Saddam Hussein’s invasion  of Kuwait would start the Gulf War in 1991 and we,  citizens of  a third world country, stood still to watch while rich nations  fought excitedly.  We  Filipinos who believe that guns, goons, and gold do not make war,  lived in a new element called falsehood while the war raged on. It was for no reason that many of our  newborn babies were named after the war protagonists. 

In spite of the tension of a foreign war,  there was nothing but jubilee for us,  a childless couple,  because it was the birth of a quadruplet: Bush, Blair, Powell, and  Saddam.  

Home to the brothers was a a frail  cottage made of coconut lumber and nipa leaves, situated  on a 500-square-meter farm decorated with a garden of  trees,  lush  vegetables and flowers but troubled by  stray chickens, dogs, cats,  and geese. Nearby a river flows forever.  Far away lonely farms  cling to the hillsides .

Two months  after the birth of the puppies, Saddam,  the smallest and the only brown  thing among the siblings (the rest were white)  discovered for himself  that he was crawling on top of his brothers. Surveying his world, upon seeing Ed and me, he bared his little teeth, raised his small bristles, and growled a tiny hideous menace , then disappeared among his buddies.

Saddam was one year old. One time,  Ed reached out  a small wooden club and raised it before the  doggie in a mock attempt to attack,  but as Ed did so, Saddam  leaped up at him,  and with a tumbling yell landed at Ed’s  foot. The creature fastened his teeth on the edge  of Ed’s rubber slipper, held on to it with incomparable doggedness till his tiny black snout wrinkled with the effort. Ed felt a tug of little claws on his ankle.  

“Quit it!” Ed commanded. The doggie , still l defiant, glared with fiery eyes at Ed, but soon resolved to let go of his ankle. Ed  flipped together finger and thumb  and whistled several times to coax the doggie to come to him. Suppressing a growl, Saddam Hussein moved on padded toes, clambered up Ed’s  arms and pinned him down murderously on the nose  simulating a kiss.