The woman.

A news item caught our eye:

"U.S. soldiers fought with suspected insurgents using a building as a safe house in Ramadi on Tuesday, killing one Iraqi man and five females, ranging in age from an infant to teenagers, the U.S. military said.

...

"The battle in Ramadi began when a U.S. patrol discovered a roadside bomb in the Hamaniyah section of the city, and two suspected insurgents fled to a house, where they took up positions on the roof, the military said.

"As coalition forces removed the bomb, the militants fired on the soldiers, who fought back with machine guns and tanks, the statement said.

"Afterward, coalition forces searched the house and found the six bodies, ranging in age from an infant to teenagers, the military said, without providing ages. Another female was wounded but refused treatment, it said."


Ranging in age from an infant to teenagers, then, the five "females" -- "young girls" we suppose would be another way to say it -- and that man of uncertain age lay scattered about the house. And yet for some reason our mind lingers on the one who remained alive, the wounded woman who "refused treatment." We imagine her lying semi-dazed, perhaps half-propped up, or perhaps not, perhaps she is standing, only grazed by a bullet or perforated by flying glass. When she "refused treatment" as "it" said, "it" in this instance referring to the military, such a large thing to be compunded into a single "it," that pronoun ought to be capitalized, was she nobly waving aside offers of help, determined to show that her wounds were no large matter, to show that she understood that the fight for freedom must go on, and that more blood than hers had been, must and will again be shed? Or was she in shock, shaking her head silently, unable to speak, her mind still stuttering over the deaths that had minutes taken place in front of her? Did she cower fearfully, believing that the soldiers were only luring her to prison or some worse horror? Or did she weep with rage, and spit on the awkward young soldier who bent over her with his brow furrowed, chewing his lip nervously, uncomfortably aware that the woman's family, insurgent or no, terrorist or no, had been blown apart just now, just now? The infant too -- her own daughter? A sister, a niece? Or only a neighbor, stopping by or receiving her own visit from next door? The infant was no insurgent or terrorist, not yet, perhaps able to walk but certainly not able to fight, not yet, one day maybe, not yet.

But maybe all was just and these deaths were necessary. Possibly they were all guilty of something. The infant only by association, but still that seems to be enough these days. And maybe freedom and democracy will redeem all one day. But, if that is the case, how long will it be before that woman is able to add up and compare the worth of death and life, understand the arithmetic written out in fire, blood and metal all around her? Can she read? How much of the world has she had time or education to comprehend, up until now? Perhaps she understood nothing, only knew that one day she woke up to find that a great target had been painted on the land, and that bullets were raining down on it for reasons of which she knew nothing, and that her family and friends had transformed, somehow, to criminals in the eyes of some great Other, that It we mentioned, criminals who whatever their crimes had been adjudged worthy only of death, and she with them.

How severe were the wounds for which she refused treatment? Is she alive now? Perhaps she should have accepted the help, if only to try her hardest to live long enough, perhaps, to understand.