Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Author:Kaveh Akbar [Akbar, Kaveh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2024-01-23T00:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

From: Rear Admiral William M. Fogarty, USN

To: Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command

Subj: FORMAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THE DOWNING OF A COMMERCIAL AIRLINER BY THE USS VINCENNES (CG. 49) ON 3 JULY 1988 (U)

1. Intelligence Background.

a. The Gulf War

(1) The war between Iran and Iraq is the latest iteration of a conflict dating back a thousand years.

ARASH SHIRAZI

KHUZESTAN, IRAN, MAY 1985

Arman says there’s a man like me in every platoon, one Arash in every five hundred men, a me who keeps his horse away from the other horses, who tucks a robe in his rucksack. A long black robe like the hair of a god, robe finer than Moroccan silk, blacker than the black you’re imagining, black like the way your mind goes black, atomic black spinning around the black like little cartoon birds, that robe to wear over all my other clothes, my uniform and gun and scabbard, yes, and even my helmet, a little black hood for that, it goes over everything. Black robe on a black horse at night. With a DC flashlight mounted in the neck beneath the hood. I saw Arman put it on once, he put it on to show me at night how the flashlight lit up his face, how the face isn’t really so much a face in that much dark, just a ball of light, how they painted the prophets in the old paintings with a ball of fire for a head, a ball of light riding around dressed in black, atop a black horse. Arman showed me, he got up on Badbadak, that’s my horse Badbadak, it means “kite” but really it means “little wind wind,” Badbadak like a horse from a picture book, that dark and mighty, with a little extra fur around his hoofs that made the bottom halves of his legs look like they too were wearing cloaks, long robes, Arman on Badbadak like a bit of divine light galloping on a black wind and of course I saw it, the angel of it, of course that was the point.

One man in every five hundred dresses like an angel, like this, lit up like this angel of night, of history and death and of light and relentless fucking war. Everything needs its angel, even war. A man like me in every platoon becomes an angel like this, a man like me who calls his sister once a month and sends money to his parents and eats cold rice and shits once a day like me, a man who dreams of Mira from the market with fluorescent scarves around her breasts, one man like me in every platoon sets out after battle and rides in my robe, rides with my flashlight, gallop around the war dead and the war dying, give them a glimpse of an angel protecting them, being among them. That’s the secret, don’t you think, the amongness, to be among with an angel means you were right all along, all

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.