The Soldier's Tennis Ball(Dina Fadhil Faidhy) The Soldier's Tennis Ball

I really hesitated for a while when I decided to go out and fetch some milk and cookies for my kids, from the near supermarket outside my house yard. It was a beautiful morning with sunny weather. Streets and suburbs of my district in south of Baghdad were so calm, witnessing the silence of rest and secure day after a long term of battling and conflict between U.S forces and insurgents who attacked our neighbor area where natives had to stay home for two days.

I rushed to the street, heading to the supermarket with my little boy insistably holding my hand to go out too. Shedding tears is his best weapon to make me surrender right away! Ok I'm a child slave. Once I reached the supermarket's street, which is the next block from my house, I noticed the U.S Patrol of armored vehicles spreading in the street and blocking two sides of it. I hesitated again, whether to go back, or go ahead! But I said to myself it's just a regular inspection role or military meeting that would end soon. I reached the supermarket holding my son's hand so tight. 'Hello, what's going on?' I asked the owner. 'Oh nothing. Just another regular inspection' he replied. I bought a lot of milk, and a lot of cookies and an additional sum of kids' snacks.

Getting back was even harder from getting out! An armored vehicle approached to block the sideway to my main home's street. I had to go through the narrow side, between the armored vehicle and the neighbor's fence, which was not more than one meter and a half width. The vehicle's gate was suddenly opened, and a patrol soldier stepped out from it. 'Oops!' I murmured to myself, 'That's it, we are busted'! A bunch of blames drifted in my head, like a lost wooden heavy thick tree's branch floating on a rough stream. 'I should have gone back home and forget about the milk', I said to myself.

All of a sudden, and quickly, the soldier gave a yellow tennis ball to my son. He went back rushing to his front seat and did not even give me the chance to say thank you! Walking back home I repeated again and again the strange rhythm of this "war and peace" puzzle. The soldiers precautions of getting back quickly against mine; my fears vise his, and the trembling dreams of children and their longing to play in peaceful yards, all these were the blowing thoughts inside my mind, and a small wondering one of whether this soldier would find a tennis ball in his son's toys when he gets back home!

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