The Last War

Chapter Three

I was running with a troop of khaki-dressed soldiers, firing away with the M-16 gun, that I clutched in my hand, as if it was my only means of salvation. We entered a deserted tenement, from which a view opened up, of houses ruined and on fire, a panorama of complete destruction and hopeless end of times. That's how I felt at that particular moment, that this is the end, the final end, there is nothing beyond this point, and I am ready to die. Yes, this was one of the most terrorizing sensation, by preparedness to die, my submission, my kneeling in front of the irreversible doom. Out of agony, I fired a round, and as the empty cartridges hit the floor, a sentence occurred to me, said in prophetic-like manner of the Bible:
"And the acid shall fall from the skies"...
I woke up with a jerk, cold sweat breaking all over my body, heart deafeningly pounding in the
chest, and squinted to see VCR's red electronic clock. It was around 5 AM, which was confirmed
by the voice of a muezzin calling his prayer from the mosque's tower over the houses of the ancient
Jerusalem. It was me again, Alan Rashi, snapped back to the mundane reality. Yet...
"I was just being summoned," I told the surrounding darkness, slightly tinged by the early light of the
approaching Middle Eastern sunrise. Of course, nobody answered back. However, I sensed there were others at some places, and we were getting closer with every passing hour and day. But for what purpose?

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