I resign

Angry voices chase each other around the narrow corridors and the sounds echo and re-echo with a strange intensity, while the clump of booted feet shakes plaster dust from the ceiling above my head...a sudden deafening explosion of shots and instantly I'm down amongst the cockroach droppings on the greasy floor, peering between the metal legs of the work surfaces, trying to work out who's fired and at what...stench of cordite drags my eyes left..two soldiers wait with their backs to the wall either side of the open door, automatic weapons poised and smoking... one of them twists round and shoots again blindly into the open doorway..

More angry at being dragged into this sort of shit all over again, at being so bloody helpless, I can only watch....

Suddenly a figure, heavily splattered with blood, stumbles out..something metallic and silver glints in his hand..

The deafening explosion of automatic fire jerks him like an epileptic puppet, forces him back through the doorway.

Silence.

A small silver cylinder rolls slowly out the door and across the floor, comes to rest just a few feet away.. someone, maybe me, screams grenade and I press my nose into rancid fat and wait to die...time does a slow sadistic pirouette, dispensing seconds as welcome as cyanide capsules.. eventually I realise there's been no bang. Still alive and my first thoughts are to check if I've embarrassed myself in my trousers, but I haven't and I finally dare to glance up at the 'grenade', quickly realise its nothing but a cheap torch, a childs toy..with it come the instant playback, the realisation that he was just a young boy....

Somehow I stumble to my feet.

"A kid! You just killed a fucking kid!" I utter inanely, and suddenly I'm being hustled out, all the way out, back through the narrow corridors.

The hot Palestine sun half blinds me as I stumble into daylight. I'm told in no uncertain terms to stay put, then left alone to slip into a kind of shocked coma as that familiar sickness wells up in my gut, tells me my souls just been blackened a little bit more.

Wearily I slump down, dazed and uncomprehending, onto a pile of shattered bricks. Those fucking lizards fill my head again, No longer dormant, but agitated, tasting the dry air expectantly. Not surpising..rich stench of his blood still half stifles my senses...know from bitter experience it will haunt me for days.

Eventually the young Lieutenant approaches. I notice he has that silver torch in his hand.

Our eyes lock, and I recognise the fractured look of shock, a mirror to my own...for a long instant we communicate well enough by this mutual recognition to fill a book.

"This place" He says finally "a trap set by some sadistic God. Christian, Moslem, Jew, they all worship the same damned god. I believe in no god.. if I did I could only hate him."

He sits down wearily beside me, removes dusty helmet, runs a hand over an almost shaven head.

"Your man's not here." he finally quietly states.

The implications slowly penetrate. I spit my disgust into the dust. All for nothing

"How old was he?"I finally manage to ask.

"Eleven. Playing down in the cellar with his new torch."He replies calmly enough.

I let a fraction of what I feel escape. "Jesus! Why don't you just give the place back? Agree to disagree. Do whatever it takes to stop this shit...."

He laughs softly, without a trace of humour, slowly takes out a packet of American cigarettes, offers me one "You really think it's that easy?"

I take and light one with surprisingly steady hands. Of course I don't. Never that easy. War. Like a fucking addiction. Only the short term matters.