It’s almost funny how the perception of things within the world around us can trigger the most random of recollections. In my case, it just happens to be a photo conquering a good chunk of The New York Times’ famous front page. The photo is of a dead soldier; the caption dates the picture as being from 2003--from five years ago. The memory it triggers is a lot older than that.

Once upon a time, when I was just a little girl with very limited notions on the permanence of death, I saw a photo that should have scared me but didn’t. It was the photo of a dead man; by that, I mean the man in the picture was already too dead to be camera shy. Considering it had been taken while my dad was off gallivanting in the desert, picking off terrorists (before they were called terrorists by the media every five seconds) in the first Gulf War, the man in the picture had obviously been a soldier. He had been “the enemy”, the boogeyman, the terrorist (before they were called terrorists by the media every ten seconds).

What I vaguely remember is that whoever took the shot appeared to have taken the time to prop the corpse’s head on a knapsack someone must have been willing to sacrifice for such a grim, artistic purpose. Maybe it was a giant rock the corpse’s head was resting on or maybe he wasn’t resting on anything at all save the hot, invasive desert sand. Maybe he didn’t even have a head. In recollection, however, a knapsack is what strongly comes to mind--and the soldier certainly has a head resting on it. I also remember (albeit vaguely) that there were sunglasses covering the eyes as well, but perhaps I, with my childish notions, mistook gaping eye sockets for sunglasses.

I remember that it looked like he was sleeping--and barring decay or violent murder, don’t all dead bodies look that way?

Maybe there’s a reason I write so extensively about death now. Maybe that photo is the reason so many stories about dead soldiers now fill countless pages of countless notebooks.

There is no way for me to know for certain if I am right in my recollections. Years ago, perhaps after I laid eyes on that picture, my father removed it from among the other photos and souvenirs of Middle Eastern money filling the album and did away with it. We have never talked about it. We never talk about his involvement in war or the affect it’s had on him. It has come up in brief jokes, but we have never seriously talked about it. I have never asked (nor will ever openly ask) who took the photo, why it was taken or why he kept it for as long as he did. I certainly have never asked (nor will ever openly ask) why he finally chose to get rid of it because…well…why would anyone ever keep the photo of an enemy corpse to begin with?

Besides, even though the photo is physically gone, even though the soldier in it has long since returned to the desert sands, even if there’s no way for me to get it back to see if my memories are right, I know it exists.

In his mind, hidden away in a place of which even my father may be unaware, I know it still exists--perfect down to the smallest detail.

- C.G.


I have heard stories from other men who believed they knew the details of death. I have studied the texts of my faith for clues. When that was not enough, I turned to texts of other faiths, to books of myth and science. I have experienced death as a witness; countless times, I have caused it. It was in the name of honor that I took up military service, aware that I would remove sons and daughters from their mothers and fathers, aware that perhaps I would die, but also aware that my homeland required it of me.

As I sit here now, wishing for shelter against the desert sun, I realize what others who have gone before me quickly learned. There is no Paradise, no alleviation from the sufferings of life. There is pain, a flash of darkness, and then the heat--always the heat. The smell rising from my body leaves within me an increasingly strong desire to be buried. I have tried to do this myself, reciting prayers from childhood memories of funeral services, believing surely that someone would understand the need of burial, but each morning my body is again beneath the sun. Scavengers come, bugs and birds ignoring my repeated attempts to preserve myself. Already, they have taken fingers…toes… Soon there will be nothing left.

Time has stopped since my death. Days and nights pass with their respective heat and chill, but I can no longer tell how long it has been since bullets divided me from the living world. The decay of my body is the closest I possess to a marker of time, but beneath the heat of this sun and because of the scavengers, even this is unreliable. I believe it has been days or perhaps even weeks, but perhaps, also…

I wonder if there has been word of my death. A car came driving by while my body was still whole and freshly dead and a man inside took my picture. He did not see me, of course--only my body as it sweltered beneath this intolerable desert sun--but I wonder what he has done with it. Perhaps it is being shown in the newspapers. Perhaps it is being broadcasted on the television. Perhaps, to the public and to my family, they are speaking of my bravery in the face of battle against the American Marines who eventually succeeded in killing me. But where are the Marines I succeeded in killing first? I see neither them nor the bodies they left behind to bleed into the dirt. Has someone come for them in the night?

