And there I was standing in the Gaza strip.
On my way to buying a soda.
I was just a child but the store was just down the road.
Time's were hard. Wars were being fought.
A soldier stood at the end of the street.
We all fought for what we believed was right.
Neither willing to admit whose wrong.
It was a hot, dry day. He carried heavy artillery and as a result, individual sweat droplets dripped into his eyes.
Yet he did not move, still as a statue.
I walked on the dusty gravel, making a slurry,grinding crunch noise.
With each and every step, I pictured little boys that were once on the same path, except unlike me, they were throwing rocks and yelling at the soldier in a foreign language.
For my country was filled with hate and raged with violence.
Yet you couldn't tell by looking at the innocent people selling nick-knacks and vegetables on the side of the road.
I walked on, taking everything in stride, looking forward to the carbonated, bubbly, almost frozen liquid that was soon to soothe my aching throat.
I was taken in by the street, so absorbed by my surroundings that when I looked up, that statue like soldier was no longer there.
I wondered why he had left. I felt safe with him around.
"Maybe he went to get a soda just like me?" I thought to myself.
All of a sudden in the background I heard this whirling swishing sound.
I figured it was another gnat or fly circling the earth.
But it got louder and louder, to the point where it was piercingly painful.
I turned to look what it was and there I saw it.
Everything seemed to slow down and almost freeze.
I watched it all happen.
I watched the missile soar through the air, ever so elegantly, like a hawk with its strong wings spread out, flapping through the sky.
I watched the missile getting closer and closer.

And there I stood on Gaza strip.
Watching a missile head straight towards me.

And there I stood no longer on Gaza strip.
On my way to buying a soda no more.
I was just a child but the store was no longer just down the road.
I now overlooked the soldier, the solider who once stood there like a statue, the soldier who protected his country ever so valiantly, and wondered,
"Oh soldier, where did you go? Where were you when I needed you most?"
"Were you helping others like the man I know you are?"
"Or were you not allowed to save me, for I supposedly am not on the same side as you?"