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chineseinkTitle: Parallel Universe
Fandom: Original
Pairing: n/a - gen
Rating: PG
Claimer: Mine, but probably not PC.
A boy in Iraq and a boy in the U.S.
Parallel Universe
by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
meitachi
They spoke of “democracy.”
He wasn’t quite sure what it meant but had some vague idea that it was associated with freedom.
Everyone fought for it, in any case. Or at least claimed that they were.
But he wasn’t so sure about the whole idea. Nothing that caused so much blood and death and fighting could be all that great.
He couldn’t go to sleep at night without a memory of seeing blood that day, so red against the golden hues of sand. His lullabies were constructed of gunfire and screams, nowadays, and a heavy feeling of fear intermingled with that inherent determination of his people weighed down the air.
He was only eleven. Young, certainly, for one who’d seen so much death.
He didn’t think all that much of this whole “democracy” idea but he guessed he believed in it, anyway. There had to be something to believe in, after all. It might as well be a cause.
He was vaguely aware that this was a rather heretical thought as he was supposed to devote his whole being to the worship of Allah. But Allah seemed so distant in this unfamiliar territory of daily violence.
They praised Him still, and he didn’t understand, following only out of habit, tradition.
He wondered if things would change with “democracy.”
--
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,” he recited, hand over his heart, “and to the republic for which it stands: one nation, under God, independent, with liberty and justice for all.”
The teacher smiled at her class of fifth-graders. “Thank you, please sit down.”
They sat and he immediately pulled out his binder, covered with glittery skater stickers, and flipped open to his sheaf of loose-leaf paper. They always had a spelling quiz directly after the Pledge of Allegiance.
They weren’t supposed to recite the pledge, or rather, they weren’t supposed to have to recite the pledge, but anybody who didn’t was just weird. If they lived in America, what was the big deal about saying something you learned in kindergarten every day? He didn’t get what the big fuss was about. His parents approved of the pledge too, though sometimes they discussed some of the parents who didn’t over dinner; he didn’t actually pay that much attention.
He finished the quiz early. Spelling had always been one of his better points. As he started doodling on the back of the quiz, he noticed one of his classmates playing on his Gameboy Advance under the desk.
He wrinkled his nose. One day the kid was going to get caught and his stupid game would be confiscated. It’d serve him right. He was always playing on that thing, like he was showing off to everyone else that not only did he have some really expensive toy but also had the guts to bring it to school and play right under the teacher’s nose.
Stupid. I bet that’s all he can do—bet he can’t play basketball or skateboard or anything cool like that. Geek. He scoffed silently and returned to his doodles of little aliens taking over the school.
--
He wondered if they were going to start school again anytime soon, but it didn’t look very likely. All the men, and some of the older boys, were signing up to be policemen. “To fight for democracy,” he’d been told. “For freedom,” was another explanation. The women were huddled inside their houses, afraid of what tragedy would befall that day, worried for their men, gossiping like it was one of the “good old days” and smiling reassuringly whenever the children asked about the future.
He wondered if any of the other children saw how false the smiles were.
The children were free to roam the streets, though they were cautioned strongly against it and rebuked whenever they were caught without an adult. Still, hordes of young children, no longer restricted to homes or schools, freely wandered the streets and stared at the American soldiers.
The soldiers…they were everywhere.
In their tanks, in their uniforms, in their big cars and always armed. Sometimes they would smile and try to talk to the children, but most of them couldn’t speak the language and the children knew very little English.
He could understand some phrases and had learned to catch the English pronunciation of “democracy.”
He wondered if the soldiers knew about it too. Did they think it was that great?
Sometimes there were one or two soldiers who had been born in the country, or somewhere nearby, or into a family of the same ethnicity, and were familiar with the language. They were fun to talk to—the children jabbered on with their questions, very few about the war, the majority about America and if it was really as wonderful as they’d heard.
The replies they received painted vividly exaggerated pictures in their young minds, of grandeur and lights and fun and a lot of those Jeep-cars that the soldiers rode around in. Some of them wondered what it what be like to live there, to have this “democracy” and be able to go to “movies” and eat “ice cream.”
He didn’t really want to. He liked his home, even if all the adults now were either scared or determined or both. Still, sometimes he dreamed about what it would be like to not hear gunshots or angry shouts every day, to not see angry mobs or bleeding bodies or all those endless parades of soldiers…
--
He rode home on the bus and slammed the front door shut behind him as he ran down the entry hall and dropped his backpack on the floor. Kicking off his shoes next to his bag, he scrambled into the kitchen and dived into the pantry, hoping his stupid older sister hadn’t eaten the last of his fruit roll-ups. Aha! There was one left.
Leaving the empty box on the shelf, he opened the wrapping and left that on the breakfast table as he made his way to the family room. He turned on the TV as he peeled his sticky sweet snack from the backing and stuck one end into his mouth.
“Turn it down!” yelled his sister from upstairs, undoubtedly surfing the Net for whatever sixteen-year-old girls liked to stare at for hours on end.
