The Impossibility of State Victory in Conditions of Asymmetrical Warfare

I lie staring at the ceiling. This is our home. My wife sleeps, mouth open.

She sees terrorists everywhere, waits always for flash and flames to rip our family apart. Tablets take away her fear.

“I want it to come Rashid,” she says. “Our own people against us. We cannot win.”

I lie that we are safe. Our family balances on an edge. If I was younger I would think of cuddling her, put my hand to her breast. We do not do that now.

Instead, I wait for the sound of the front door, the drop of a bag, the flipping of shoes onto hall carpet.

My daughter has become a woman. I look at her breasts, her lips, and see what is there, ready to explode. I know what she is. She is a bomb that I cannot defuse. There are no wires I can cut.

No state has ever beaten terrorism. I cannot fight back.

It is she who will end our family, bring sudden horror inside it. There will be boys and drink and sex. She will go to war with us.

It will not end with noise and blood, but it will end us nevertheless.