In nations and societies undergoing religious and generational changes, the courage of the youth may be carrying the most of the societal burden.

————

The square paving stones lay in successive arcs around the steps to Taksim Park. Fanning across this broad space, they shone white in the warm sun.

The stark contrast of the crimson pool set against the rigid repetition of the squares em-phasized the graphic impact that a single brilliant color made on a blank background. As she sank to one knee, her artist's eye searched for a balance between the changing relationship of the background squares and the circular pool.

Then the composition shifted radically. The now oval pool had been crowded into the top left corner of her field of vision and each stone on the slope below, now bordered in red, as-serted its individuality from the background.

"A study in red and square," she said, her head bowing nearer. "If I had time."

The composition changed more radically; the green triangle of her mini-skirt cut diago-nally across the bottom of the grid. Her changed point of view distorted everything. With her eye on the level of the stones, the squares became parallelograms. Very distorted ones while her left eye was still open--not so much when viewed with just the right.

She raised her head for another look, but the left eye wouldn't open again and the monoc-ular vision further flattened the composition.

As her dark hair sank again into the sticky pool, "Another time," she whispered.

"Whore!" he spat, shaking the bloodied Koran before her one good eye.

"If I have time." She smiled at him. And the eye closed.

“God, she was so beautiful! But the wanton display of her legs, the short skirt! Her hair!

“The scripture was right to point out how they rouse a man. How they inflame him to passion. To sin. To destruction. A man should not have to pray in mosque for strength to fight such urges!

“But you see…that's what happens. That's what causes it all.

“If she had only been willing to cover her hair and wear longer skirts, then they would have had nothing to say.

“She could be an artist. She could go to the academy. She could read and argue the here-sies with me. I am not an ignorant peasant… like my neighbors.

“She could do all this. She was so smart.

“She told me how she rebuffed the men who would despoil her.

“She was so stubborn, so proud.

“The things they said so my wife would hear!

“But it's taken care of now. I did it here in Taksim where all could see and hear. All of them! They will have to gossip of something else...

“Who would have thought that the young girl would have so much blood?

“Was it a last gesture of defiance?

“It squirted all over my Koran.

“Her mother will stop crying soon….

END

By Gene Parola

From: United States