's not as if I'm contributing my part in this any way whatsoever, nor risking my life in the front lines. I'm just a lazy med student who likes to comment too much hey? haha :)