Nightmare

[billroper]

I had a nightmare last night.

I read comics. I have for a long time, mostly of the super-hero variety. And, every once in a while, I have one of the super-hero dreams.

This was a nightmare. I was fighting with a group of about twenty heroes, similar to the Legion of Super-Heroes, but not them in particular, although I do remember Karate Kid as being there. We were fighting a single bad guy of the Kid Miracleman class. (Thanos-plus class for Marvel fans, Mordru-class or better for DCU fans.) The devastation was incredible. Teammates were dropping left and right, injured and possibly dead.

Finally, the enemy went down. I was the last man standing. I didn't have much left myself, maybe enough for one more blast. But he was down and maybe dead.

And he got up. I fired my last blast at him and he staggered, but didn't go down.

"Too late, kid," he laughed. "I'm a quick healer."

I stared at him, out of power and out of weapons.

"I'm gonna do you a favor, kid, cause I like you. I'll be back in an hour and I'll be back at full strength. And then everything east of Harlem Avenue is going down, got it? So you just be west of Harlem and you'll be fine. I'll be seeing you later -- or not."

And he vanished.

People, ordinary people, started coming out of the wreckage and congratulating me on having beaten the bad guy.

"No!" I tried to explain. "You don't understand. He's coming back and we're all going to die! We have to get out of here!"

But they weren't listening.

And then I woke up.

And I flashed on the Marine in Fallujah who had shot the wounded terrorist who was playing possum.

And I didn't go back to sleep for a very long time.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

And I flashed on the Marine in Fallujah who had shot the wounded terrorist who was playing possum.

The cameraman who video'd the shooting says on his website (http://www.kevinsites.net/) (11/21/04)

Immediately after going in, I see the same black plastic body bags spread around the mosque. The dead from the day before. But more surprising, I see the same five men that were wounded from Friday as well. It appears that one of them is now dead and three are bleeding to death from new gunshot wounds. The fifth is partially covered by a blanket and is in the same place and condition he was in on Friday, near a column. He has not been shot again. I look closely at both the dead and the wounded. There don't appear to be any weapons anywhere.

"These were the same wounded from yesterday," I say to the lieutenant. He takes a look around and goes outside the mosque with his radio operator to call in the situation to Battalion Forward HQ.

Then the sound byte y'all are spinning

"He's fucking faking he's dead -- he's faking he's fucking dead."

Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of his rifle in the direction of the wounded Iraqi. There are no sudden movements, no reaching or lunging.

However, the Marine could legitimately believe the man poses some kind of danger. Maybe he's going to cover him while another Marine searches for weapons.

Instead, he pulls the trigger. There is a small splatter against the back wall and the man's leg slumps down.

"Well he's dead now," says another Marine in the background.

Rules of engagement? Geneva Conventions? Neh! War is just like Doom