Under the Shoes

I was heading out of the house at 10 am after I closed the main door, I went down in the street, there was a big crowd of people talking and shouting. It was something strange for our street because most of the neighbors resume their daily activities in the afternoon.

I saw two women chatting aside, went to ask them, one of them answered me “ Three guys kidnapped now while they were standing out of the shop drinking Pepsi Cola.”

How?

I went out to take my daughter to the school, there was a strange car parking beside our house, when the driver saw me he moved but he kept coming and going in the street till another car arrived with two men, they fired many shots in the air and grabbed the three guys to put them in their car and runaway.”

Do you know who are the three guys?

Yes, they are the new neighbor who just arrived recently to the street, the father and his two sons. I want to go now and bring back my daughter from the school but Iam so scared to do that now.

Since the new security plan started, a lot of national guards are in at the main road which is only few minutes of the street, in addition to that, one of our neighbor is an uncle for one of the ministers in the new government, the minister sent a police car with four policemen to protect his uncle house. I asked the woman if any of the police or the national guards came to help?

The national guards came later on after everything is finished and what do you think they will do to the Mahdi army? The woman replied.

We were standing close to a trunk of a palm tree and a big barrel were put to block the street, on the top of the barrel there is a placard saying “ Yes, Yes, for the leader Muqtada Al-Sader.”

The woman asked me to be careful because the street is no more safe like before and concluded that she is waiting for her kids to finish their schools to leave to Egypt.

I did my best not to wait long at the main road and take a taxi as soon as possible, the driver told me that all the roads are blocked because of the so many check points and it is better to take Canal street, I did not object because he knows better than me.

Canal street was not much better than other streets and in fact we had to take the dusty road to avoid the heavy traffic, the driver said “ For God sake, can you tell me what is the use of these check points, I swear they put them just to torture people, look, cars are passing by…who knows what is inside them?

Then a police car came very fast, a policeman was on the top and two bodies for young men were under him, one of them was wearing a gray dishdash, the other was wearing a truck suit, both wear bear foot, laying in the car.

The driver said “ Ah, you see, look, sure they found them here near the Canal.”

I kept looking at the two men and prayed to God not to be in the same position of these poor men under the shoes of the policeman.