Story Bazaar

For the Children

We'd travelled to the mountains---found the hidden valley---discovered the training camp...

The sun hadn't risen yet, but would soon light the valley...

Our film crew was there to do a documentary...

The team had been carefully selected---no one with a record of government involvement...

The documentary was to be about the most fearsome terrorist organization in the world.

They, of course, did their own horrific promotion videos for the Internet; but, my reputation as an independent film-maker apparently gave me the highly questionable "privilege" of showing the world the inner workings of their main training facility.

We'd been cautioned to not film on the way in; but, now that we'd arrived, we scrambled out of the two four-wheel vehicles and immediately began creating the establishing-footage; during which, I couldn't help but notice all the children---some teens; but, many younger---all carrying guns and ammo belts...

I told the team to focus on the kids---the swelling sunlight made some wonderful dark/light compositions...

We spent all day filming---wildly ripping through digital storage capacity---knowing this was a set of one-takes that would need very careful editing. We were assured by the camp leader that one of their outside agents would contact us in three months to view our finished product...

I kept urging my team to include as much of the kids as possible, even if we'd been instructed to interview various adults---angle the shots to include the children.

Near the end of our time, I was introduced to two of the children, not yet teens, and the translator began to relate their tale as the cameras rolled...

The slightly older one, a boy, began:

"We are fighting for God's Cause---we have special training to infiltrate a tourist area in a major European city and become glorious martyrs for the Prophet."

The younger one, a girl, continued:

"We have no fear. God is Great and we will receive wonderful rewards in the Next Life."

Much more was said, all of it seeming to be desperate justification for what these young humans would commit...

We finished our work in the mountain valley...

We returned to our civilization and realized it would do no good to alert the authorities---we didn't know which city was targeted; still, we passed the word to our military contacts...

But, there were exploding martyrs all over the world---it seemed there was no way to stop them...

Our one thin hope was that we would be guided in our editing to show a powerful sub-plot with the children as the center of the action---praying our finished documentary would meet with the terrorists' agent's approval---praying the exposure of the kids would spark international action...

We certainly knew how to get it aired all over the place...

We certainly didn't know how to protect those children...

All we could do was help them become the tragic stars of their own treacherous tale.........

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