by Robert B. Miner
Ibrahim waited on his uncle’s doorstep, smoothing the front of his uniform and adjusting his beret so the band was parallel to his eyebrows. He had finished his training for the day and he was far from Khanaqin, but if he was going to wear any part of his uniform, he had decided, he would wear all of it, and he would wear it properly. He was young, yes, but he could still be an example to other Iraqi policemen.
His uncle, Anwar, came to the door wearing a white thawb, his forehead beaded with sweat.
“I need your help,” he said.
Ibrahim held up the car keys and glanced back at the red Toyota parked on the street. “I brought your car back. Thank you, uncle.”
“Yes, good,” said Anwar, taking the keys. “Now come in, I need your help.”
He hurried Ibrahim inside and closed the door behind him. His uncle’s house was as untidy as ever. He had never married, Ibrahim thought probably because of his lazy eye, and the absence of a woman in his life was obvious. The plaster walls were dingy and in need of scrubbing. Carpets covered the floor of the living room but they weren’t arranged with any geometry or symmetry in mind. A sticky tea set and a dozen half empty water bottles littered a low table. Beyond, a small television played a grainy football match.
Part of the agreement they’d reached for Ibrahim’s use of the car was that he would help his uncle with things around the house. He’d have offered to help him clean up a bit, but nearly every time Ibrahim returned with the car, Anwar had something else in mind.
“Shouldn’t you start your shift, uncle?” asked Ibrahim. His uncle used his Toyota as a taxi service, and Ibrahim was still holding out hope he could escape without more work. The days were getting hotter and he had been on his feet for hours. “It’s nearly six.”
“They’re back,” said Anwar, striding across the carpets toward the back of the house. “I’m sick of it. This is the last time.”
He disappeared into the kitchen. Anwar sighed. He followed his uncle’s path slowly, sure about what awaited him. He climbed up the narrow stairwell with its stifling air and came out of the bulkhead door onto the roof.
Anwar’s house was near the edge of town. To the west, the squat skyline of As Sadiyah sprawled to the river, square homes in concrete or stone disrupted occasionally by a dusty school or hospital. To the east, there was only desert until the horizon—undulating dunes and black roads and lonely, gasping trees.
Anwar was waiting around the side of the bulkhead with his hands on his hips, staring up at the satellite dish. The dish was entangled in a mess of wires which emanated to and from half a dozen poles and other houses nearby. He pointed.
“There.”
Nestled among the wires was a small bird’s nest, settled so neatly that it seemed almost like it had been there first and the wires had grown like vines around it.
“What kind of bird is it this time?” asked Ibrahim.
“How should I know?”
“I thought you might have seen.”
“All birds are the same. They carry disease, they’re loud, they cover my roof with their shit.” He gestured wildly at a smattering of white stains on the concrete. “As bad as dogs. Worse than dogs, actually. Now they are screwing with my television reception.”
Ibrahim sighed. His uncle’s dislike for birds had always seemed strange—to Ibrahim’s knowledge this was the first time they’d wronged him so directly. At least there was no tittering of baby birds coming from the nest.
“I can’t reach on my own.” Ibrahim looked around. “Would you bring me that chair, uncle?”
Standing atop the chair, Ibrahim could just reach the side of the nest. He strained through the wires to get his fingertips onto the upper edge.
“Did you attend Friday prayer today?” his uncle asked.
Ibrahim stopped struggling for a moment. “I prayed on my own. I don’t always have time for the mosque.”
His uncle grunted. “Sometimes it’s better on your own. Keep it between you and God.”
Ibrahim had almost gotten hold of a protruding twig when he heard a familiar sound, like whining and growling combined. He looked in the direction of the sound as a line of big green boats on wheels turned onto his uncle’s street. The vehicles bristled with guns and antennae and helmeted American soldiers. He pulled his hand out of the wires.
“What are you doing?” asked Anwar. “Get that nest.”
Ibrahim battled with the confusing emotions that always dogged him when he was confronted with American presence in his country. When his father had been killed on duty eight years ago, nobody could tell him whether it had been American bombs or Al Qaeda bullets which had been the cause. The war was raging, and there had been too much chaos, too much damage to his father’s body to make certain.
