In the Name Of

"In the Name of the Holy One, the All Merciful, the Compassionate and Blessed... ", whispered the nervous young man prayed as he headed towards a boarding bus stationed in the busy terminal near the Israeli town of­­­­_____. The heat of the summer's day caused profuse sweating on his heavily burdened body. The dynamite and sharp metal filled harness strapped to his chest weighed heavily, and it roughed the skin under the cloth of his dress. His steps were measured as he neared his target; each step marked with an oath of prayer. He stopped suddenly as two armed figures, uniformed in the official olive green of the border police, neared him.

He feigned indifference to their presence, only passing a fake identity card when requested. One policeman slowly moved away from him, but the second, dark in Ethiopic skin, searched, with suspicious eyes, the bulk of his body. Panic ensued as a command was ordered by the lawman. The young man hurled a loud cry to the Enlightened One as he set the switch, which triggered the explosive device. .

Paradise wasn't the reward offered the suicide bomber, but only the corruption of scrambled body tissue, sinew and blood, which fouled the air with their stench, and the ground with their ugly sight. Prayers to the Blessed and Compassionate were not heard; only shouts of panic from the passengers boarding the waiting bus and the sound of wailing ambulances, summoned to the scene, could be discerned. The young man's torn body was not near rivers of flowing water or covered by numerous houris and will never be. If he could feel after death, he would of felt religious men, of a different calling and tagged with official markings, collecting and scraping his skin, bones and innards into plastic bags. Foul death he received and needless death was hurled upon the young officer, dark in skin, now lying under a covered sheet.