They are there a couple of days a month, outside the local shopping mall. Maybe it’s more like a day a week. Conspicuous in their camouflage gear and close-cropped hair. With their ridiculous little tank, their tents, their guns and their glossy recruiting literature. All terribly neat and tidy.  
Most people here do not talk to them. So they just stand there all day waiting around looking silly.
When I see them, my throat tightens.
When I walk past, I look at them closely, my expression inexpressive.
The clouds seem a little closer, the sun a little dimmer.
The day more grey.

When I first noticed them, I thought, “Good. Very thin pickings here.  
Let them waste just as much time here as they like.
May they come in droves with their conspicuous camouflage gear and close-cropped hair, their ridiculous little tank, their tents, their guns and their glossy recruiting literature every day, and stand about, talking to nobody and looking silly. The more the merrier.”

Even if my throat tightens, my face grows guarded and the day seems strangely grey. Given that the sun is shining and all.

But I was just very, very stupid.

The last time they were there, outside the local shopping mall, I realised at last why they were there. Most everyone else walking by knew already, I’m quite sure. One way. Or the other.

For despite the conspicuous camouflage gear, the close-cropped hair, the ridiculous little tank, the tents, the shiny, shiny guns and the glossy recruiting literature, they were not there for recruits.
Officially, yes. Sure.

But not in fact.

For even the most lax of superior officers must at some point notice that despite their regular appearance outside the local shopping mall in conspicuous camouflage, with the close-cropped hair, the ridiculous little tank, the tents, the shiny, shiny guns and the glossy recruiting literature, there is nary a new recruit in sight.

(And all of a sudden, from this new vantage point, the mysterious uniformity of their whiteness — which had been a mystery to me — snapped into place, like the last stubborn corner of an old Tupperware box)

They are There To Show a Presence.
Trooping the Colours.
Waving the Flag.
Showing the Sullen Natives (that’s “them” and who knows, perhaps it will also be latecomer me) What’s What.

Empires cast long shadows. Though many years have passed since its eclipse, the sun has not yet set on this one. Still, it seeks reflected glory.

The second week of Ramadan is beginning
and it would be fair to say that this has been a difficult year.
My acquaintances,
politely singled out for baggage checks,
tell of suspicious looks.
Their expressions speak of biting their tongues until they bleed, even though they do not say so.

Usually it’s busy outside the shopping mall, today it’s quiet.
Lots of people staying at home,
calling numbers that don’t answer today.
Waiting.

But there they were.
Outside the local shopping mall,
in conspicuous camouflage and close-cropped hair, with their ridiculous little tank, their tents, their shiny, shiny guns, the glossy recruiting literature and nary a new recruit in sight.

They stand there all day, looking menacing.
When I see them, my throat tightens.
When I walk past, I stare coldly.
Those clouds look like thunder. The sun is grey.