His limbs are heavy, his eyelids even more so. It aches to raise his arms since the last beating but still he keeps scraping, cutting down through the dust, deepening the grooves, feeling his nails and fingerprints disappear away as he carves.
○ ○ ○ ○
It stretches out on either side, black and shiny and meaning nothing to him. Mummy and Daddy and Teacher all say it’s important, that he and the other first graders should see it. The older boys are laughing, ignoring Teacher, who shouts about “respect” and “sacrifice”. Her words mean nothing, like the wall and the zillions of names scratched in its black and shiny surface, just more things he does not understand. But in front of him he sees letters he recognizes, letters Mummy and Daddy and Teacher say are his name, his name, written on the wall, crowded by other names and numbers and letters. Frowning a little he touches the black and shiny surface, which is hot in the D.C. heat.
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…“a new nation, conceived in…conceived in liberty”….’ He stumbles through the memorized lines, the chatter of his classmates distracting him from the complicated words. He’s coming to the weird bit of the homework, the bit that made Dad snort, the bit where everyone else paid attention and stopped giggling and muttering and throwing things at each other. His hands shake and his voice quavers as he fought not to mess up. ‘…and dedicated to the proposition…the proposition that all men are created equal!’ The only homework he ever heard his sixth grade class cheer for.
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Another line. Another scrape. Another line. Another scrape. He hates the dirt of the wall beneath his fingernails, nails that, like the rest of him, have not seen water in days. The thirst, the hunger the exhaustion all leave him weak. He wants to sleep. He wants to escape this place and go to her in his dreams. But still he keeps scraping. He can see the words slowly taking shape.  
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‘Taslim,’ he greets the angel on his right shoulder. ‘Taslim,’ he greets the angel on his left shoulder. He straightens his back now and prays for forgiveness and for blessings: forgiveness for the pride he felt at the sight of his final grade; blessing for the paper he must now hand in to Professor Louis. ‘Allah Akbar.’ He turns away from Mecca and the Qur'an verses carved over the mihrab, leaves the mosque and retrieves his shoes. All this time he’s careful to keep her from his thoughts, as from his prayers, in case the angels are still listening and do not approve.
● ● ● ●
‘So the satire isn’t of Lenin or Marx, then?’ Professor Louis’s arms are folded, eyebrows raised in challenge, waiting.
‘Exactly, sir; Orwell thought the theories were good, just like Animalism at the start. What he’s on about is how everything falls apart when you get people in the mix.’ His eyes catch a glint of blonde hair further along the row and he hopes she’s listening, hopes he might be impressing her, just a little. ‘“All animals are equal.”“All men are created equal.” All with the exact same capacity to ruin everything.’
‘Or to save everything, surely?’ Professor Louis smiles, turning away to produce yet another slide, not hearing the answer when it comes.
‘If you say so, sir…’
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His hand slips down the gritty cement, body sagging to the floor as through in prayer. Even laying his head against the cold floor does not cool the burning in his skin. His mind hurts from the exertion of remembering, of separating the memories and moments and details. He has stopped scraping now. He cannot remember if he had finished or not. He cannot even remember what he was trying to write.
○ ○ ○ ○
The small diamond on her wedding ring glints as she raises a hand to point further down the massive memorial.
‘My uncle’s somewhere down there,’ she says softly, returning both palms to supporting her swelling belly. He shades his eyes from the sun and stares down the gleaming black curtain. He wonders where it was he saw his own name; in this mess of tangled death there might be hundreds of him. The place still feels strange, still holds little meaning for either of them though he knows it should. The problem is they are a generation too late, told to mourn these men because their parents did. But for him it’s the wrong war, not the one he has watched kick off in the last years, not the one he mourns most for.
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There was a plane, he knows he isn’t in Pakistan anymore. They’d taken him on his way to the airport, on his way home from visiting the grandparents he had never met before. It had been minutes before his stunned brain had realised that his kidnappers were shouting at him in English, their accents American. They’d been shouting at him for days. By now he can tell exactly what states the soldiers are from. Georgia mostly, a couple from Alabama and Tennessee. He’s too exhausted to figure out what is happening: he can only process half their words, words like “terrorist” and “Patriot Act” and “enemy combatant”. He remembers every rumour he’s ever heard and he tries to calm himself. Nothing can be as bad as what he fears. Nothing is ever as bad as you think it will be.   
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Her son is in her arms; his daddy’s brown skin and black hair, her blue eyes. He will be beautiful. She stares out at the war memorial, visited with her parents, with teachers, with him, and now with their son. She wants him to be standing beside her, not vanished like smoke or a dream. Her son reaches towards the black wall of names, his voice sing-song. ‘Dada?’
She hugs him close and wants to stay like this forever, with him unspoiled by the world she is watching.
‘Wrong war, sweetie,’ she whispers into his hair.
○ ○ ○ ○
When the cameras are finally permitted inside, this is what they film. The body shrunken within the orange prison suit. The bruising thick enough to be seen even in the dark of the cell. His hands and the floor surrounding him pale with the dust of the cement. He has carved his last words surprisingly deep into the wall.

                                                    all  men  are   animals