Rheim Alkadhi

 
 

 
 
 
 
My non-conforming companions lean back-to-back before my lens, their arms raised inside the sleeves of nondescript clothing, weaving themselves easily into the uprising. The air in this digital province turns sharply toward summer. Chants and slogans melt into a triumph of mismatched, multi-colored flags, a song variably pitched, but with incidental harmony. There are fists, victory signs, palms. A man without forearms balances on the shoulders of the crowd.

There are several of us, as far as I know, in the midst of an uprising in the eastern digital province of Iraq, on a crisp morning at the start of a new season.