(At night, I hear the howling of wolves. I do not know from where they come, but the sound of them frightens me. I find I am drawn to seek them out as time continues endlessly and this frightens me further. Am I meant to do seek them? Is this why the Americans have disappeared?)

As the days pass, as more of my former body disappears through scavengers or through decay, I think more of the photographer. I think of his camera and the photo he took of me. What has he done with it? Has he kept it for himself? (Why would he keep such a photo?) Has he shown it to others? (Surely, somebody would have come for me if he had.) Perhaps he has erased it. Perhaps my photo is not in the papers or on the television; perhaps my family was never told of my bravery.

Perhaps I have been forgotten. That would be a fitting punishment, would it not? I gave of myself, of my identity to serve my homeland in battle, and now I sit here by the roadside, one more nameless casualty of a war I understood less and less each day.

“‘He is to have no funeral or lament, but to be left unburied and unwept, a sweet treasure for the birds to look at, for them to feed on to their heart’s content.’”

I find it strange to be thinking now of that play, of that very line, when I cannot even remember how many days it has been since I have died. Of all the things I have read, the play is my least favorite. Then again, I never did favor the tragedies of the Greeks.

“Is that how you feel, sir? As though Creon has betrayed you, too?”

Her voice startles me; I swear that it comes from the air. In looking around, I find there is no one else there, but the sweet scent of lilies pervades my senses. Perhaps, in my solitude, I have become inventive. If I have, it is a far better alternative to being completely alone in silence.

“If I have not been forgotten, forsaken for the things I have done and despite them, then what am I? Even Death has forgotten my existence.”

The voice speaking to me laughs, lighter than the dry air I have ceased to need.

“If you would look with proper eyes, Ibrahim, you would see that things are not so.”

From where she comes, I cannot say, for I do not know. I simply blink and she is there. More beautiful than any young woman I have seen, she dresses as a Persian queen. The gold and jewels sparkle with the sun’s glow; her eyes sparkle with secrets of the ages. My inventiveness appears to be increasing in skill by the moment.

“You know my name.”

The young woman laughs again, in a sweet way. “I know all there is to know about you, Ibrahim. From your first breath to your last.”

“Then you are not human,” I say. “You are not of my people.”

“I am of all people.”

“You are not living.”

“I am neither living nor dead, Ibrahim,” she says. “I am all things.”

“Then you are divine. You are Allah.”

“That,” she answers with a secret smile, “is the one thing I am not. But I suppose it can be said that I have been sent by Him.”

“Then you are Death.”

“I am all things,” she says again, keeping her smile. “For you now, I am Death.”

“You are not as the Westerners wrote you to be, not as the prophets spoke you to be.”

She laughs again, ever sweet and empty of ridicule. “What can those who live know, except how to guess? But I am here for you now, Ibrahim. I have been waiting for you, and I know you have been waiting long for me, so finally I have come to bring you to rest. You are ready now.”

“But…but my body--” Is no longer here. Whatever is left of it…was left of it… There is now nothing but dirt. “Where is my body?”

“What need have you for two when you only reside in one?” asks the strange queen.

“I--”

“You have passed from the world you knew, but you have held fast to dreams for far too long, Ibrahim. I say you have awakened now, into life known only to those gone before you. What need have you to fear it?” She holds out a slender hand to me. “Come. I promise you will not be disappointed by what awaits you.”

“Am I blessed for my virtues or am I damned for my trespasses?”

“You are dead,” she says. “The rest is relative.”

Her hand is soft against my own, but her hold is firm. In her touch, I feel a sense of life I did not feel even in my younger years. All at once, time seems again attainable. The world is smaller, less frightening. There are questions, but I know I will find answers.

“This is not the end.”

The queen nods. “For men such as yourself, Ibrahim, there is never merely an ending.”