I Dream of Pakistan

A Creative Writing Piece on the Drone War in Pakistan and the Hope of Nonviolent US Resistance

By Meghan M.M. Trimm

I am in a dream. I see an SUV hit a biker, with a child carrier. It was an Arab-looking man with a baby on the back of his bicycle. I hear wailing -- an infant’s cries. The father’s skull is cracked on the pavement. He is dead. The streets around him are paved in red. All around me I notice my neighbors going to work, mowing their grass, sipping tea on their front lawn, but there is no one scrambling to aid. I have the stunning realization that I am the only person in this world who knows what is happening. I try to yell for help, but there is no sound like someone pressed the mute button.

The woman who was following them is in shock -- the mother. She puts down her bike, shaking, and falls on her knees. I can see the blood of her husband seeping into the threads of her burka around her knees. She hasn’t even cried yet -- her face caught in an agony that cannot yet bear sound. I feel compelled to move, but I am rooted to the ground until the spreading bodily fluids reach my sneakers. Suddenly I am in full motion, dashing to the baby carrier. The child’s arm is crushed between her seat and the pavement by the weight of her father. She is bleeding from her head with cuts around her mouth and eyes. She landed in broken glass. I feel shame for the trash thrown in the streets of my careless city. I want to lift her out of there and give her comfort, but I know I could do more harm than good if she has an injured spine.

The mother is screaming, she is moving toward her lost husband on her hands and knees. She does not feel the glass, or if she does she doesn’t care. I feel I can do nothing. I am on my knees holding the infant’s hand.

The blood covering the streets is seeping up into the neighbors’ yards. It reaches beyond this invisible scene, creeping up and soaking the lawn, drenching the lawn furniture; it reaches my neighbors' hands. I look on in amazement as they go about their lives unnoticing. How can they not see they have blood on their hands!? I feel angry and helpless.

The SUV, with tinted windows, backs up and attempts to drive past. I have found my purpose. Without thinking I step into its path. The engine roars at me like a mad beast, but I know I have to stay. Scrambling my phone from my pocket I call for emergency care.

As I stand there waiting in the path of the beast I feel a tug on my jeans. I look down and see the child. She has grown into a 3 or 4 year old now. She looks up at me with sparkling piercing happy eyes. When I meet her gaze, I am awake.

Her Name is Peace
by Meghan M.M. Trimm

The Hour Has Come

by Rev. Loren McGrail

“The prophetic originates with the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger as a voice protesting their marginalization. The indictment is registered against the system that produces the injustice. The faces of the marginalized are the indictment. Everything else is commentary.”

            Marc Elis, Jewish Liberation Theologian

The first miracle Jesus performs is at a wedding in Cana according to the Gospel writer John. He turns water into wine so that the bride and groom can share their celebration with all. When Jesus’ mother notices they are about to run out of wine she goes to her son and pushes him to do something. He answers, “My hour has not come.” Yet as if she knows something he doesn’t she instructs the servants to do as he says and so they bring forward the water jugs for purification and he turns them into wine. They who are the poor, the economically marginalized, who have no more wine, will have plenty to share.

 It is a wonderful joyous story of transforming scarcity into abundance and it will be repeated often throughout the gospel when later Jesus will feed thousands with a few loaves and fishes.

Some read the story of the Wedding of Cana as the fulfillment of the promised wedding feast in Isaiah and the beginning of the messianic age, which will be fulfilled at the “marriage supper of the lamb” (Revelations 19: 7-9). Messianic history begins and ends with a wedding feast where all are invited.

They who have no more wine also have no security from bodily harm from drones that strike gatherings like weddings to target their assassinations. These “signature strikes” are common in our shadow drone warfare across the globe in country’s we are and are not at war with.  In Afghanistan alone there have been 6 documented strikes on wedding parties with over 367 civilian deaths. Funerals make good “signature strikes” too. 

There are many things about the use of drones that are disturbing, disgusting, and horrifying and “signature strikes” should be at the top of the list for their deliberate attack on civilians. And for those who value weddings as secular or religious celebrations of human love, these attacks are particularly grotesque. So let us side with Mary and the one who came to stand in solidarity with the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the stranger and say, “The time has come” to ground the drones, call a moratorium on drone strikes that target civilians. The bodies of the bombed are the indictment. Everything else is commentary. 

Drones: Am I Responsible?

This content has been moved to: "Drones: Am I Responsible?" at Scarry Thoughts.