Читать книгу Combat Tours Unlimited - Shawn Smith - Страница 4

A candy-colored clown they call the Sand Man,

Tiptoes to my room every night,

Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper:

Go to sleep, everything is all right.

Roy Orbison, “In Dreams”

Abdulpamel stood awash in the burning glow of God’s morning light, oblivious to the palms gently swaying across the Babg Nara River, oblivious to the multitudinous flowers and plants festooning the nearer bank, just beyond To Ku We Mosque. Oblivious to the blazing sun, to the flowing water, to the firm earth on which he stood, oblivious to the waning breeze.

Oblivious even to the veiled charms of the swarm of girls hovering nearby, like himself all of twelve, they allowed thus far and no farther along the processional route, unlike him denied the final spectacle. However they were not so oblivious as he, and tittered one to another of his beautiful, fine features, of his mop of wavy hair, of the slender, agile arms emerging from his sleeveless tee-shirt, incongruously emblazoned with a Pittsburgh Steelers logo.

Abdulpamel was oblivious to all but the passing procession, making its way along Ra Ngae Makkha Road toward the cleared ground where once, before God had seen fit to grant independence to the Patanni Melayu people, had stood the Chinese Association of Narathiwat. There, it was to happen again, as it had a week before. Could this shuddering sack in the cart really be of Satan? Could she really be capable of all that his friends had whispered, striving to outdo one another in horrifying titillation?

Obviously it must be so, as so it had been decreed. Abdulpamel trotted along, joining the throng of men and boys trailing behind the cart, the unnoticed girls left behind, casting last longing glances after his svelte, mobile form. The other boys, indeed many of the more stupid men, bartered coarse and raucous jests, but Abdulpamel had fallen into the somber state that characterized the thoughtful and righteous amongst his elders.

Abdulpamel shouldered his way into the packed clearing, past the Bosnians, and finally wedged himself adjacent to the platform itself. They had taken her out of the sack, and stripped off the veil which she had defiled along with her body. Her face, only meters from his, was twisted in fear and agony, but Abdulpamel could not tear his eyes from it, from its lurid and filthy beauty. From the crowd the young and the stupid howled, “whore! blasphemous whore!”

Observing the proper rites, the necessary words were said and the sword prepared. Even the most obdurate in the crowd were finally awed into quiescence by the weight of the moment, and a dead silence obtained as the sword was raised, glistening like a jewel. One swift blow and Abdulpamel was splattered by a jet of crimson blood, shimmering like the sword that had unleashed it in the burning glow of God’s bright morning light.