by George Capaccio

The President sits at his desk in the Oval Office. In front of him is the speech he will present to the American public in less than an hour. The TV crews are on their way. The door is locked. For now at least, he is alone. He feels the weight of the presidency pressing down on him. He imagines his father there in the room, slowly lowering his hand on the shoulder of his son and whispering, “What is to be done must be done.”

In the Karada neighborhood of Baghdad a boy runs from his home to the market. He buys a few kilos of bread–freshly baked, warm, steaming up the plastic bag he carries them in. The boy’s name is Amir. He loves soccer and has received a medallion from his school in recognition of his skill. Amir races home, kicking a few stones along the way. It is still early but already the streets are rippling with heat.

Mrs. Raba fills a kettle with water and prepares the tea. Her son is sleeping under the stairway and doesn’t wake, even when the gas burners on their stove ignite. Mrs. Raba blows out the match and sits between the stove and her son. She holds her face in her hands and wonders what they will eat today.

Along Karada Street, the merchants are lugging out their wares. Mr. Razzak, the owner of the music shop on the corner, unpacks a red ceramic drum and puts it in the window beside the dusty oud and the ornate def from Cairo. Green grocers arrange mounds of oranges and pomegranates. A man rides by on a donkey-drawn cart. Two boys, following the cart, drum on rusty canisters of kerosene to let everyone know there is fuel for sale.

The President is having second thoughts. He takes up his pencil and wonders how he might change the speech. Maybe they should go with the contingency plan instead. Maybe the time is not ripe for this particular operation. Maybe . . . Someone knocks on the office door. The President is too distracted to hear it. The door opens. “Mr. President,” says a young aid, “shall I serve this now or come back later?” The President nods. The aid, an impish man in his twenties, pours hot milk into a large white cup.

At the modest hotel a few doors down from the music shop, Ibrahim is pulling down the awning to keep the lobby as cool as possible. Nadia the receptionist places a wake up call to the guest in room 219. The manager checks the previous day’s receipts. Abu Omer walks in from the kitchen with two glasses of sweetened tea, one for him and one for Mr. Muhammed the manager. Mr. Muhammed rubs his forehead. The day has only just begun and already his headache is back. He takes a pill for hypertension and returns to the pile of receipts.

Amir opens the gate. His younger brother Karim is in the yard kicking goals with a soccer ball. His mother Ahlam stands by the broken screen door. She is wearing black. All the women in her family wear black. They are in mourning for her father, who died only a few weeks earlier. Her eyes light up when she sees Amir. “Do you have the bread?” she asks in Arabic. He grins and raises the bag like a trophy.

At that very moment, a short walk away, Buthayna picks blue and orange wild flowers growing in front of the school. The children will be arriving shortly. She wants their room to have a touch of beauty today. Buthayna passes the principal on her way in. He smiles through his usual frown. She puts the flowers in a glass and sets the glass by a window in the classroom. She is pleased by their bold colors and the way they almost make up for the drabness of the room.

After her son finishes his tea and leaves for school, Mrs. Raba tidies up their home, the foyer of a gated shop. The shop has been closed for years. Its owner, an Armenian, lets her stay there for free. Why shouldn’t he, Mrs. Raba tells herself. After all, we are both Christians. So we must do for each other.

The President rolls the warm cup of milk between his hands. He looks again at the face of the clock and recalls the numerous life-and-death decisions he has made in the past. None bore more heavily on the fate of so many people. Another knock. The door opens. “Mr. President,” says the imp, “CBS is here. They want to start setting up. What should I tell them?”

The sun has risen. A warm wind sways the eucalyptus and tamarisk trees along the Tigris. All the fisherman have gone for the day. The golden domes of Al Khadum Mosque are the word of God made manifest. Buthayna, who has never been vain, knows all the boys are in love with her. She fixes her hair before her students come in. Ahlam and her sons breakfast on bread and thick jam reduced from dates. Mrs. Raba sits in her usual spot–a stoop overlooking Karada Street.

The tape rolls. The floor manager cues the President. He begins: “Good evening, my fellow Americans. Not long ago, I spoke to you about the ‘axis of evil’ that threatens our country and all other freedom-loving countries in the world. From some quarters, there came criticism of my remarks. I stand by them because I know them to be true. One of the regimes I named has continued to manufacture weapons of mass destruction and refuses to admit weapons inspectors. That country is Iraq. Be assured our quarrel is not with the people of Iraq. We seek only to liberate them from the tyranny of their government even as we seek to eliminate the threat that government poses.

“Tonight I have authorized our military forces to undertake a swift and overwhelming response to this threat. Our response shall be in proportion to the severity of the danger to our homeland security and our national interest. At midnight eastern standard time, Operation Final Storm will commence. . . .”

Amir sees it before his brother does. Something falling. As visible in the morning sky as a meteor at night. Then comes the sound. And the hurricane wind. The fire that will not go out. The clouds that carry a million souls to paradise. Free at last.