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His gun, flat against his side, tucked away in the folds of his shirt, was the only object of his father that remained. Everything was burned when the Sudanese raided their village, including the bones of his mother and his sisters. His father’s body was chopped up, and minced before his terror filled eyes, next to him on the ground. The smell of his father’s blood filled his nostrils for days.
He doesn’t know how old he is, his skin is as dark as the blue black sky, and there are cuts along his wrists where the Sudanese dragged him, handcuffed, to their camp in the bush. A year could have passed, or two or three, he doesn’t remember. He has become them. He has become the enemy who murdered his family. His father’s gun was his ticket to live. When the Sudanese found the gun, they let him eat, and remain alive, as long as he became one of them; one of their soldiers.
His parents called him Kojo. To the Sudanese, he is Jamas. His face is tight as he looks in the mirror in the old washroom of the abandoned schoolhouse. Who is this person staring back at me? Who am I? Why am I fighting this war? His right hand reaches up to touch the small amount of stubble growing on his face, stubble he doesn’t remember ever seeing before.
Other things happened to him too. The Sudanese took a young woman in front of him. Her clothes were shreds, her body bruised and bloody, but an air of pride remained in her. She was his for the night. They told him to watch over her and make sure she does not move. Her body lay in a heap on a gunny sack as he sat beside her, his gun propped in his armpit. When she could turn over and her bulging crusted eye looked into his, something inside him wanted to vomit and run as if he were on fire. She had him. She had his mind and his gut and his thoughts all twisted up in knots. Something fragile and caring filled his hardened thoughts. He thought of his murdered mother and sisters and the water, and all the food, and their large hut. This woman beside him was the first woman he had seen, since the last glimpse of his mother walking down the path to the river Mango, bowl on her head.
His gun was well hidden but she knew it was there, he knew she could see the bottom end of the barrel, the hollow part aimed at her head. She glanced at his gun, then back to his eyes. Gun, eyes, gun, eyes.
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melanie mae
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Comments
Ricky | Oct 12th, 2004
Very powerful!
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