Luftenant is shouting, IT IS FOURTEEN HUNDRED HOURS, and I am hearing the voice of Commandant saying, come on! Get ready! Time to go. Time to go.
And then we are loading the truck on the road near to our hut and building. Even the truck is not wanting to go. They are not sounding good at all at all. The engine is coughing and spitting like sick old man. The back of the truck is having long wooden seat that is chooking you with splinter if you are even luckying enough to getting seat. And, if you are not luckying, then when the truck is moving, your head is moving from side to side with the bump in the road and you are feeling like you have been in battle before the killing even starts. Commandant is having smaller truck for himself which I am liking better because it is giving more comfort. Sometimes, if we are making him to happy, he is taking Strika and me to be riding in, but this is only sometimes. Most of the time, we are having to ride in the big truck with the other soldier.
Commandant is dividing people like this, you. Come with me. You, go with Luftenant. You come with me. You go with Luftenant. I am standing next to Strika when he is putting person here and there because I am wanting to be in the same group as Strika. And also I am wanting to be in the same group as Commandant because he is real soldier and making people to behave more like soldier than Luftenant. Commandant is choosing. One of the people he is taking is Strika and one of the person he is not taking is me. I am wanting to be with Strika and Commandant, but of course the thing you are wanting most is always the thing that is not happening. I am not wanting to be with Luftenant and I am not wanting to ride in his truck.
I am not liking Luftenant because he is coward. I am knowing he is coward because his skin is looking very light and yellow like one of his parent is white man. I am not knowing if it is his mother or father that is white because, most of the time, I am wondering if he is even having mother or father. One time I am hearing him say that before the war he is selling shoe, but that is only because he is not having chance to go to school; and I am hearing him say also that his mother and his father are dying in car crash when he is young and that is how he is ending up selling shoe in the market. I am not believing him and I am thinking that no other soldier is believing him. I think he is being born to sell shoe and that he is only Luftenant of rebel because he is bribing somebody to be giving him this rank. I am knowing it because one day after Commandant is abusing him for not fighting, I am hearing him grumbling that he is becoming Luftenant because he is thinking that officer is not having to fight. Whenever he is near Commandant, he is acting like one scared dog and not even speaking. And in battle, he is never coming to the front and always staying at the back where he is trying to tell people what to be doing. Always, he is hiding behind the truck or anything that is giving him protection from the bomb and the bullet. I am even seeing him use dead body for protection, but I am also seeing other people doing the same thing so I am not too angry about that. Still, I am not wanting to be with Luftenant because I am fearing that I will be dying too quickly and then I will never be seeing my family again.
I am angrying that Commandant is not taking me and Strika together and I am fighting very hard to get into the back of truck first so at least I am not having to stand and be too too tired wherever we are going to raid. I am finding my seat in the corner where I am having wood wall on one side. This way no one can be pushing me this way or that way. No one will be making me to get up.
The road is going on and on. I am looking through the wooden board to where the tree is moving by like it is running and I am seeing the road, which is moving like black river carrying us to far away. I am feeling the cold air on my body that is pushing away all the heat from all of the body on this truck so I am not sweating as much. And my head, it is moving from side to side so much that I am having to use my hand to be holding it in one place. Hunger is attacking me because I am not eating anything since so long. Sleep is attacking me because the truck is just rocking back and forward and back and forward with all of the bump in the road. Sleep is attacking me and I am beginning to think of my village. It is so long since I am even seeing it in my dream.
All the truck is stopping. We are here at one junction and everybody is getting down, but I am the last to get down because I am the first to be sitting in the truck. As soon as I am jumping down into the outside, I am starting to sweating and it is sticking to my skin like million shiny insect. I am brushing the sweat away, but it is only making my hand wet and to be smelling like wet mud. Everybody is stretching his body this way and that way and Commandant is shouting to us, THE BLOOD MUST FLOW! and we are all saying back, YES SAH!
Commandant is walking up and down and folding his hand one on the other and just looking around. He is putting his hand in his hairs and also holding his beard and this is making me to fear somehow. I am wondering if he is knowing where we are going or how we are going to be getting there.
I am looking behind me down this hill at the land that is stretching for kilometer and kilometer. Everything is green because this is the South of the country and we are having many tree. These tree are very fat because they are having so much water to drink. From the top of this hill, I am seeing through the tall grasses by the roadside to where the land is meeting the sky. I am not knowing where the hill is stopping or the bottom of the cloud is beginning because it is so far away that all of this is happening. I am seeing many many tree, too many tree that it is making me to wonder if God is planting all of the tree He can think of in this part of the country. Maybe He is running out before He is getting to the North where Government is and this is why they are angrying at us and wanting to kill us, because God is forgetting them. From this hill it is looking like you can just be jumping into the top of the tree for them to catch you, but I am knowing that that cannot happen. One day one soldier from our group is jumping off tall rock because he is saying he is finding heaven in all of the tree. I am thinking that he was madding in the head. I am not knowing if he is finding heaven, but I am not wanting to try it for myself to be finding out.
Nobody is telling me the name of these tree, so I am making it up. I am only knowing the Iroko tree, so I am calling those one when I am seeing them. But some of the tree are shorter than the Iroko tree and I am calling these one the children of the forest. There are tree with leaf that are having five point, so I am calling them the star-leaf tree because it is like their leaf is becoming the star in the sky when they are falling. I know because when this leaf is falling to the mud, it is becoming yellow like the color of star. And there is some smaller tree with vine that is strangling them. I am calling these tree the slave tree because they are slave to the vine that is using them to climb up to the sun. If I am tree, then I will be liking to be like the Iroko because they are so tall and strong that nothing is bothering them, but I am thinking that I am more like slave tree because I can never be doing what I want.
I am not wanting to fight today because I am not liking the gun shooting and the knife chopping and the people running. I am not liking to hear people scream or to be looking at blood. I am not liking any of these thing. So I am asking to myself, why am I fighting? Why can I not just be saying no? Then I am remembering how one boy is refusing to fight and Commandant is just telling us to jump on his chest, so we are jumping on his chest until it is only blood that is coming out of his mouth.