"You, foreskin of a camel! Your mother lies with dogs!" Ahmed screamed at the soldiers. It brought two results. One, it kept him a little more alert and less aware of his pain, and two, it attracted the attention of the two soldiers from the jeep.
"Ola! Who insults the memory of my mother who sits with Allah? Who?" One soldier spun around and tried to imagine which one of the pieces of bodies that surrounded him still had enough life to speak. He scanned the sand nearby. Open eyes were not a sure sign of life nor was the presence of four limbs. There needed to be a head.
"Over here camel dung. Hussein fucks animals who give birth to the likes of you." Ahmed's viciousness was the only facial feature that gave away he was alive. The soldiers saw their tormentor.
"Prepare to meet with your Allah, now," as one soldier took aim at Ahmed's head.
"Go ahead! Shoot, pig shit. I welcome death so I won't have to see your filth . . ." Ahmed defied the soldier and the automatic rifle aimed at him.
The other soldier intervened. "No, don't kill him. That's too easy and we would be honoring his last earthly request. No, this one doesn't beg for mercy. At least he's a man. Let's just make him suffer." The second soldier raised his gun and pointed at the junction of Ahmed's two stumps for legs. Two point blank range shots shattered the three components of his genitals. Ahmed let out a scream so primal, so anguished, so penetrating that the soldiers bolted to escape the sounds of death. The scream continued, briefly interrupted by a pair of shots that caught the two soldiers square in the middle of the back as they ran. They dropped onto the hot desert sand with matched thuds.
Ahmed didn't hear the shots over the sounds coming from his larynx. He didn't hear anything after that for a very long time.
Unfortunately for Ahmed Shah, he survived.
He woke up, or more accurately, regained semi-consciousness more than a week after he was picked up at the site of the mortar attack. He was wired up to tubes and machines in an obviously well equipped hospital. He thought, I must be back in Teher- an . . .then fog . . .a blur . . .a needle . . .feel nothing . . .stay awake . . .move lips . . .talk . . .
"Doctor, the patient was awake." The nurse spoke to the physician who was writing on Ahmed's medical chart.