by Ward Parkway

   "The whole world conspires against us!" railed the tutor, sternly whacking his wooden rod upon the large map at the front of the classroom. "As the true and rightful warriors, your destiny is to rise up and lead the great Iraqi people to victory against them all!"

   Little Saddam sighed quietly and stared at his pencil tray, daydreaming. He'd heard this bearded blowhard rant more or less the same rant for most of his seven years of schooling. Looking around he could see the other thirty- five Saddams, all clones of Uncle Mustache. He always thought of the big, gruff bastard as Uncle, as it hardly made any sense to think of him as Dad. He'd never so much as taken any of them to a ballgame or movie. Oh sure, there were those swell days on the firing range... Big fucking woop.

   It seemed unlikely that this roomfull of idiots could ever lead anyone to anything. Saddam hated them all. They were all bullies and stupid. There used to be fifty of them. Of course, that was before that day on the firing range, when one of testtubers took out fourteen of the others before a Republican Guard blew his head off. Saddam thought about how lucky it was that he'd played sick that morning and stayed home to finger paint.

   He didn't want to rule anything. He wanted to play music and write poetry. When he grew up he wanted to escape to the West and be an artist and peace activist. Or maybe he'd start an organic farm, or tatoo his body and become a traveling juggler. Oh sure, he'd go along with all of this bellicose bullshit for now, but one of these days he'd get his chance...