TALKING TO TERRORISTS by Robin Soans

Act II 

RIMA 
The drones start about eight... they’re small but very 
loud like ‘ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ’...continuous, and at 
about eleven the bombing started. In the first thirty-six 
minutes there were thirty-eight bombs; and that night 
we watched television, and Mr. Bush won. Some of the 
guys were saying, ‘Who cares if Bush or the other guy 
wins...the fact is anyway Iraq is lost. We’ve lost Iraq.’ 
After the thirty-eight bombs they said, ‘Relax, stop 
counting, there’s more to come, make it as a 
background noise’. They were very religious these 
guys. They were sitting doing a lot of Koran; they 
believe their lives were in the hand of God. 
The Americans continued shelling ‘til about five in the 
morning, and then there were the minarets, the call to 
prayer from a hundred minarets and the drones at the 
same time. 
Suddenly, suddenly, ten past five...everything 
stopped...not a shell, nothing...and then I slept for like 
two hours. I was sleeping on the sofa which was also 
very hard, smelling, and I think the mattress might have 
these little things. 
The plan was for me to stay on...we had bought 
everything for the duration, but on that day something 
personal happened that I wasn’t prepared for ....at 
all...um... 
If there were any chemists in Fallujah I didn’t know, and 
how was I going to tell those particular guys to buy 
what I needed, I mean, what? It was not going to sit 
right in lots of different ways; and the place I was 
staying from cleansing point of view was just...it’s the 
hole in the ground...if that’s clean it’s fine....but if it’s 
dirty and yukky and smelly...and anyway we needed to 
buy a generator and candles. 
I decided we should go back to Bagdad...I was in my 
hotel and I heard they had sealed Fallujah completely, 
even the exit I had used to get out. 
We heard that all the guys we stayed with had been 
killed by a bomb. I was crying maybe. They had been 
good to us.