Artyom Dereschuk - Hate the Sin

Corpse Eater was sitting on a dusty side of the hill, his right hand resting on AK-47. The hot African sun was setting beyond the hills on the other side of the river, and its rays were peeking into Corpse Eater’s eyes, as if hoping to catch a glimpse of the boy’s mind.

He observed how his comrades—Homewrecker in his orange T-shirt with a Fanta print, Puppy Slayer (the shortest and the youngest), Marlboro Man in his denim jacket which he had found somewhere, and Desecrator with his red headband—were playing football with an improvised ball, a particularly large clew of old scotch tape. Its edges were hanging loose, collecting dust and sand on the sticky side.

They were having fun, as was evident by the fire of excitement in their eyes, but just as usual, their faces were serious, their tiny hands curled up into fists. At any moment, they were ready to abandon their game and charge toward the weapons they left beside the football field, dodging bullets of possible assailants. They were warriors first and children second, or at the very least that was what General Malaria had always told them. Then again, he didn’t consider them to be kids at all—according to him, every boy became a man the first time he saw the light fade in the eyes of his enemy. Thus in his eyes, they were all men.

They didn’t have much time to play games with the civil war going on around them. Games were the privilege of gutless, spoiled brats who didn’t care what would happen to their country. The ones who stayed home with their parents instead of growing up and taking their collective future into their hands. Corpse Eater was not like that, he always had a solid grip on his future and knew exactly what was it like—it weighed 3.47 kilograms, spewed 600 rounds per minute, and could shoot under water. In a way, it was a burden but, in his circumstances, he would never drop it—instead, he wouldn’t mind making it heavier by adding a bayonet.

He was a good, responsible young man, and he knew that his comrades, the ones who went into battle with him and would share a bottle with him at the end of the day, were responsible as well. All of them knew that the grown men were having a good time in other ways. They would drink or play cards or shoot up on crack or heroin. They would never succumb to such a childish desire as playing football: General was against that. At their age of thirteen, the General had been told to make his first human sacrifice as a newly elected shaman of his tribe; at the age of sixteen, he had been told to have a hundred enemies slain. The General had stated on numerous occasions that the first to repeat his achievement would receive the honor of becoming his left hand. All boys wanted to have that honor for different reasons, but that could wait. For now, they just wanted to be kids.

“What are you doing here?” Corpse Eater heard behind him, and his blood went cold. He recognized that voice—the voice that belonged to the one whom he had stayed on the lookout for.

“Hey, Tsetse… We were just playing around,” Corpse Eater said, deciding that lying would only make it worse. He was trying to stay calm as he turned around to face the boy behind him, but his legs were trembling slightly. His gaze focused on a point just beneath Tsetse’s chin: Corpse Eater was fearless on the battlefield, slaying his adversaries, but he didn’t have it in him to challenge Captain Tsetse. Captain was a whole year older than him, and he had been fighting for so long that he didn’t even remember the name that his parents had given him. The mere fact that he had survived for so long made him a symbol of terror in their small army of revolutionaries, a living icon of war, and his unkempt Afro had become symbolic in their small army. Seeing it in front of you meant good luck. It meant that all threats were either gone or close to it.

Tsetse was fourteen, and while puberty was already working wonders on his body, he still looked like a very tall kid rather than a fully-grown adult man. Nevertheless, the way he carried himself, the way his cold black eyes observed and measured up everyone, the way everyone stood aside when he was walking, spoke much more than mere words could.

From behind him, Corpse Eater heard Desecrator swear; the rest noticed captain’s presence and now froze in anticipation of what was to come. Corpse Eater could hear the ball shuffle against the sand as the wind picked it up and carried it away. The game was over.

“Whose idea was that?” Tsetse inquired, pointing toward the improvised toy, and Corpse Eater barely resisted from flinching as the Captain’s hand flew up and past his face. There was no reply: while it was a collective decision, everyone hoped that someone would take the blame. Of course, none of that would have happened had Corpse Eater done what he was supposed to do and stayed on the lookout. Now, there was only one way to redeem himself.

“It was me,” he said, pointing his eyes even lower. Tsetse slowly approached him and then stopped. For a moment, Corpse Eater eased up, thinking that he would just get scolded and that would be it, but then Tsetse hit him in the face with the butt of his rifle. The younger boy fell back, his lip splitting in two, and his arm reaching up to cover his head from further hits, but none followed; the captain simply observed him for a moment, as if trying to figure out whether that would be enough of a lesson, and then turned around. “General would get angry if he saw that. Come, he wants to see us.”

The boys hurried toward their weapons: the General liked when his younger soldiers followed his orders flawlessly. Desecrator headed for Corpse Eater but, instead of helping him, he simply jumped over him. Puppy Slayer and Marlboro Man hurried to catch up to Tsetse, averting their eyes from Corpse Eater; only Homewrecker stopped to help him up.

“Do you think he’s going to tell the General what we were doing?” Homewrecker asked in a whisper, his eyes fixed on Tsetse’s back.

“I don’t think so,” Corpse Eater replied, fruitlessly trying to wipe the blood off his chin. The taste of blood on his teeth and gums was familiar, but its warmth was not. “That lapdog doesn’t like to see the General angry, so he’ll keep his mouth shut.”

“General’s little bitch.” Homewrecker nodded and the two of them set out for the camp.

Before they had arrived and taken over the structure, it seemed to have been some sort of warehouse. Before the war, it was probably used as a way station for trucks heading from Liberia to Sierra Leone and Guinea, where the tired truck drivers could take cover from the merciless white sun, the rays of which seemed to be attracted to their black skin, and rest before resuming their trip. Now it was just a temporary home to the Revolutionary Brigade of General Malaria who, according to their leader, was fighting with the crooked government to pave way for the younger generation. It was a goal befitting their band of misfits, since the youngest warrior in their ranks was only ten years old, and the oldest one was twenty-ive—only one year older than the General himself.

The building was in a disarray, its walls covered in bullet holes and uninspired graffiti. The stench of sweat, piss, and decomposition lingered in the hot air; hygiene was not top on the list of priorities of the people here, and the closest thing to a toilet was a small muddy stream nearby. All the nearby structures were occupied with soldiers who, for the lack of anything better to do, were killing time by either drinking, taking drugs, or simply retelling each other stories that they had heard thousands of times before. Corpse Eater covered his mouth, not wanting anyone to spot his new bruise and start mocking or picking on him. His hopes of making it to the General’s tent unnoticed, however, came to a crushing halt.