The Red/White Mosque

"Are we there yet?" I asked in excited nervousness.
"Almost"
We drove past Melody Market to the point where the sidewalk gives way to a right turn. And there it was, the Red Mosque. Standing alone in its eerie presence. Empty. The Red Mosque now painted white. As if all the blood had been purified.
"This is where it happened" said my cousin, referring to the incident. "That was the Jamia-Hafsa, which they've demolished now... and that's the mosque"
I was being given a tour of the place of worship that had been once been a place of worship, then a place where youths were misdirected and then finally a battleground for a bloody, sickening and embarrassing end.
The paint job was awful, you could still see blood stains in a few places. Or was it just my imagination. Maybe it wasn't blood. Maybe it was just the red texture that used to be. Yet the place was empty like a cemetery. No worshipers and no call for prayers.
"It's not that big a place" I remarked. Half thinking, half talking.
"This area's always been very politically active... now, though, people are more careful. What happened, well, was scary. I try to avoid driving through here...."
"Look! There's someone in there!" I said, and indeed there was someone near the entrance of the mosque. Clad in black.
"Of course there's someone. It's a mosque after all"
"You mean... even now?"
"Yea. Life has to go on."
I went there looking for bullet holes and blood stains. But life has to go on. Some things have to be erased from memory and history because life has to go on. Whether what happened was right or wrong is not the question. It happened. Life has to go on, albeit a little haunted, a little empty... a little guilty.