We are at the camp and I am watching how the sun is just dropping down behind the hill like it is not wanting to be seeing us anymore. All the color is leaking out of it and looking like flame from hell all over, eating up the top of all the tree, making all the leaf bright, bright. Suddenly it is night. The earth is changing from bright orange to black and I am seeing steam rising up from some darkness, just chasing the sun away.
At this time, I am thinking all the building of this camp we are living in is not just the terrible place that we are to be sleeping but are looking almost like simple village house made of palm wood and thatch. I am looking and thinking that if we are not having war, then this place would be too nice to be looking at. All the palm tree, so kind to us, giving us oil and wine, is stretching high up to where they are brushing the sky clear of cloud after it is raining. And when the night is coming, I am thinking the bird and animal should just be singing back and forward to each other before they are going to be sleeping.
But we are coming here and bringing the war. When we are coming here, we are stripping all the palm tree to build our shelter and because there is no more place to rest all the bird is flying away. The night is now too quiet because we are so hungry that we are eating everything that is making noise. And those thing that we are not catching stopped to making noise so they are not getting eaten. Behind this camp, there is also stream that was just shining in the clear sunshine and smelling so fresh with life that you are even seeing how the fishes is enjoying and the frog and their baby is acting like they are in heaven, but we are emptying our rubbish and using this place for washing ourself and going to toilet so it is becoming terrible to look at.
I am just watching as they are unloading all the thing that we are looting from different village off all the truck. I am watching as the sun is leaving small by small from the sky and how all the color is making truck driver’s skin to be shining when they are going into the engine to make sure that they are running well well for the next day. And in the small small light, they are coming out just shining with oil even if it is getting dark. Still if I am looking too hard they are beginning to disappear like ghost. All I am seeing is their eye blinking like all the firefly that are one time living in this area. They are walking to the stream to wash off and their singing is making me to feel somehow at ease. I am stretching my leg out in front of me and placing my hand behind my head.
Every night they are making fire and soldier is sitting down and talking. After some time I am getting up to go and sit with them around the fire. It is warm and it is making me to feel a little bit okay and I am happying to be back at the camp because it is nice here—at least nicer than having to be in place with all of its screaming people that you are killing all the time. And here, I am relaxing because there is no enemy that I have to be watching out for if they are wanting to kill me. But I am sitting here listening to the other men talking and breathing and breathing and somehow looking alive. When it is so, we are really all just waiting to die, I am still sadding too much. I am not liking to be sad because being sad is what happens to you before you are becoming mad. And if you are becoming mad, then it is meaning that you are not going to be fighting. So I cannot be sad because if I cannot be fighting, then either I will die, or Commandant will be killing me. If I am dead, then I will not be able to be finding my mother and my sister when this war is finishing. I am thinking to myself of all the thing that I will do when the war is over and I am alive. And I am thinking that when it is over, I can be going to university to study. I think I am wanting to be Engineer because I like how mechanic is always doing thing to the truck and I like to be watching even though there is no chance for me to try what they are doing. And sometimes I am thinking that I want to be Doctor because then I will be able to be helping people instead of killing them and then maybe I will be forgiven for all my sin. I am thinking that if I am both Doctor or Engineer, these people are the one who are the big men. I know because the richest man in our village—even though he was old and died before the war is coming—he was Doctor and he was always having little monies to be giving out to people who are asking him. He was also big man with fat stomach because he was having lots of monies to be eating a lot of thing here and there. So also when I am big man, I know that I can be reading my book without anyone troubling me like they used to be troubling me before and nobody will be able to say anything to me. I will be saying all the thing to person, telling them to do this and do that and making sure that they bow their head and only look at the ground when they come to greet me, also making sure that they bring me my water when I want it or that they are bringing me my food when I want it. And I will be fat because big men are always fat; they are always having so much to eat. And I will be eating all the food until my stomach is full and then I will be eating even more until my stomach is so full that I will not be able to see my feets even if I am stretching my neck all the way forward. I think that this will be fine because if I am ever not able to eat for long period of time, then at least I will not be turning into ghost like we are turning into because of war.
Then I will go back to church. I will go back to church to ask God for forgiveness every day. And I will go back to church and sit on the bench under the fan that one day will just be falling and crushing me and I will not even be minding the splinter that is chooking into my leg because I will be paying attention to Jesus. I won’t even be moving my eye from the statue of Jesus and instead I will just be sitting there watching Him and watching Him until one day He will be telling me that it is okay.
I am smelling food that they are cooking that is making me so hungry. What should I do? When we are killing people, their blood is getting all over the food we are stealing from them. It is getting all over their animal and vegetable. We are finding farmer and his goat on the road and we are killing him. Now I am not knowing what is farmer and what is goat. And the yam, they are having blood on them. And the rice, they are having blood on them. All the other soldier are saying that since they are boiling it that nothing will be happening to us, but I am not thinking you can be boiling away the blood of farmer even if you are boiling rice or yam forever. But I am hungry and I am eating vegetable and fruit and rice and meats and I am not thinking anymore. I am only eating. When we are eating, we are not speaking. We are so hungry and just eating and eating until we are so full all we can be doing is sleeping sleeping.
