Five-Hour Truce

By Saffron Flynn

Five-Hour Truce Run! Quick! Let’s get us some food. Clear the shelves. Cop gasoline if you can.

Allah spare us when the truce ends. We’ll have to run for it, though I can’t think where.

A young girl, sheltered for now, strums a guitar. Little children chattering about her smile, oblivious. For them she sings happy diversionary ditties.

A camera lights… CNN. “They bomb us; we bomb them, so it’s all even,” she quips and keeps on strumming.

Four young sons die playing soccer on a Gaza beach. Their blind father weeps; tearing his hair, he buries them in the dust.