Nawaf Khalaf Sinjary (Prepared Angela Kosta)
Moderator 
By: NAWAF KHALAF SINJARY
DEATH WINGS
In Basra markets, our eyes were seeking a toy, or a beautiful dress that we would carry for our children, me and my friend, Markar, lives in Baghdad and is the father of a beautiful girl named Soha, she is only one month younger than my beloved son, Yusuf. I would often joke with my friend and tell him, "My son will marry your daughter when they grow up” Laughing loudly Markar says," I won't allow to marry him because he will be a coward like you. " We left their photos hanging over the chest food in our shelter and drove off.
We were so excited that our vacation always came at the same time, which was delayed by more than fifty days due to alert time. This delay allows us to "live together or die together." I was waiting on pins and needles, waiting for more than fifty days to get my vacation permission, carrying my bag and saying goodbye to my colleagues, Wishing me a happy vacation, their eyes full of passion and hope to convey their condition and news to their families and friends who waiting eagerly for their return. I wish, I could fly a plane to my beautiful village, which sleeps quietly north of Mosul, to shorten the time and gain extra precious hours for my short vacation.
After completing the purchase of gifts, we hired a taxi from Basra to the capital, Baghdad. Each of us was looking at gifts that he bought, Fully enjoyed, leaving temporally behind all the sights of murder, the horrors of death, the stiff blood that is forbidden by dirt and the smell of gunpowder, And the bitterness of anticipation and anxiety that inhabits our souls all the time, even when we were at our vacation. Many times get out of my sleep at the sound of a gun shells that tore up my quiet dreams, spoiled my sleep, and my wife's dazed, pathetic, and bitter looks.
Sitting back seat of the car, hearing the singer Dakhel Hassan sing traditional southern songs (Abothya). The talks were about the latest developments in the war and the scheduled military attack near Faw City. The city turned into a holocaust where many thousands of soldiers were killed near it without achieving any victory. The driver, who was over 60 years old, putting a cigarette in his mouth and shaking when he talks, from the opposite mirror a scar could be seen above his eyebrow, he seemed fun and careless and interrupted us. Saying I will tell you about an incident last night, caused by an ill-fated tank running down the side of the road in an area not more than a quarter of an hour from this place. Imagine the stupidity of the driver who didn't distinguish the tank and hit it! His car turned into a scrap and his passengers into corpses. Then he nervously continued: "How much do I hate that damn tank from which innocent people are not even extradited and is broken?" We enjoyed hearing the driver's speech and his funny crazy soul. Then fatigue and drowsiness overcame my tired eyes from duty last night. I opened my eyes then to find my friend lying on a bed near me with his leg hanging over his bed. "What the hell brought us here?!", I asked the nurse. She smiled and said, "You were miraculously lucky to survive a horrific accident with a broken tank on the road between Basra and Baghdad. Thank God for your survival. I told her sarcastically, mixed with pain:
"What is the benefit of our survival as long as the wings of death flutter above us wherever we are?!"
(Translated by: Mohammed Yahia)
Prepared Angela Kosta
