Sometimes the nightmares came at night; sometimes they came when sparked by his environment, like now. He suspected he suffered from severe PTSD, although he had never bothered to get an independent diagnosis. Certainly the events of his life that had shaped him were worthy of a little post-traumatic stress disorder.
Today his waking nightmare was about his last day with his father.
They had lived in a small town just outside Rawah, deep in the Sunni-dominated western region of Iraq.
Khalid had spent the whole afternoon helping repair the decrepit truck that belonged to his neighbors. In exchange for his services, the neighbor let his father borrow the truck from time to time. At the age of six, Khalid was already the best mechanic in the village and the only one who could keep that tru
