AND 'Early morning, it's cool. I went from Al Ashrafieh brisk walk to the old line of fire is now a way for dual carriageways to divide the district Maronite Christian from the Muslim Shiite. A man of a certain age, walking in front of me in his shabby gray suit, with a high pass from senior and a loaf of bread under his arm. It just announced a great day, the cool air of October, which finally returns after a summer that seemed endless, needless to be entangled in the branches of the figs or appicicata tarmac here in Beirut.
hear a distant sound, like an echo of a branch that is broken. I half expect to see him fall here in the middle of the road in the dust and asphalt.
Instead the old man is going down. Right in front of me, and no one will be five meters.
are pressed against a cold wall of white tiles in the entrance of a grocery store still closed. Holed up, ranicchiato, crouched down and I do not know how I got there. For a moment disappeared even to myself. A fraction of a second, more remote regions of the brain take over, the primal instinct of flight. And I'm gone. A guy up there that has not had time to reload. Are taken as a spring, like an animal, as gattosilvestro .
The old man is here in front of the street. E 'fell from the sidewalk about ten yards from where I am now.
He got good, specific to the knee and must have blown up the joint. The guy does his job there. Did not shoot to kill: they pay him to head the first time to immobilize. Like a spider paralyzes its victim alive, and then wait. That someone gets live bait to help him. Calls him, like, a hero or unconscionable for him are equal. Waiting for them to pull down too. For ex- Filotto a shooter can apply the day.
Now the street is deserted. A attimoe disappeared in all shelters. Even the soldiers who were around here with their rifles and machine guns they have now put under cover. The wind moves the leaves of a fig tree. For the rest of the street is deserted, no noise.
I did not understand much. I was there I was walking thoughtfully in the morning and now I'm here, my back against the cool smooth tile. What happened? Where did you shoot him? I only heard the branch break and then go down the old. Now it's just a dark gray suit, long and thin, curled up half the street with a crushed knee. He does not talk, not scream, it has already views and knows what's going to happen.
No one gets out, then that shot up there yet. This time it hits an elbow. The break joints, to make a bad dog. Try to call us out of our burrows, does his job well the son of a bitch. As soon as the party released a shot. Grabs him by the arm to drag him away, behind which shelter is not understood well. That there is rushing to reload and part another shot on the fly. He must have shot a little 'race because of the bullet into the asphalt strip, bouncing up and dust. Rescuer spring and disappears in some sewer manhole before the other can charge more and take better aim. The old man remains the street, a useless yards away, in a position as senseless.
must be somewhere up there, in the buildings across the square. Skip a few more minutes and I see a couple run out of their hiding places, down the road. Are low, they run folded down out of range but perhaps not take the risk of another ten meters to finally get to safety. Do not come here, fleeing away.
Other long minutes of stillness then pulled another shot. The hits a leg and held it open. I see very well, it will be less than ten meters from me. Must do evil, that knows where to shoot. You know well how I see the old man looks at me, I am sure. Knows I'm here, ten feet away, curled up like a rat in my hole. I also know that one, knows this very well and this is not the end. He is doing for me, makes me a little job with signature and dedication, is doing slowly to pieces just to my eyes regularly, one blow after another. It 's a persuasive appeal that invites me to go out "Come on, there is no danger to you, I have only this old, if not I'll come out of evil" . At this time there is tearing apart the old, is playing with my head like a fucking therapist. He wants to get out and play for the doubling, as Gerry Scotti a chivuolessermilionario . He wants his second head, because at the end of the day to pay them heads like him.
Christ, I finally emerge from afar a armored truck. I come to take the old man. The military began to stir from their hiding places. Some cry. The truck has seen it too. Imagine if he has not seen: it is the best place to rule the roost. Did you see and how, in fact, the new shot hits the stomach. And 'his finishing move, his last card, his last valuable attempt to impress. And one more thing to cavarci fucking old. The armored vehicle is approaching for a long moment I "I go now, I'm going to take, catch him by the arm - that's still good - and I dragged him below, I put in I save that poor old ". And I feel my heart mad part, the adrenaline that I crashed the veins and legs were shaking. How if they could not hold me, as if suddenly I had the legs of a child.
The fifth shot goes straight ahead. Banale: know perfectly obvious that a sniper shooting. It would be able to immediately put them to the point where its mouth he had wanted to do now. The would do a favor to the old. The old man who has not cried to me, never spoke, he never opened his mouth. He knew perfectly from the start what would have things. Too bad. Sin because the van was now very close, yet a handful of seconds and would be placed in the middle, on the firing line. He would have covered the military would come out and avrebbeo carried to safety. Maybe I went out and I would have helped too.
But now the soldiers come, to carry me. I go out and unless I get in behind the armored vehicle in their midst. Now we are going to look for the sniper, go up to draw him out even though he most likely it will already be gone somewhere out back. It will be studied his way out to the terraces at the back.
I'm safe, tell the house that I'm fine, I remember only an old ground, disjointed, loaf with a red arm and a hole for a head. And the sea breeze playing among the leaves of figs, here in Beirut.
