500 Lives

Posted 03:30 GMT
Mangala spoke:

This is the magic of numbers.

One 19-year-old American soldier, a woman, rescued from captivity.

Ten Iraqi women and children shot dead by American soldiers at a checkpoint.

Five hundred Iraqi soldiers killed in an attempt to retake a bridge.

This is the gradient of numbers: From heartfelt joy too a certain sadness to indifference. The life of one young woman from one side balancing 10 women and children from the other and overbalancing by far the deaths of 500 military men.

Five hundred lives! Five hundred lives!

What are 500 lives? Five hundred women, after 500 moments of passion, investing 375 years in carrying children in the womb. Five hundred moments of pain, then happiness at 500 first cries of life.

Five hundred first steps by 1,000 small feet.

More than 10,000 years of life, 120,000 dawns and 120,000 dusks, 360,000 meals. Family, friends, anger, love, innumerable prayers to the ears of God.

One battle. Five hundred deaths.