Two men wrestle in the dirt near a market, just off from a street. A feverish crowd gathers to watch intently.

Boys are playing marbles absentmindedly in the road nearby, which is a gravel path, more or less.

"Which side is God on?" a man asks, pointing at the flailing men, rolling around on the ground.

"God is on the side of the winner."

"You cannot lose with God on your side," another says, assuredly.

The wrestling between the two men intensifies. The faces of the onlookers become serious. One man's face is bloodied from the previous match. He stands eager aside another who is counting off bills, licking his fingers every so often.

"But how does one know what side God favors? Offers strength?"

"That's simple."

"Simple?"

"Yeah. He always offers me strength. And I'm sure you think the exact same thing."



The adolescent marble players in the street are watching the bustling men of the crowd. Listening. Learning. All with the exception of a single boy gathering his marbles - his precious tools of status - and storing them gently in a burlap sack.


The man on the bottom was purple, and in a strangle hold. Pinned by the other, but his face was not bloodied like the other man. Just purple, about to burst.

"Looks like we have a winner," belched a distinguished-looking man adorned with a decorative turban. "That man. On top. What brawn. What brute. Always a winner, that one. God must be on his side as well as mine." He disappeared into the crowd, searching for the collectors and the crowd of men set to movement and excitement. Everyone looking like everybody else. Heads and arms more as blended brushstrokes of infinitum. A field of exchanging pockets and empty stomachs.

A field of a single idea.

They began shouting and cussing and short, bearded men - collectors - with wads of cash were taking bets on the next match, about to begin, and distributing winnings and collecting losses.

Muted by the man-clamor, two brown vans rolled up, unnoticed, and eight men filed out and surrounded the gathering. Within their long shadows could be seen the long slender form of automatic weapons, AK-47's, all of them pointed at the heavens. Their heads wrapped in heavy rags, soaked with golden sun.

The boy in the street reached out for his last marble. The smile on his face brought gratification to even the old soul watching from the cracked wall of the nearby cafe. But the boy, in his reaching, spilled out five more from his burlap sack, and the old soul, would you believe it, cracked a smile.

The boy did not see the smile on the face of the old soul. Rather, the wrestling men and the mysterious creatures that surrounded them drew his attention. He crouched on his hands and knees, feeling for marbles, his fingers sifting the dirt as his eyes remained on the barrel of the guns.

Bursts of fire lit up the setting sky. Bullets pierced holes in the clouds. Sunlight spilled, outpouring into the desert air in steady streams as water does from a tin spout. The heightened echoes bouncing off the mountains silenced the men. Some set to running. Others froze. Those that ran were beaten and thrown back into the crowd. A sea of empty stomachs.

A sea of empty minds rattling with a single, grand idea.

"In the name of Allah, you are all under arrest!" ordered the armed men.

They rounded up only the distinguished-looking men, with decorative turbans. They were taken by the wrists, and as they were escorted to the vans, they were spat upon, hit with canes and kicked in the sides, the small boy with the marbles in the street whispered, "God be with you," as his friends silently coaxed him back, off the street, with their curling arms.

The vans pulled away and became small, shrouded in a thick blanket of static, wavering gently in the watery heat pools.

It became very quiet. Very still.

A brisk wind hummed in the ears of all who were not yet deaf from the bombings.

Some men in the crowd could hear faint grunting noises through the rushing wind. Some glanced towards the street. It was there two boys could be seen wrestling amongst the dust over a marble in the sand.

The crowd watched. The collectors took bets. And the boys? The boys were practicing at being men. Men with God on their side.

And the old soul. Well, he just smiled, standing by that cracked wall of that street-side cafe.

You had to be quick though if you wanted to catch it. For the smile revealed that he knew God was on his side.

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