I wrote this as an exercise with the Lawson writing group "Wicked Ink". The brief was to write a story with the words: Kuwait, fire, mortar, um and maybe some other words that I can't remember...

SOUVENIRS

The air is so thick you could bite a piece of it off. But he is afraid to open his mouth. Taking a breath risks choking on the debris of other people’s lives. Chunks of smashed mortar are fists in his back. There is a dead thing dangling at his side, the sleeve and the awkward bandage filthy, but strangely bloodless. It belongs to him. But if he doesn’t move, if the bones don’t grind together, he can observe the rubbery angle of his forearm with curious detachment.

Sniper fire rackets off a string of deadly expletives. He winces down into his protected niche, and prays none of the rounds will ricochet off the wall beside him.

Boulder sized fragments of the Bank of Kuwait jut from the smashed insides of nearby buildings like a cancer. The disembowelled Hyatt has a hole in its side three stories high. Where the foyer had once been is a mangle of upholstered lounges, smashed palms and torn slabs of Kuwaiti reinforced concrete. And bodies.

He listens for his father. “Dan, will you quit fooling! It’s time to go.”

Louise whining, “Daddy please will you buy me popcorn, or a souvenir? Daddy please!”

His mother’s voice will be tense with anger. “Danny! You come right here now, or so help me God…”

And here he is, hunkered down beside this pile of rubble so they can’t find him. But he wants to be found. He can almost smell the buttery fatness of popcorn.

There’s something cooking, but it’s not popcorn. There are fires all around, and he finds it hard to imagine a world that is not burning.

For a moment he sees the sun. A ball of white light arcs over his head. Suddenly there are two beams, clogged with smoke and concrete dust, ripping across him. The gunning of a jeep. Voices like rocks, grind out words he tries to cling to.

“Listen son,” says a voice. “Can you understand me?”

The voice is American, speaking English.

He tries to answer, but his words are pink froth, and unintelligible.

“Jesus-Mary.” Danny can hear an edge of tears in the GI’s voice.

It’s a piece of the Bank of Kuwait, he wants to tell them. But he can’t speak, and he can’t move to show them the bloody souvenir of contorted metal in his side. There are gas masks and needles, and the buzz and blur of voices fading away into the hot buttery smell of popcorn.