Mark is six years old. He lives on the dead end of Westmoreland Avenue down near the park. In his backyard he has a swing set which he has named Fort Kirk and from which he surveys all the life in the park. At the moment a woman is walking her dog and pushing a jogging stroller along the park road. Three geese are standing amidst the patches of melting snow near the pond. A fire engine is parked on the road to the right. Mark wishes its lights were on. He wishes that Kevin’s family hadn’t gone to Pennsylvania this weekend. And he wishes his father wasn’t so far away.
Mark steadies a broken pool cue on the railing, the butt of it against his shoulder, and he sights down the length of it at the woman pushing the baby in the stroller. She is Iraqi now. Her baby is an improvised explosive device. The stroller is a shopping cart. And the late winter snow has given way to oppressive heat, drifting sand, and there is the strange sound of prayer being chanted in the air. Mark leaves both eyes open as he draws his weapon along in an arc following the woman whose clothing flows out from her body as though it were simply random fabric that had somehow come to be caught on her body. He stares into her face, sees her eyes. She doesn’t seem even a little nervous. She even seems distracted and at ease. But Mark can see that she is on a mission.
As the woman comes into range Mark whispers to himself, steady, steady now. He breathes in through his nose, out through his lips, in through his nose, and out through his lips. On the next breath he will kill this insurgent woman and keep all of the people in the market, citizens and soldiers and his father safe for one more day. But his mother calls out, shaking him from the moment. Mark! Dinner! she sings out the back door. Mark looks back and yells that he’s coming. When he looks back out into the park, there is just a woman with a stroller and she waves at him as she goes by. Mark has failed in this mission. She will kill them all. And Mark will again tonight lie awake desperately searching for ways to keep his father safe.
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