the air is thick with dust…

the hateful roar of the rockets and the destruction they bring, rings incessantly in my ears…

everywhere I look the people are fighting…

angry, rage full , murderously beet-red faces, claw at each other…

cursing…

this is my city…

a stream used to run through it where the children fished together and the neighbors broke bread…

and then…

something crashes through the sky ahead of me, as I scramble in panicked fashion through the streets of my youth…

And I feel a strange stinging somewhere north of temple…

then nothing, nothing but blackness…

and then, although I am still asleep, I wake up…

I am standing by the river where the children used to fish…

the water is calm…

the air is quiet…

no one is fighting…

a small boy walks to the water beside me…

he has the face of an angel…

he is carrying his fishing rod…

he casts out his line and immediately a fish bites, a big, fat, colorful, beautiful fish.

he reels it in…

slips the hook out of it’s mouth…

and puts it back in the water…

as the fish swims away I see the enormity of the destruction all around us, buildings decapitated, lonely people walking aimlessly in the streets, the air is filled with a hopelessness that threatens to poison everything…

and yet the small boy, he has such kindness in his eyes, they are glistening with love and as I stare at him, I see the reflection of my city in his eyes…

only in this reflection, the city is whole, majestic and thriving…

he looks up at me for the very first time…

“there is still fish in this water”, he says quietly.

and then I awake…