Flow

I climbed up into one of the guard towers the other day. The base I'm on was formerly some type of Baathist hangout, so the towers were already there when we got here. I talked to the soldiers on duty- they were more than happy to tell me all about the area; guard duty is one of the more tedious tasks you can have in a warzone. Funny how universal it is. Simple. 'You stand there- and warn us if anybody tries to attack.' My mind wandered as I watched the oily Tigris wander below us. How many soldiers have stood exactly here, and done exactly that, since mankind first marched up and down this river? Since he built his first cities around the productivity of his tilled land, and realized that he had built something worth attacking-- and thus worth defending. I could see the Ottoman mamluks, campaigning towards Samarra; the armies of Alexander chasing Darius; the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Seleucids, the Byzantines, the Abassids, and even the Mongol horde racing their ponies through burning villages intent upon laying claim to this soil. Then I saw a car on the opposite riverbank slowly creep off the road and ease its way right into the river. I found that odd. "They do that all the time, sir. They're just washing their car." Sure enough, the passenger hopped out into the knee-deep water and guided the driver in a little further, then they took buckets and sponges and went to work. They placed a picnic basket on the sand of the riverbank. I mentioned how dark and thick the water seemed to be. "Oh that's nothing, sir. Sometimes the whole thing is black- the pipelines from Bayji go across upstream." And we watched the river. And I thought of Siddhartha. And how watching a river is like trying to understand the past, the present, and the future.