Accidental Renaissance

Image Transcription for the visually impaired:

[ A young shirtless brown-skinned man in his 20s with a faced etched with concentration, tousled brown hair and a short, tidy beard is dramatically caught mid-action, his left arm raised and his biceps flexed in the moment before the snap of the wrist that will send the projectile inside the military-green rock sling hurling forwards towards its target, but for this instant that we see him, the olive-colored rock sling is suspended, taught, in the air above him at a rakish angle. In his right hand he holds the pole of a roughly 3' by 5" flag that unfurls above and behind him. The flag is a red right-facing triangle on the left edge overlaid over a horizontally-striped black, white, and green tricolor: The flag of Palestine. He is garbed only in black athletic shorts (a small white Adidas logo is visible) and a long-sleeved t-shirt that used to be red but has long ago faded to a rust color is tied around his waist giving the appearance of a loincloth. Behind him are two men in black tactical gear: Bulky stab-proof vests over their civilian t-shirts, their black military-grade gas masks pulled below their chin or above their face, their riot helmets secured at their sides-- They look bewildered and lost compared to the mostly naked youth in the foreground armed by little more than what the biblical David carried when he faced Goliath. Smaller figures, far away and out of focus on the far right are turned towards us, towards the youth, their attention seemingly fixed on him. Dark grey smoke billows in the background, suggesting that this battle has been raging for a while, though a bit of blue-grey sky can be faintly seen above the smoke. ]