I am a black boot. I was born in a Russian factory in 1980. I spent just a few months in the darkness of the warehouse until I was moved, with my companions, to one of the boot camps in Iraq. They dispersed us to fresh young men. I was destined to share the fate of a spoiled man among five sisters. My master hated the military intensely, and he raised his head every morning to pour curses on everything related to it. Near the boot camp was a huge prison to which was attached a medical unit. When fog hung over the camp, my master sneaked away from his detachment to spend some time with a friend at the medical unit. They sat and chain-smoked while dozens of soldiers lay frozen and still, their boots full of bullet holes. I do not know why they had been killed. I heard my master and his friend talking about war and about the men who had run away from it.

How much I suffered when I looked at those bodies and dwelled on the mysterious destiny of the other boots. How much did I desire that my master would run with me forever and wear my body to shreds. How much did I desire that he would never end up in the medical unit. My master gave off a stinking odour from a fungus on his toes and, what’s more, he did not like to cut his toe-nails. This meant that in any real contact between us he would turn his fury against me. I bore all that as a part of my destiny, but what made me angry was his refusal to wear me when he went to meet his sweetheart or when he strolled through the market or went to the library. In spite of all that, I was really overjoyed when he threw me into the courtyard of his home, and his sisters could share in looking after me. I lived wonderful moments in their tender fingers, when they removed the dust from my body and set about polishing me. But my happiness did not last long; it was just a few weeks before my master was sent to fight in the mountains.

There my life changed completely. We would, my companions and I, spend hours on duty in the cold or climbing in the mountains. Without considering the companionship between us, my master would get fed up with me. One night, while he and his companions slept in their shelter, we boots lay outside under the falling snow in the bare cold. The shelling began and soon a missile landed on my master’s place of refuge. We were scattered among the rocks and I lost my other half. I shrank into myself and slipped into deep sadness. I felt guilty that since birth I had not thought of existing as a matching boot. If I were to expose my body to the frenzied wind, perhaps I would rejoin my mate, but that seemed impossible among the rocks.

I waited for the snow to melt. In springtime many shepherds passed by. How I wished a hand would pick me up and save me from my loneliness. When I heard a human voice or the bleating of lambs my veins would swell with excitement, remembering the soft and tender fingers of my master’s sisters. When, occasionally, some shepherds passed by I would try and keep quiet. At first, I drew their attention, but as soon as their eyes had swept the area without finding my matching boot, they would lose interest in me. With this suffering, days passed, followed by months. Wrinkles grew on my face, my skin lost it freshness, and the laces were torn from my body.

Many years passed by and I still indulged in my daydreams. Maybe one day a shepherd would pass through and think of patching up something in his house and pick me up. With that, my destiny would change from that of an old boot discarded on the mountain tops, to that of a living thing pulsating with new life.

Translated from Arabic by Author and Joshua Beckman

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