He yelled back at her to close her door but turned down the volume two notches anyway. He flipped through the channels, passing a news program about the upcoming presidential speech, a vacuum commercial, some weird medical drug commercial, a program on poisonous snakes—he paused here for a moment, then something on the war in Iraq and some more dead people, some boring adult movie, and, here it was…
He settled back into the couch when he found the afternoon cartoons. They weren’t reruns today either, thank God, otherwise he’d have to keep flipping channels and hoping to find something better.
Some stupid unnaturally pink kid with big freckles and red hair hit another kid with a baseball bat. He laughed.
--
When he went to sleep at night he dreamed, fitfully, tossing and turning and more often than not he woke up hours before dawn and couldn’t sleep again. He could hear the adults still talking in hushed voices, the dark of the night alleviated by only the barest amount of light and sometimes he would lay there on the ground and listen to them, pretending to be fast asleep whenever anyone glanced in his direction. His heart would beat fast and he’d close his eyes hurriedly and hope his pretense would be enough to fool them, they who too were pretending.
We’ll all be fine, they murmured, reassuringly during the hours of the day, as if the sunlight lent more credence to their words. We’ll have a new government and things will be far better than we’d ever dreamed of before. We’ll be free and be a democracy and have all sorts of wonderful things. Wouldn’t you like that?
What he wanted, he couldn’t bear to tell them, was just to be able to sleep again at night. Without the pervasive fear and the blood and the soldiers. He wanted nothing else but normalcy again. Peace. Not whatever this democracy was.
--
He complained because it was too early to go to sleep—his sister didn’t have to be in bed until at least two hours later and that just wasn’t fair!—but still he was shooed off to brush his teeth and change into his pajamas. It was disgusting, he thought, that a fifth grader like him still had a bedtime. He swore to himself that when he had children that he’d let them sleep whenever they wanted. He would be such a cool dad.
He’d let his ten-year-olds watch PG-13 movies if they wanted to and he’d even buy them popcorn and drinks and they would have fun. When he told this to his mother as she came in to wish him good night, she only smiled indulgently at him and told him he could do whatever he wanted when he had children of his own.
“I will,” he promised sullenly and then flopped onto his bed as she flipped the lights off and left.
--
Started: 09.30.04
Finished: 10.20.05
Edited: 10.20.05
--
Yes, I know, sensitive topics and such. Written before the elections and the setting up of the Iraqi constitution and government... Whatever that's changed.
I'm moving to Canada. ...shut up, I deal well with problems.
Fandom: Original
Pairing: n/a - gen
Rating: PG
Claimer: Mine, but probably not PC.
A boy in Iraq and a boy in the U.S.
Parallel Universe
by
meitachiThey spoke of “democracy.”
He wasn’t quite sure what it meant but had some vague idea that it was associated with freedom.
Everyone fought for it, in any case. Or at least claimed that they were.
But he wasn’t so sure about the whole idea. Nothing that caused so much blood and death and fighting could be all that great.
He couldn’t go to sleep at night without a memory of seeing blood that day, so red against the golden hues of sand. His lullabies were constructed of gunfire and screams, nowadays, and a heavy feeling of fear intermingled with that inherent determination of his people weighed down the air.
He was only eleven. Young, certainly, for one who’d seen so much death.
He didn’t think all that much of this whole “democracy” idea but he guessed he believed in it, anyway. There had to be something to believe in, after all. It might as well be a cause.
He was vaguely aware that this was a rather heretical thought as he was supposed to devote his whole being to the worship of Allah. But Allah seemed so distant in this unfamiliar territory of daily violence.
They praised Him still, and he didn’t understand, following only out of habit, tradition.
He wondered if things would change with “democracy.”
--
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,” he recited, hand over his heart, “and to the republic for which it stands: one nation, under God, independent, with liberty and justice for all.”
The teacher smiled at her class of fifth-graders. “Thank you, please sit down.”
They sat and he immediately pulled out his binder, covered with glittery skater stickers, and flipped open to his sheaf of loose-leaf paper. They always had a spelling quiz directly after the Pledge of Allegiance.
They weren’t supposed to recite the pledge, or rather, they weren’t supposed to have to recite the pledge, but anybody who didn’t was just weird. If they lived in America, what was the big deal about saying something you learned in kindergarten every day? He didn’t get what the big fuss was about. His parents approved of the pledge too, though sometimes they discussed some of the parents who didn’t over dinner; he didn’t actually pay that much attention.
He finished the quiz early. Spelling had always been one of his better points. As he started doodling on the back of the quiz, he noticed one of his classmates playing on his Gameboy Advance under the desk.
He wrinkled his nose. One day the kid was going to get caught and his stupid game would be confiscated. It’d serve him right. He was always playing on that thing, like he was showing off to everyone else that not only did he have some really expensive toy but also had the guts to bring it to school and play right under the teacher’s nose.
