In front of me, Rambo is swallowing so hard that I am feeling it in my own throat. And from the back of the HQ, Commandant’s laughing is growing louder and louder until I am feeling him standing right behind me. He is pushing me aside with his arm and I am hitting rock in the wall. My shoulder is beginning to hurt. Who is leaving. Idiot. Go back to your post. You are leaving when I say leave. Understood? No Sah, never, Rambo is saying. We are going, Rambo is saying. I no want trouble oh, he is saying. Who is this we enh, Commandant is saying and laughing. You are the only one stupid enough—I AM GOING, one voice is shouting. I AM GOING TOO. AND ME, AND ME, AND ME, the voice keep yelling from the mist softer and softer until the farthest person is shouting small small, saying and me. Rambo is sliding his finger to the trigger of his gun and I am sliding my finger to my own trigger because I am fearing what Commandant will be doing to me if I am not protecting him, but then I am remembering how much he is hurting me when he is chooking me and I am saying never. Never will I be feeling sorry for him. Never will I be helping him. I am lowering my gun.
See! We are going, Rambo is shouting to Commandant. Then he is just taking his gun and shooting him. Only one shot just right in the chest and I am seeing Commandant looking down to his chest with his whole mouth open like he is screaming. But no sound is coming out. He is not saying anything. And then his body is just falling and making the water that is running down the trench red like that.
Rambo is stopping his shaking and is puffing out his chest. Rambo is looking at me and I am looking at him. He is looking at me for long time and then he is just turning and climbing up wall and I am hearing his boot crunching the leaf near my head. Then I am looking up and hearing how all of the soldier is climbing up out of the trench and I am hearing Rambo shouting, COME ON! COME ON QUICK QUICK QUICK! MOVE FAST OH! MOVE WITH SPEED! HOME HOME! WE ARE GOING HOME! I am looking at Commandant and then I am climbing out of the trench. I am tired and hungry and I am wanting to go home.
Commandant is dead. It was so easy to be killing him. Why we are not doing it before I am not knowing, but I am not wanting to think about that right now. I am tiring too much.
We are walking the whole night on this road, left right, left right, left right, left right, and carrying everything we are having, gun, knife, clothe, but that is it because we are not having anything else. How can we be having anything else if we are staying in the bush for so long? I am so tired that it is hard for me to move my leg, but I am following Rambo. So are all the other, just following following even if Rambo is not having map like Commandant. No one person is even marching, left right, left right, like soldier and instead they are just walking almost right almost left, dragging this foot and that foot on the ground. My slipper is sticking to my feets because they are so worn down and almost spoiling, and my feets are paining me because my skin is just rotting and peeling away from too much time standing in the water in the trench. I am feeling like I am always walking on nail and I am wanting to stop to be resting, but nobody is stopping. Strika is not stopping even if his face is cracking everywhere and all his body is just shaking shaking the whole time so I am just moving on almost left almost right, and saying that if he is doing it, then I am also doing it. Sometimes I am falling to the back and then I am getting to fear very much because the man fronting me is like shadow, not person, so I am running to the front which is making my leg to pain even more. I am wishing that I am having boot or canvas shoe so my feets is not hurting. Or even I am wanting to be having car to be driving away so when we are walking I am always hearing car in my head and it is making me to look from side to side for car that is coming to rescue me and take me home. No car. I am thinking I am car and trying to make my feets to move like wheel that is never stopping, but I cannot. I am hungry and I want to stop and rest and eat.
Wherever we are going the moon is following us. It is so big and so bright that we are not using any torch to be seeing, so nobody is fearing that the enemy can be seeing us from wherever they may be hiding in this bush. They cannot see us if we are not having torch because we are invisible unless they are bringing helicopter to be beating the air BOTU BOTU and to be shining their bright light on the road. I see tree and its shadow. I see rock and its shadow and then I am saying let me just make it to that tree or to that rock. My eye is becoming used to the light and I am beginning to see more of everything that is around—each tree, each rock, each piece of rubbish or plant growing alone in the mud of the road. Wherever we are going it is only the moon shining and it is making the whole place to be looking like it is glass and will just break if you are touching it too hard. I am not liking this at all at all. If something is making of glass, then it is looking nice and beautiful, but it is also looking dead even if it is really having life. Everything here is looking dead when it is really alive. The grass on the side of the road, the tree behind the grasses, my arm or leg, Strika’s face, Rambo’s neck—they are all looking dead and making me to wonder how all of these dead thing can even be living. I am seeing each thing on the road—I am seeing them all stiff like glass, but I am not able to be seeing through them and I am knowing that the world is full of people and thing even if we are trying to look like they are not there.
I am hearing song. Someone is singing it. It is old song that my mother was singing all the time she is cooking or washing. A song! A song! I am not even hearing music for so long not even from bird. Hearing this music is making my whole skin to burn and I am wanting to scratch myself, my whole self, all over. I feel like I am wanting to dance, but is my body even remembering how? I don’t think so. I am sadding because of this. What is happening to the music and all the song we are having? I don’t know. I don’t know.
