ROBYNN MURRAY

CHESS GAME

A PICTURESQUE MOMENT

It was a picturesque moment when I realized what a monster I had become. Sitting in my mother's car in our small town, waiting for her to come out of the pharmacy. The sun was shining and the grass was shimmering. I looked up and standing under a waving American flag was a woman and her granddaughter. It looked like a Norman Rockwell painting.

In Iraq, I pointed my weapons at families all the time. It was made OK for me because they were different. They were made my enemy, they were brown, they were haji's, and they weren't American to me, or even human, so it didn't matter.

Thinking of the faces of those people and how I stripped them of their humanity, tears started pouring down my face. I felt like dying.

When my mother came out I was in full hysterics slumped over in my seat. She asked me what was wrong and tried her best to comfort me. I couldn't tell her the truth because I was scared she would see that monster and be unable to love me anymore.