Good Bye BaghDad

     She didn't know why she couldn't sleep that night. She was lying between her parents. Her mother and little brother on her left and her father on her right. The smell of Cardamom from the tea pot washing over the room like a warm blanket. In fact, she can still taste the cardamom on her tongue, her mother insisted on them taking one before sleeping since it's good for their teeth.

      The only lighting was the oil lamp on her father's bedside table. It dimmed everything around it. It gave the air a different scent. The oils aroma that she loved. She remembered her Jedu telling her not to lean into every pleasure because some pleasures could kill her. She didn't understand how smelling something could kill her since she wasn't touching anything. Everything looked peaceful. Her only music was her family's breaths and the sound of rain. The window was slightly open. Letting the smell of fall wash over the room and the sound of rain and lighting filling everywhere. There were two birds outside the window. They were cuddled together, taking cover from the rain. She wondered why they didn't have a nest. Where was they're Baba? She could sense their fear, their homelessness. She looked at her Baba and send a silent prayer that he was here, safe and covering her with his blanket. She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and prayed for the birds to have their Baba back soon.

     The sky looked so dark and angry yet broken. It could almost talk and tell her what it was feeling. She was a brave girl. Never scared of the lighting sound. She just listened to it, like listening to a sad orphan or a broken mother who has lost a child. She never woke her parents, never moved an inch when the lightening grew stronger and stronger. She knew deep down that the sky was kind and beautiful, but it was sad, and sad people are allowed to be angry. At least that's what her Jedu told her every time her Baba was angry. The bed looked so big, probably because she was so tiny. She breathed in and out. Once. Twice. Thrice. BOOM!

     That grabbed her attention. Her father was immediately up. Another boom and her mother and brother woke. Her brother was a year younger than her. He had thick black hair and huge innocent black eyes. They used to always play together since she did not have a sister. He looked at her as if he was asking for comfort, to hug him or tell him it was going to be okay, like she often did when their parents were alert like they were now. They were beside the window whispering to each other. She told her brother to go to sleep. He lay down and held her palm for assurance. He squeezed once, she squeezed back twice. Her mother's voice started rising in fear and hysteria. "Please you can't go to war and leave us! We have no one and you know your family hate me!" her mother said with tears in her eyes. She was begging him, her voice weak, her hands holding his so dearly like it was her last breath before sinking under water. "I can't love, I have to go. I am going to protect Baghdad and protect you. They're saying that Baghdad is falling. I'll try to come back, I promise but if I didn't, you know what to do" he said to her while trying to untangle his hands from hers. She only held them tighter, closer to her heart and pleaded "Please, I can't do it without you". He managed to get away from her grip and changed his clothes. Her mother always told her not to be clingy to her father, especially when he was leaving since he gets annoyed by that, she wondered why her mother did what she warned her not to do.

     He wore a green outfit. It looked like the soldiers she saw the other day when she was helping her mother with groceries. Suddenly, her father turned and there was that thing in his hand, the thing that she asked her Jedu about the other day. It looked black and scary. Like that thing can emit bad energy. Her Jedu said, "They use it to remove someone from this world to the next one". She thought and wondered what lay on the other side. What was the other world? Was it a place full of candy? Was it full of parks and games? Did birds have their Babas with them there? Her father cut her train of thought and said "Sweetie, I am going on a mission, I want you to take care of you mother and brother. Until I come back. I love you". Suddenly, she thought of three things all at once, she wondered why her father would want to remove people from this world with that thing, why her mother was covering her face but not able to cover her voice and why she had the pressing urge to go to sleep.