I am walking faster because I am trying to see who it is that is singing the song so I can be standing next to him and feeling this music. I am walking from this person to that person, but I am not seeing any sort of sound coming from their mouth. I am feeling like I should be going to that person who is singing and taking all of the sound so I can be having it for myself to be keeping in my pocket for whenever it is getting to be too too bad, but the sound I am looking for is coming from nowhere. I don’t mind at all, because the song is making my body to move and I am not having to think anymore. I am having to think of other thought that are just jumping into my head. I am not even minding the gun that is making my whole back to hurt even though it is very heavy. I am thinking of home. How many time am I thinking of my home when we are in the bush? How many time am I seeing all of the people that I am growing up with running around in my head like child running around after school, running to the house, running to the church, running to the market like there is no war and everything is just fine? In my head, all of the people that I am seeing in my home are too too happy and I am thinking, if this is how they are living, why am I staying here to just be walking to someplace not even knowing if I am to be living or dying? I don’t know. I don’t know.
We are tiring so so much, but we are trying to reach some place. Where is this place? I am not knowing, but I am knowing that Rambo is saying we should not be stopping. So we are not stopping and we are walking through the whole night into the day. The sun is rising behind us so all our shadow is growing front from our feets and making the road ahead very dark which is making it harder to be taking each next step. On this road, it is so empty and I am thinking where have all the people gone because I am not liking the quiet and I am not liking how the only sound in the daytime is the sound of my slipper hitting my own feets, the sound of my breathing so hard every time this is happening because it is paining too much. I cannot be stopping and so I keep walking. I am picking one noise, even if it is just one person moaning, and I am saying that I should be catching that noise so each time the noise is getting softer, I am walking faster to be catching it wherever it is going. They cannot be leaving me behind because I am not knowing where I would be going to in this bush. Just imagine if they are leaving me for the bush and then I am being eaten by ani
mal or other soldier who is sacrificing me to be winning this war. I am thinking about the kind of animal that will be following me if they are leaving me. It is having the body of lion and the head of soldier with helmet and eye that are looking like bullet and teeths that are looking like knife to be chewing me up. Its tail is like gun and its breath like fire that is cooking me well well before it is sitting down to be eating all of the burning part of my body. When this is coming to my head, I am hurrying up my step so that I am not being the last one in the line.
My sweat is burning my eye away. Now it is so hot because the sun is beating on my back and making my gun to warm so much that it is feeling like hot iron on my back. I know it is making mark and burning my back so I am like cow and belonging to one owner which is gun. I am sadding when I am feeling this gun in my back because I am thinking that first when this war is starting, I am wanting gun because I can be using it to protect myself. At this time, gun is belonging to me and it is going wherever I am carrying it, but now it is just riding on my back like it is king and I am servant to be doing whatever it says. If it is saying go right, then my body is walking to the right even if I am struggling to go left, and if it is saying for me to stop, then I am stopping to catch breath, and if I am going down the hill with the other men, then it is saying go faster and it is pushing me down the hill just like that. I am not liking this at all at all and I am wanting to be throwing gun away into the bush, but if I am throwing gun away, then Rambo will be throwing me away because gun is more important than me. I am always remembering this.
The road is too long, but sometimes it is nice to be looking at. I am liking how it is just rising up and down like one animal, how it is moving with the land that it is sitting on. If you are seeing this road in sunshine, then you will be knowing how great it is and how all of the tree is even respecting it and not trying to grow in it. It is only small small thing on the road that are not respecting it, like small plant and sometimes small animal here and there that is getting run over by car and being left there for long time. I am fearing because there is nothing on road excepting us and these small plant that is not respecting road, and if they are not respecting road and road is killing them, then because we are not respecting road from going to toilet and spitting everywhere on it, I am fearing that it may be killing us soon also.
When we are walking, my mouth is tasting of salt, of so much salt that I am not liking the way that salt is tasting anymore. It is making me to thirsty so much and this is even worse than to be hungrying so much because it is making my head to turn from one place to another and the whole world is just spinning round and round me like I am walking in circle. One time I am seeing Strika in front of me walking slowly slowly then the next time I am seeing him behind me walking fastly fastly. This is making me to think am I mad.