Stupid. I bet that’s all he can do—bet he can’t play basketball or skateboard or anything cool like that. Geek. He scoffed silently and returned to his doodles of little aliens taking over the school.
--
He wondered if they were going to start school again anytime soon, but it didn’t look very likely. All the men, and some of the older boys, were signing up to be policemen. “To fight for democracy,” he’d been told. “For freedom,” was another explanation. The women were huddled inside their houses, afraid of what tragedy would befall that day, worried for their men, gossiping like it was one of the “good old days” and smiling reassuringly whenever the children asked about the future.
He wondered if any of the other children saw how false the smiles were.
The children were free to roam the streets, though they were cautioned strongly against it and rebuked whenever they were caught without an adult. Still, hordes of young children, no longer restricted to homes or schools, freely wandered the streets and stared at the American soldiers.
The soldiers…they were everywhere.
In their tanks, in their uniforms, in their big cars and always armed. Sometimes they would smile and try to talk to the children, but most of them couldn’t speak the language and the children knew very little English.
He could understand some phrases and had learned to catch the English pronunciation of “democracy.”
He wondered if the soldiers knew about it too. Did they think it was that great?
Sometimes there were one or two soldiers who had been born in the country, or somewhere nearby, or into a family of the same ethnicity, and were familiar with the language. They were fun to talk to—the children jabbered on with their questions, very few about the war, the majority about America and if it was really as wonderful as they’d heard.
The replies they received painted vividly exaggerated pictures in their young minds, of grandeur and lights and fun and a lot of those Jeep-cars that the soldiers rode around in. Some of them wondered what it what be like to live there, to have this “democracy” and be able to go to “movies” and eat “ice cream.”
He didn’t really want to. He liked his home, even if all the adults now were either scared or determined or both. Still, sometimes he dreamed about what it would be like to not hear gunshots or angry shouts every day, to not see angry mobs or bleeding bodies or all those endless parades of soldiers…
--
He rode home on the bus and slammed the front door shut behind him as he ran down the entry hall and dropped his backpack on the floor. Kicking off his shoes next to his bag, he scrambled into the kitchen and dived into the pantry, hoping his stupid older sister hadn’t eaten the last of his fruit roll-ups. Aha! There was one left.
Leaving the empty box on the shelf, he opened the wrapping and left that on the breakfast table as he made his way to the family room. He turned on the TV as he peeled his sticky sweet snack from the backing and stuck one end into his mouth.
“Turn it down!” yelled his sister from upstairs, undoubtedly surfing the Net for whatever sixteen-year-old girls liked to stare at for hours on end.
He yelled back at her to close her door but turned down the volume two notches anyway. He flipped through the channels, passing a news program about the upcoming presidential speech, a vacuum commercial, some weird medical drug commercial, a program on poisonous snakes—he paused here for a moment, then something on the war in Iraq and some more dead people, some boring adult movie, and, here it was…
He settled back into the couch when he found the afternoon cartoons. They weren’t reruns today either, thank God, otherwise he’d have to keep flipping channels and hoping to find something better.
Some stupid unnaturally pink kid with big freckles and red hair hit another kid with a baseball bat. He laughed.
--
When he went to sleep at night he dreamed, fitfully, tossing and turning and more often than not he woke up hours before dawn and couldn’t sleep again. He could hear the adults still talking in hushed voices, the dark of the night alleviated by only the barest amount of light and sometimes he would lay there on the ground and listen to them, pretending to be fast asleep whenever anyone glanced in his direction. His heart would beat fast and he’d close his eyes hurriedly and hope his pretense would be enough to fool them, they who too were pretending.
We’ll all be fine, they murmured, reassuringly during the hours of the day, as if the sunlight lent more credence to their words. We’ll have a new government and things will be far better than we’d ever dreamed of before. We’ll be free and be a democracy and have all sorts of wonderful things. Wouldn’t you like that?
What he wanted, he couldn’t bear to tell them, was just to be able to sleep again at night. Without the pervasive fear and the blood and the soldiers. He wanted nothing else but normalcy again. Peace. Not whatever this democracy was.
--
He complained because it was too early to go to sleep—his sister didn’t have to be in bed until at least two hours later and that just wasn’t fair!—but still he was shooed off to brush his teeth and change into his pajamas. It was disgusting, he thought, that a fifth grader like him still had a bedtime. He swore to himself that when he had children that he’d let them sleep whenever they wanted. He would be such a cool dad.
He’d let his ten-year-olds watch PG-13 movies if they wanted to and he’d even buy them popcorn and drinks and they would have fun. When he told this to his mother as she came in to wish him good night, she only smiled indulgently at him and told him he could do whatever he wanted when he had children of his own.
“I will,” he promised sullenly and then flopped onto his bed as she flipped the lights off and left.
--
Started: 09.30.04
Finished: 10.20.05
Edited: 10.20.05
--
Yes, I know, sensitive topics and such. Written before the elections and the setting up of the Iraqi constitution and government... Whatever that's changed.
I'm moving to Canada. ...shut up, I deal well with problems.
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