That cold body lying there can be anybody’s. It can be a wife, a husband, a daughter
, a son, or a grandmother. It does not matter who. It matters that it was  a living soul. A living soul  that had family, friends, or lovers. People who loved them. People who would be waiting for their return. People whose stare will be glued to that door waiting for their return. People who will check their phone every 30 seconds to hear from them, if it is only to hear
their voice one more time.  Just one more time hearing that beeping sound from the phone indicating a text message that bears their name.

It matters that there is someone waiting for them. Someone who is going to wait for long hours, namely eternity, and will never see them again. Never seeing them again and never getting a chance to say goodbye. That day when he left for that concert hall, and she just sent her a kiss from laundry room as she was pushing the kids’ clothes in the washer, she had no idea she will never see him again. Little did she know that the concert at Bataclan Concert Hall will become his murder site. That his poor fellow will go through the horrifying moments that he experienced before he took that bullet to his heart.
That he saw with his widely open eyes people who forced their way into that concert hall, into that room, into that music scene to impose their decision, their belief to end their lives on other people. Secretly armed people who had fallen for the fake travesty of gun and explosives . That obvious travesty that gave them the illusion of empowerment.

And you, you who forced the end of life of 19 people in that restaurant in Boulevard Voltaire, did you ever think about your decision twice? Let me try to understand you:

You have been in a war. Everyone comes back from a war with a wound. Maybe it was a war on your land, on your heart, on your mind if not a real war. A wound that might never heal. A wound that you carry all your life and you keep licking it, hoping to recover and heal from it, and you can not. A wound that is not healable but you never want to accept it. A wound so deep that is cutting you all the way to your bones. You feel the aching in your bone. The same aching that a bone cancer patient feels. Only worse because the cancer patient has no choice. The cancer patient did not decide to be the patient. The cancer patient clings to any means to fight that pain. To get rid of that nasty, aching pain.  You have no alternative but licking your wound, you can not go out there and publicly announce your pain and suffering. Because you are that hero. That hero who has been fighting. That hero that devoted his life to the fight and got wounded. That hero that may be rightly on its due time defended other innocent civilians of its tribe and region.

I sympathize with you. At times, we all get stuck in our heads as heroes. Specially when we are labeled as one . Specially when we have felt as one. And it makes it so hard to throw away that label and accept that we need help. We prefer to hide behind the labels and show our face as the hero. So, when that person with that smile or may be that screaming face appears on your way and offers you a path to elevate your hero status to that very next level, you go with it. You hesitate. You think about life. You think about the precious moments that you breathe in and out. But then the pain of that wound comes back. A forgotten hero or a hero in the making looking for a quick fix. Go; get killed and kill others, and stay a hero forever. No more dealing with licking the wound. No more fighting with the feeling of shame that you, the hero needs help. You cement your status as a hero forever and a day… in the eyes of your folks, in the eyes of people you fought for at one point in time…

That is the only way I can imagine you can convince yourself to do what you do to innocent civilians. You who cover your body not only with clothes like the rest of us. You who choose to wear that vest full of explosives. You who sweat profusely when you wear that vest. You who close your eyes and try to avoid the eyes of that mother of yours, the touch of the hand of that hunchback father of yours who sits in the tea houses out there and bravely brags about you, his brave son. You push their images out of your mind as you put on that vest.

Stop thinking about the will of Allah. No one knows the will of Allah. None of us does. Each of us must decide what we want or not want to do. No one is designated to decide for Allah to take whose lives on which day.

Remember the moments before you push on that button wired into all those explosives in the vest? Remember how you can not even test it to make sure it works as planned? Remember the shaking hands?  You think exploding yourself and all those people around you will solve all those images you are trying to avoid?

Hell no! Remind yourself of  funeral. A funeral where a grandmother weeps, a husband is so grief stricken that can not talk as if a brick has closed down his throat, a mother mourns her lost husband and the four kids that she needs to raise on her own, kids who cry for parents they will never see again and a future that seems to hold nothing but sorrow and scar. Remember all those eyes. Each one of them. Teary and sad. Puffy and penetrating. They will follow you. They will pierce into your soul. Each one of them.

And remember those eyes will haunt you forever and ever.

Since after you push that button and you die, there is no backspace button till the doomsday.

FarbodM