THE WAR REPORTER PAUL WATSON AMIDST THE GENERATIONS

1 5 5 R T H E W A R R E P O R T E R P A U L W A T S O N A M I D S T T H E G E N E R A T I O N S D A N O ’ B R I E N A young man is signaling an old man to slow down and stop. The old man’s nosing a motorbike through rubble with a boy in his lap. Rust-colored hair marks the boy the scion of Templars. While our young man’s Al-Nusra, desert-skinned. The old man grins like Arafat. The boy wears a sweatshirt that reads bluntly – Gap – his knuckles dimpling as he gingerly accepts the assault rifle from our rebel. Who had earlier unbuttoned his shirt to display these scars like pink planets curving from his belly to his breast. Take the shot now. With his breath peeling in veils. Sloe-eyed. One bullet sleeps beside his heart, he says. Told the surgeon, Leave it for Allah and let me go back to war. Our boy is giggling like a boy throwing back the sash. Spidery fingers tickling the trigger. The rebel’s pinching the muzzle into a sullen sky while his free fingers resemble a peace sign by mistake, one presumes. The old man’s smile betrays its opposite. Take the shot now, suggests the rebel. Afterwards he’ll pluck a banana-clip from his vest to prove the gun wasn’t even loaded. Tell me what your tattoos mean? I bark after him 1 5 6 Y like a cur in the street. This one’s a poem to my brother. He coughs. Assad cut o√ his penis. But first his fingers. Beat him with pipes, shocked him with wires. Starved him until he was just this wisp of smoke to be cut with the waving of a hand. Dumped inside a hole with rats, melting snow. Can you tell me what this tattoo means? There is no more family, it reads. No more brothers. Beware especially the friends who are friendliest to you. Smiling as he hands me his flask of water. Take, drink, I am not the same man as the man I hate. ...