Javier Salazar Calle - Ndura. Son Of The Forest

“Come on Juan, we're leaving.”

“I can't.” He whispered. “Everything hurts. “Come on Juan, you have to get up or they will kill us all. I am going to leave the backpacks outside then I'll come back to get you.”

“Alright, alright, I will try.” He answered, shaking a little in his seat.

I grabbed the two backpacks and I left staggering a little still affected by all the commotion from the crash. I had to keep myself from not stopping to help the rest of the people, but I did not know how long I had and I only wanted to live. Live one more day to see another sunrise. We were on one side of a glade in the woods. By the look of it, the pilot had tried to land here taking advantage of the absence of trees, but he strayed a little. The plane lost its left wing when it hit the big trees. A long stream of smoke trailed from the plane towards the sky, allowing anyone to see it from miles away. I entered the woods a bit more and I left the backpacks at the foot of a big tree. Then, I turned, with the intention of returning to the airplane, but, at that moment, a group of armed black guys burst into the clearing, on the opposite side of where I was. I quickly crouched, hiding myself behind a trunk. I felt a stabbing pain in my stomach. The guerilla men, some wearing camouflage and others in civilian clothes, surrounded the airplane aiming with their weapons and shouting non-stop. I did not understand a word of what they were saying, but from the area where we were, it had to be Swahili or who knows what other language.

“Nitoka!” They shouted time and time again. “Enyi! Nitoka! Maarusi! [1]”

Soon after, some baffled and confused passengers began to leave the airplane. They started unceremoniously pushing them down to the ground and thoroughly searching them. More rebels arrived. One of the passengers, a man who was sitting in front of us, got nervous and stood up trying to run away. The guerrilla men fired multiple shots with their machine guns and he fell down dead almost instantly. During that moment of confusion, Juan left the airplane and ran in the opposite direction from where everyone was paying attention.

“Basi! [2]Basi!” Some rebels shouted when they discovered him.

“Nifyetua! [3]” The one who seemed to be the boss shouted out, when Juan was on the verge of reaching the edge of the clearing.

Then, two of them fired at him from behind without further delay. One of the bullets whistled in my ear as it passed next to me. I lowered my head and I closed my eyes tightly, with the stupid belief that this could save me from the bullets. He fell to his knees just ten feet away from where I was watching and, before collapsing entirely, he managed to look at me, crouched, and dedicated his last smile to me.

“Nitoka, maarusi!” They kept shouting towards the airplane.

I did not have to make a great effort not to scream, because I was completely muted and paralyzed. I don't know how long I stayed this way, but when I was able to move again, I knew with certainty that I only had one door left: to run for my life. I took the two backpacks and I walked into the lush forest trying as much as I could to be extremely stealthy, which I didn't succeed to do, since I was stumbling and my entire body was sore, I was incapable of having complete control over it. It didn't know where to go, but it was obvious that if I wanted to have the best chance at survival, I had to distance myself as much as I could from those savages.

I walked for almost two hours, spurred by the fear, fear of death, until my legs couldn't take it anymore and I fainted and fell to the ground. It seemed like the backpacks were loaded with stones. I felt a deep pain in my left knee; ever since I injured myself playing soccer, my knee hadn't absolutely healed and I still had problems with it from time to time when forcing it. I opened my backpack and I took a soda out. It was still a bit fresh and I drank it with avidity. I was sweating abundantly, drops of sweat fell torrentially from my chin, as if it had been raining or I had just come out of a swimming pool. I needed air, so I opened my mouth trying to take in deep breaths. I choked while drinking too fast which got me into a severe sneezing fit. I felt myself drowning. When I was able to cool down a little, though I was still panting, I realized that there was less light, it was getting dark. Alex dead in the accident, Juan riddled with bullets; my two best friends lost in just a small moment by the stupidity of a civil war that I did not understand and that I could not care less about. Why don't they kill each other? Why us? Why did it have to be my friends, Alex and Juan? Bastards! If it was up to me I'd let them expire altogether. Because of them, I was now alone, in this shitty, humid, overwhelming and asphyxiating place, without my friends. Why me? Why them? Juan's death, machine-gunned by those savages, replayed in my head time and time again as if it was a movie. The extinguishing light of his eyes in that last look he gave me. I tried not to think about it, to hide it in some deep fold of my brain, but I failed. Just a few hours ago we were together, laughing while remembering the anecdotes of the trip and now...

I cried for a while, I don't know how long, but it was very helpful. When I managed to stop, I felt much better. Well, I was calmer at least. It was obviously getting dark, the dim forest was submerging in the world of darkness. I had to look for a place to sleep. I was afraid to sleep on the ground, mainly in case the rebels found me, but sleeping in a tree didn't reassure me either, with snakes, those howler monkeys or whatever fierce and hungry beast there could be. I had to make up my mind. Snakes, or armed and furious men? Snakes seemed to be the lesser of two evils, at least they still hadn't done anything to me. I looked for a tree that seemed accessible for me to climb, difficult for the snakes and with some space where I could settle down to sleep.

It was at that moment that I noticed there was an incredible number of types of trees and plants. From the smallest plants, almost tiny, to trees that measured more than 160 feet whose trunk surpassed the others and where you couldn't even see the end. A huge amalgam of different classes of flora sprinkled everywhere; including super high palm trees with painted frayed leaves several feet tall with compact and dense groups of flowers [4]. There was a superior layer of trees about 100 feet tall and ones that went even higher up, then, a second layer about 30 or 65 feet tall with an elongated shape like the cypresses of our cemeteries and a third layer 16 to 26 feet tall where only a small amount of light penetrated. There also were some shrubs, young samples of different types of trees, although only a few, and a layer of moss that almost covered all the shrub in some parts, as well as a multitude of lianas climbing on all the trunks, hanging from all the branches. Flowers and fruit everywhere, mainly on the highest layers, but unattainable to me. You could also see all kinds of animals, it was not easy to see them, but I could hear an innumerable variety of bird calls, monkey chatters, branches being shaken above my head with the passage of one of them, insects humming around flowers everywhere, even some terrestrial animal whose footsteps I could hear as a distant noise. Butterflies and the rest of the insects churned all around. If I wasn't in the situation I was in, I would have enjoyed such a beautiful place, but at that moment, everything was a potential obstacle to my survival. And everything scared me.

After a brief search I found a tree that seemed to be suitable and I climbed it with the two backpacks on my back. It was incredible how heavy they seemed to weigh and my knee begged me for a time-out. When I was sufficiently high to feel safe, but not too high that I could kill or seriously hurt myself if I fell at night, I squeezed myself as well as I could between two heavy branches that went together, almost parallel and I covered myself a little with one of the small blankets that I had brought from the airplane and I used another one as a pillow. I was able to catch a glimpse of an incredible amount of big dark-brown bats, flapping around in the sky, in that special way they usually do, churning erratically and using their impulses [5]. I didn't know how to count them, but there must have been thousands, making stops mainly in the palm trees, eating their fruit, I imagined, or hunting the insects that ate the fruit.