(4/5) “There was an old man who fished in the same spot every...

(4/5) “There was an old man who fished in the same spot every single day. He’d stand on the edge of a canal coming off the Tigris. We told him it was a bad idea. He sat on a village council, and he always voted with the coalition, so we told him it was a bad idea to fish in the same place every day. But he was seventy years old so he wouldn’t listen to anyone. And one day this fifteen-year-old kid rides by on a scooter and drops a bomb behind him. And I get called out to investigate the crime scene. My job is to take pictures, ask questions, things like that. And I get there right as the sun is going down. And a truck is lighting up the scene with its headlights. And the air smells like an old duffle bag. And I kneel down next to the crater and I start to take out my bag and I just freeze. The hole is filled with dusty, coagulated blood. And parts of this guy are floating in the canal. And it looks like somebody has thrown Smucker’s jelly all over the wall. And I just froze up. I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t supposed to be seeing this. I was an art student. I loved the human body. I always thought it was so beautiful. And not in a horny or freaky or weird way– just in a beautiful way. I used to watch my sister dance ballet. I saw her dance in the Nutcracker five times. I loved seeing all these beautiful things that the human form could do. I always honored the human body. And now I’ve come to a place where the human body is shredded and stomped and blown to bits. And that just wasn’t me. I used to be jokey. I used to be goofy. I was Frank from North Scranton. And now I won’t ever be that again.”