We are going to be sleeping in our four building that we are making them of stick and palm thatch. They are not even having any wall, just roof to keep the rain from beating us, so all of the insect is coming up to us in the night. There is not enough room for all of us under these building, so some soldier is sleeping outside where the rain can be falling on them. No animal is coming up to eat anybody because they are all gone away. They are so afraid of us that they are not wanting to come back.
We are all lying down to sleep, but I am not sleeping. I cannot be sleeping. I can never be sleeping. I am just listening listening. No noise. Then I am hearing one boy talking talking. We are calling him Griot because he is always telling story when we are falling asleep. This is story he is telling:
I was just with my mother when the war is coming, he is saying. This is how he is starting every night when we are trying to be sleeping. We are just in the market to get some food because we are having no food to eat, not even the skin of cassava. I was just in the market when I am hearing GBWEM! I am just hearing one blast and the whole ground began to shaking shaking. And then those government pilot, they are just coming in low with their screaming plane and I was covering my ear, but the drum were just beating BOTU BOTU BOTU because the pilot was shooting TAKA TAKA TAKA and everybody is running this way and that way. This one is hiding under wheelbarrow. That one is hiding in church. This one is jumping in gutter. I am not knowing where to be hiding so I am just running running up and down the road. I am hearing another GBWEM landing right next to me. And then I was feeling fire on my body but I wasn’t burning. When I a
m looking up, I am seeing people hanging from tree like piece of meat. Head just hanging like coconut before it is falling off. Ah ah. Nah wah oh!
No noise.
But not for too long because he is starting again. He is saying, my mother. My mother. Heyeye now. My mother is dead. All of her meats just hanging from tree. Then he is coughing and beginning to shake—I am hearing him moving on the ground where he is lying.
And then there is boy we are calling Preacher who is not coming from village. He is coming from the bush. He is twisting around in his sleeping and singing song I am never hearing before. Thou art worthy. Thou art worthy oh Lord, he is singing in his deep voice that is making me to fear because it is sounding like it is coming from nowhere, from spirit. Preacher is having Bible that he is using as pillow sometimes. That is why we are calling him Preacher. His Bible is so tattered that it is not even staying together by itself anymore and he is having to hold it together with piece of old shirt. He is keeping it in his pocket with his knife and his extra bullet.
But he is asleep and singing, thou art worthy. Thou art worthy oh Lord, over and over again. I am not asleep, and I am now singing with him even if I am not knowing all the word. For thou has created. All thing and for thy pleasure. They a-a-are and were created. Thou art worthy, because the song keeps going round and round and round again and again.
But then there is light shining in my face and when I am opening my eye it is blinding me. I am stopping to breathing because I am seeing Strika’s face looking like spirit or demon. His skin is looking somehow like burned-up wood or charcoal and it is sticking tight to his face so his whole cheek is sticking out sharp sharp. I am saying, leave me. Leave me alone. But then I am looking in his eye and the way that he is trying to tell me that I should not be lying here and that I should be hurrying up—Commandant is wanting to see me right now. I am not liking it when Commandant is wanting to see me, but I am having to go otherwise it will be making him to angry. I am getting up, but it is not easy to do this. And when I am standing up I am stretching my body and watching as Strika is going back quickly to his own place where he is sleeping which is under one of the truck with all of the truck driver. Then I am picking up my knife that I am having with me because I am never leaving my knife just in case the enemy is coming and I am stepping over people’s head and feets to be getting to where Commandant is staying. The way I am walking through the darkness, I am like animal in the night. Tonight it is all so quiet and I am thinking it is because of the killing we are doing. I am walking this way and just stepping over people and stepping around them and their gun and knife trying not to be waking them up so that there will not be any kind of trouble.
Then I am walking past the other soldier to Commandant’s own quarter and just watching him through his mosquito net as he is moving back and forwards. He is the only one with mosquito net. I am seeing the shadow that he is making as he is moving around his room and I am thinking that only big man can be making such big shadow.
When I am reaching the shack, I am looking through the net and seeing Commandant. They are calling him the man who is driving the enemy to madness. He is fighting in many battle even if he is only young man, so he is always telling story of people who are treating death like lover and child who can kill before they can even speak. And he is always saying that he is seeing thing that are making even the Devil fall to his knee and be begging for mercy. He is always saying that he is eating people, but it is not tasting too good. And he is saying he is seeing people eat people like they are real meats.
I am waiting outside in the darkness making myself ready for when I go in. So I am thinking as many good thing I can think because if you are thinking good thing, nothing bad is happening to you.
Each time I am going to Commandant, I am feeling that I should not go in because I am knowing what he is wanting to do to me. I am thinking that each time I should be telling him that I do not want to fight anymore and that he should let me go and become refugee so that at least I will not be having to kill people. But I know that if I am saying this to him, he will be doing the same thing he is doing when he is not happy which is smiling and licking his teeths with his tongue. Then he will just laugh, but it will be angry laugh that he is doing when he is thinking somebody is becoming spy.
