Aisha

The scent was faint beneath the other smells, beneath the moss and mud and water, and the stench of rotting reeds and rotting men.....We proceeded slowly through the soft ground to the river's edge, I splashed some water on my face, and lifted my head up once again and sniffed. The sky was dark and thick with grey clouds, the once clear river red full of floating dead and decaying things. Dead men clogged the shallows, some which were still moving as the water pushed them, others washed up on the banks. My brothers swarmed around them identifying who they are....They are all innocent civilians, panic grips me my eyes search vainly for the something I hope is not here although I get the strangest feeling in my gut that it is here among the dead. There are carrion birds there too, screaming at my Lions and filling the air with feathers. I search for it, the feeling getting stronger, as I search harder I can hear the grumbles of my lions the tears and cries of revenge, the shrieks if angry birds, the whir of wings and the sound of running water. There! I think I see it...Yes it is..Something pale and white drifting down the river, turning where it brushed against a snag, the reeds bowing down before it.

I rapidly stripe of my gear and drop my gun and splash noisily through the shallows and throw myself into the deeper water my arms and legs are churing. The current is strong, but I am stronger. I swim never loosing site of it, the river is full of dead things and other objects but none of them matter only what I came into this bloodied river matters. I swim towards the sharp whisper of cold blood, the horrible cloying stench of death. I shake it to make it move, but there is only death and blood. I realize I was starting to tire, and was all I could do to pull the body back to shore. As I dragged it up the the muddy bank one of my brothers cam up and gave me a hand. The pale body lay face down in the mud, the dead flesh wrinkled and pale, cold blood trinkaling down its wounds. I turn the body over and give a cry of dismay I shake the body
"Rise....Rise and don't leave us please" I keep shaking it
"don't be dead...don't be...ya Aisha get up...Get up Aisha....AISHAAAAAAA!!!!!!" hugging the body I begin the cry my body shaking with my sobs. My Lions surround me tears in there eyes, Aisha was loved my all with her generosity, understanding, warming smiles and shy innoncence.
"Sir, we cannot let this go unpunished!!!" Captain Ali says
"Revenge, Revenge" cry my comrades
I look up my vision blurry from my tears I glance at her lovely face and gentle...ever so gently I close her eyes, "No, not revenge Aisha would never like that, it would be an insult to her memory"
"Sir!, then what if not revenge sir?" a Lion asks
"Not revenge....Justice, Justice for all these people and Aisha....especially Aisha"

With in the hour we have buried all the bodies except Aisha's. This one I buried on a hill where we had often talked beneath the beautiful fruit tree, with the sun and clouds above her, a bountiful number of roses grow along side the tree, and the rain to wash her clean. As we break camp we hear the sound of vehicles. They are coming from the north my scouts report the are Republican Guard soldiers boldly heading this way burning and killing as they go. I quickly bark out orders and the trap is set......now comes the Justice for these folk.....the Justice for AISHA!.....Aisha.......aisha..........