We are moving always moving because that is what we are doing and watching all the thing on the road passing us by. House, tree, school, empty car all burned up, refuses, all passing us, but still we are not seeing person. We are coming into another village, but it is just small, not even really village. It is only just house on each side of the road, and it is empty, nothing there excepting the refuses. Person is running away from us like we are sickness, like we are the most evil thing to be on this earth. I am looking at road that is cracking in many place like somebody is just taking it and stretching it until you are seeing the red mud bleeding from underneath. And everywhere there is rubbishes just moving along the road like they are people just moving moving when they are having nothing to be doing. We are just moving until Strika is stepping on piece of breaking-up bottle glass and falling down. He is not saying word, not even crying or screaming. It is not even like he is feeling any pain, but I am feeling pain for him and it is making me to want to shout and yell. The other soldier are just walking by us and not even looking at us. Strika. Strika, I am saying. We are having to go or they will be leaving us. But he is not listening to me. Instead he is just taking his foot and picking away all of the skin until the glass is just coming out from his foot. Then he is just licking his finger clean of all the blood and the dust but making sure to not be touching any of the sore that is on his lip. He is stretching his hand out to me and we are getting up and walking. One step. Two step. He is falling down. Why is Strika doing like this? We have to be going now, but he is not getting up. Get up! He is just looking at me and coughing until he is spitting onto the ground next to him, blood and spit, so much blood. I am asking Strika to be getting up, but he is not listening and he is not getting up. His lip is moving, but there is no noise coming out. I am looking at him. His face is just shining shining like he is sweating so much, but there is no sweat coming out. I am kneeling down on the road next to him just watching all the other soldier walking away from us. I am feeling his heart that is just beating beating like whole village is stomping on the ground. Ah ah! Strika, I am saying. Ah ah! What is happening? But no word is coming from his mouth. His eye is blinking, my eye is blinking and I am seeing him crumpling up. I am getting up and pretending to be walking away. Don’t leave me, he is saying and looking at me. And I am shouting at him, come on! Get up and stop this thing you are doing! I am hearing, don’t leave me. Please Agu. Don’t just be leaving me. Strika is saying something. Enh! Strika is saying something! I am stopping to move, turning around and looking at him and he is looking at me, but it is like he is not even seeing me.
I am bending down to him and seeing his body which is almost just disappearing beneath his clothe. His face is just looking so terrible because all of his skin is just coming away, and his eye is rolling up into his head and showing yellow and red everywhere like going to toilet and blood. Strika is just looking like one piece of refuses on this road. I am trying to be crying, but no tear is coming out from my eye, and I am trying not to be fearing, but Strika—Strika is my brother and my family and the only person I can be talking to even if he is never talking back until now. I am watching him and then I am looking up because I am not hearing all the other soldier walking on this road. I am not wanting to be left behind. I am not wanting to leave Strika behind. Strika, I am calling his name. Strika, but he is not answering. He is not saying anything. I am saying, Strika? Strika? Strika?
Nothing is the same anymore. I am not being able to be sleeping at all when it is time to sleep. Each time I am lying down my head, some voice inside of me is shouting and starting to make too much trouble so I cannot even be closing my eye. And all of the time this is happening I am fearing that I am not knowing myself anymore. If it is day, I am sitting and staring at the sun like it is the only thing to look at in this world. I am watching how sometime it is bright and other time it is like it is just struggling too much to be shining and I am wanting to ask it why it is even thinking to shine on this world. If I am sun, I will be finding another place to be shining where people are not using my light to be doing terrible terrible thing. At night I am staring at the moon and looking to see if a man is smiling. They are saying man is living there and smiling, but I am never finding anything at all. Nobody is smiling in this place. If it is night, if it is day, nobody is smiling.
So many time I am saying to myself that I will be running away, far far away to where no one can be finding me or seeing me and I will be staying there to the end of time when God is coming to judge the dead and the living. So many time I am telling this to myself, but when I am getting up to go and run away, I am thinking about all the animal and the spirit in the bush, and I am remembering the map which I am seeing in the town and thinking to myself, how can I be running if I am not knowing the way to be taking me away from the war. All I can be doing is sitting here and dreaming about how my leg will carry me far and fast like I am standing and it is the world that is moving to help me. I am dreaming this so many time, but I am waiting for it to happen.
One day we are on the road and then we are just hearing some noise like truck and then we are scattering into the bush, all of us to one side just moving moving quickly in
to the shadow of all the tree and leaf, just stepping on this branch and that rock running running so that whoever it is will not be seeing us and maybe killing us. I am running running and not looking at where I am putting my feets until KPWAWA, I am just hitting something and my body is falling down KPWOM just like that on the ground. My knee is paining me because I am falling hard and I am looking down to be seeing what is tripping me too easily. I am seeing one dead body just lying on the ground as if he is sleeping. The man is stiff and his whole belly is big like he is fulling of gas. It is so big that it is pressing on the button of his uniform until it is looking like it is going to pop. I am just looking down at this man because something is telling me in my head that this is meaning that we are getting closer to the war.
One soldier is also seeing this dead body and then he is coming and kneeling down next to him and unbuttoning the shirt. There is insect all over. Shiny beetle with silver on its back and little white maggot is just crawling up and down this dead man’s chest. Then the man is turning the body over and taking off the shirt and rolling it up and putting it under his arm. He is going to the leg and removing the boot from it and putting his own slipper on the man’s feets. He is looking at me and smiling and showing his brown teeths and then he is quickly running away to be joining the other soldier. I am watching him running away and I am wanting to be getting up and running after him because I do not want to be staying in this place with one dead body. But my leg is not getting up. I am just thinking thinking and I am asking to myself, why, if I am killing man and woman and beating them until their blood is just covering my whole body, if I am seeing my friend just sitting down by the road and shaking like Devil is possessing him, why am I wanting to cry and vomit if I am only seeing dead body?
Beasts of No Nation Page 11