Commandant is sitting on the floor with all of his map lying next to him. Even though I am standing at the doorway for long time, he is not looking up at me. I am coughing to be letting him know that I am here, but he is still not looking at me and instead he is looking so tired, just like the rest of us because he is not wearing his dress uniform. He is having only one rappa tied around his waist and between his leg and dirty shirt on. And he is kneeling down on the ground wiping sweat from his head with that same dirty white handkerchief that I am always seeing him using for everything he is doing. It is even looking like he is talking to himself because of all of the thing that he is trying to look at though the light is not bright enough for me to even be seeing my hand if I am holding them up in front of me. When he is on the ground, he is not looking so good because he is having all his finger in his mouth and is rubbing the top of his bald head with the other hand.
What is taking you so long, he is saying to me before I am coming in. Then he is saying, sit down, pointing to cot in the corner of the room. He is Commandant so he is always getting cot to sleep on while the rest of us is sleeping on whatever there is to be sleeping on—if you are lucky it is mat, but mostly it is the ground. Even so, it is not changing anything of what I am thinking while I am standing at the door because I am not liking at all at all how his room is smelling—like animal house after animal is passing the food he is eating—or how this smell is making my nostril to sting like I am breathing in something very sharp like metal. I am also not wanting to move because I am fearing that I am in trouble even if I am not doing anything wrong today. I am moving myself slowly slowly around the edge of the hut, feeling the branch of the thatch chooking into my buttom as I am sliding along to the cot. By the time I am reaching the cot and sitting down, he is still looking at the map and taking Biro to be drawing out thing even if it is so dark he is hardly seeing. I am also thinking as I am rubbing the mud off my feets and then folding my arm up in my lap how it is strange that all of these men are always looking at this whole country on map and acting as if it is piece of meat they can just be dividing by cutting it with knife.
Commandant is just coughing and rubbing his head and arm and talking to himself before finally he is blowing out the candle one by one by one until all the room is dark. When he is finished, I am looking through the mosquito net to where I can see the fire outside. It is very low now, but still I am wanting to be outside where the other soldier is sleeping, where Griot is talking and Preacher is singing, but I am not saying this to Commandant. He is telling me, take off your clothe.
I do not want to be taking off my clothe, but I am not saying so because Commandant is powerful more than me and he is also sometimes giving me small small favor like more food or protection and other thing like shirt or trouser for doing this thing with him. It is making me to feel a bit better when he is giving me these thing because I am knowing that he can be doing what he is wanting to do with me and not giving me anything after. I am hearing him walk over to me where I am sitting on the cot. He is taking off my clothe for me and then he is sitting down next to me and breathing hard, but not like he is running very hard and trying to catch his breath, a different breathing in my ear that I am not liking to listen to at all at all. Then he is beginning to touch me all over with his finger while he is breathing just even harder. But each time he is doing this to me, he is telling me, it is what commanding officer is supposed to be doing to his troop. Good soldier is following order anyway and it is order for you to let me touch you like this. I don’t want to be good soldier but I am not saying that. I don’t want to be soldier at all. I don’t want his finger creeping all over my body. I don’t want his tongue to be touching me and feeling
like slug should be feeling if it is on your body. I don’t want it on my back and even on my leg. And I am thinking it is not good for Commandant to be doing this to me. But I am not saying any of this. I am not saying anything at all. It is making me to angry and it is making me to sad, the thing that he is doing to me. I am knowing that I am not the only one he is doing this to and that is not making me to happy.
Commandant is touching me and bringing my head to where he is standing at attention. As he is doing it, and I am smelling his smell and feeling how much it is making me to want to vomit, I am thinking about the very first time he is doing this and yelling to me, touch his soldier. It is seeming like so long long ago, but this is not mattering because each time it is still feeling like the very first time. This first time I am even lucky because we are not in place like this and there is bed that is not cot. But even so, that time he was telling me to kneel down on the floor and then he is removing his belt and I am fearing so much that I am doing something wrong and that he is going to beat me so hard for what I am doing even if I am not knowing what it is. That time he was saying, relax. I am not punishing you. Then he is saying, remove your clothe.
So I was removing them. And then, after making me be touching his soldier and all of that thing with my hand and with my tongue and lip, he was telling me to kneel and then he was entering inside of me the way the man goat is sometimes mistaking other man goat for woman goat and going inside of them. If you are watching it, then you are knowing it is not natural thing. But me, I was not struggling because I am knowing that he will be killing me if I am struggling and since I am not wanting to die, I just let him to be moving back and forward even though it is hurting me so so much. That first time because we are still having food and thing, he was putting palm oil all over me to make everything easier, he is saying, so it will not be paining me so much. Sometimes if palm oil is not enough, my buttom is burning like it has fire in it.
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