One question for all

Based on the people I encountered in Beirut during a research project on Syrian refugees. The country was without a President and ISIS was advancing into Lebanese territory. The responses are actual.

I asked the mechanic if he thought their would be war

He said two months maybe less

But he was ready to fight

“Christians like me are ready to kill in these streets”

He was not joking AK-47 locked and loaded

I asked the taxi driver if he thought their would be war

He said “yes but not yet

I’ve seen it much worse

I just hope I don’t live to see it again”

But he will.

I walked into a shop and asked the man if he thought their would be war

He spoke not a word, just frowned

Daesh is who he feared most

He had been here before.

I picked up a newspaper and the headlines were in red

One article after another

Designed to ignite division and fear

Setting the stage for the final battle.

I asked a friend what is war like

He said it’s something you never forget

Watching a tank turn down your street

Bedroom windows blown out by snipers

It goes beyond surreal.

If you lived through it

You remember the sounds and smells

It doesn’t go away

You will carry it to your grave.

I asked the woman who sold me some shoes

Someone said she’d lost children when her building fell down

She said ”I lost my sons to war,

I hate war and I hate god for allowing it”

Still she prays five times a day for mercy and forgiveness

I went to the Imam and the Priest

They both agreed peace could not last

“It’s them who follow false Gods that we have to blame”

Pointing their fingers at each other.

I asked my barber if this peace would last

His six year old son had known nothing else

“I hope so for Mario’s sake,” he said

“I don’t want him to see how cruel humans are”

His father had said the same thing in 1974

Just before the civil war.

I went home to consider all that I had heard

Pointed my body to the East and fell to my knees

I asked God if their would be war

He didn’t answer.