There had been something, though, about the way the Americans abdicated responsibility entirely—even Ibrahim’s ten-year-old mind had marked it as suspicious. How could they be blameless when their presence was the reason for the fighting that day?
Ibrahim had heard that America’s time on Iraqi soil was short, but part of him wondered if they would ever leave. Had they gotten what they came for? If not, what reason did they have to go?
He stepped off the chair onto the roof.
“It’s not smart to be seen doing anything strange by the Americans.”
“Strange? What is strange?”
“I’m just being cautious, uncle.”
Anwar scoffed and looked at the line of vehicles, now just two houses away. He crossed to the edge of the roof, and Ibrahim followed him. The vehicles passed close enough that Ibrahim could make out the features of the man on the big gun of the first vehicle. He wore a helmet and dark glasses, but he had a long nose and a bulge in his lower lip, like he had been punched, though Ibrahim knew the bulge was how some Americans took their tobacco.
“You put on the uniform of the police,” said Anwar, “but you’re still scared of American soldiers. Don’t you work for them now?”
Ibrahim turned on his uncle, ready to berate him for his ignorance with all the anger now erupting in him, but there was something in his uncle’s expression which gave him pause. His uncle was glaring at the American convoy, and in his good eye Ibrahim saw an uncommon focus, one tinged by a fury that resembled Ibrahim’s own. When the man on the big machine gun turned it so they were facing down its barrel, Anwar didn’t flinch or break his gaze, even as Ibrahim’s heart rate quickened. The Americans rolled onward, and the gun turned forward, and Anwar kept staring.
“I work for the police,” said Ibrahim. “For the people of Khanaqin.”
The last vehicle passed by the house, and Anwar finally turned his attention back to Ibrahim.
“If you say so,” said Anwar.
His uncle’s expression was almost bored. Ibrahim had a sense that his sincerity was being dismissed as a childish indulgence.
Anwar crossed the roof, back to the satellite dish, and waited. After a moment, Ibrahim joined him and climbed on top of the chair again. He reached into the wires, angling sideways so he could fit his arm deeper into the tangle.
“If I were younger,” said Anwar, “and if not for my hip, it would be the Americans who felt fear.”
Ibrahim couldn’t help himself—he laughed. Then he redoubled his efforts for the nest. Sweat poured down his neck and back as he continued to struggle.
“Your fitness is wasted on you, Ibrahim. You’ve decided to become a policeman. Why? Because there’s honor in it? Scolding thieves and breaking up fights in the market? Those are small things for small men. Are you a small man?”
Ibrahim finally caught the lip of the nest and pulled it free of the wires. He stood atop the chair cradling the nest in both hands. Sitting snug inside were four eggs, the color of sand and dappled with brown spots.
“When you insult my profession, you insult the profession of my father.” He liked being on top of the chair. He could look down at his uncle and imagine that the man feared his size.
“But what makes a man? Is it not his impact on the world? I think it is. Your father may have been a good man, but he wasn’t a great one. He lived a quiet life, and he died at the hands of invaders.”
Ibrahim’s hands were trembling. His jaw felt stiff.
“What do you know about any of this?”
“Only that there are greater evils in our orbit than petty criminals.”
He reached out a hand like he wanted the nest. So courageous now that he knew there were no birds in it. Ibrahim held it back. He got down off the chair and took a running start toward the street. After a few steps, he hurled the nest off the roof. It flew through the air, fluttered on the wind, and then the nest and the eggs plummeted toward the earth. All four eggs shattered on the ground. A woman sweeping in front of a men’s clothing store looked at the nest and the eggs where they had landed on the road and then looked skyward with confusion written in her expression.
“I was going to stomp on them right here.” Anwar was standing alongside him, looking down at the mess of egg and shell practically cooking on the sidewalk. “Your way was cleaner, but now there’s nothing for the birds to see. It’s important to leave a message, otherwise the work never ends.” He began walking toward the bulkhead. “I’ll let you know when they return.”
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– excerpted from Fig Wasps
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Robert B. Miner is a New York City native, West Point graduate, and occupational dilettante. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in, among others, The Masters Review, Consequence, and Third Coast. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and he is the winner of the 2025 Military Writers Guild Creative Writing Award. He lives in Kansas City, but you can find him at www.robertbminer.com.
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