Dave Eggers - What Is The What

— We need to walk, I said.

William K closed his eyes.-We need to rest. Rest with me, Achak.

— They've found a dik-dik.

— That sounds good.

He looked up to me and smiled.

— We need to get some of the meat. It'll be gone in seconds, William.

I watched as William K's eyes flickered, his eyelids closing slowly.

— Soon, he said.-But sit for a second. This is helping me. Please. I stood above him, giving him shade, allowing him a few moments of peace, and then said it was time to go.

— It's not time, he said.

— The meat will be gone.

— You get some. Can you get some and bring it back to me? God forgive me, I thought this was a good idea.

— I'll come back, I said.

— Good, he said.

— Keep your eyes open, I said.

— Okay, he said. He looked up to me and nodded.-I need this. I feel like this is helping me.

His eyes slowly closed and I ran to get our share of the animal. While I was gone, the life in William K fell away and his flesh returned to the earth.

It was easier to die now. With Deng, there had been a night between the living Deng and the departed Deng. I had assumed that dying always took place over those many hours in the dark. But William K had done something different. He only stopped walking, sat under a tree, closed his eyes, and was gone. I had returned with a finger's worth of meat to share with him and found his body already cold.

I had known William K since he was a baby and I was a baby. Our mothers had placed us in the same bed as infants. We knew each other as we learned to walk and speak. I could not remember more than a handful of those days that we had not been together, that I had not run with William K. We were simply friends who lived in a village together and expected to always be boys and friends in our village. But in these past months, we had traveled so far from our families, and we had no homes, and we had become so weak and no longer looked as we had before. And now William K's life had ended and his body lay at my feet.

I sat next to him for some time. In my hand his hand became warm again and I looked into his face. I kept the flies at bay and refused to look up; I knew the vultures would be circling and I knew that I could not prevent them from coming to William K. But I decided that I would bury him, that I would bury him even if it meant that I would lose my place with the group. After seeing the dead and dying of the lost Fist, I no longer had any faith in our journey or in our guides. It seemed only logical that what had begun would continue: that we would walk and die until all boys were gone.

I dug as best I could, though I needed to rest frequently; the activity made me lightheaded and short of breath. I could not cry; there was not the water in my body to spare.

— Achak, come!

It was Kur. I saw him in the distance, waving to me. The group had assembled again and was leaving. I chose not to tell Kur or anyone that William K was dead. He was mine and I did not want them touching him. I did not want them telling me how to bury him or how to cover him or that he should be abandoned where he lay. I had not buried Deng but I would bury William K. I waved back to Kur and told him I would come soon and then returned to my digging.

— Now, Achak!

The hole was meager and I knew it would not cover William K. But it would keep the carrion birds at bay for some time, long enough so that I would be able to walk far enough that I wouldn't have to see them descend. I placed leaves on the bottom of the hole, enough that he had a cushion for his head and there was no dirt visible. I dragged William K into the hole and then placed leaves over his face and hands. I bent his knees and folded his feet behind his knees to save space. Now I needed to rest again, and I sat, feeling small satisfaction in knowing that he would fit inside the hole I had made after all.

— Goodbye, Achak! Kur yelled. I saw that the boys had already left. Kur waited a few moments for me, and then turned.

I did not want to leave William K. I wanted to die with him. I was so tired at that moment, so bone-tired that I felt that I could fall asleep as he did, sleep until my body went cold. But then I thought of my mother and my father, my brothers and sisters, and found myself invoking William K's own mythic visions of Ethiopia. The world was terrible but perhaps I would see them again. It was enough to bring me to my feet again. I stood and chose to continue walking, to walk until I could not walk. I would finish burying William K and then I would follow the boys.

I could not watch the first dirt fall on William K's face so I kicked the first layer with the back of my heel. Once his head was covered, I spread more dirt and rocks until it bore some resemblance to a real grave. When I was finished, I told William K that I was sorry. I was sorry that I had not known how sick he was. That I had not found a way to keep him alive. That I was the last person he saw on this earth. That he could not say goodbye to his mother and father, that only I would know where his body lay. It was a broken world, I knew then, that would allow a boy such as me to bury a boy such as William K.

I walked with the boys but I would not talk and I thought frequently about quitting this walking. Each time I saw the remnants of a home, or the hollow of a tree, I was tempted to stop, to live there and give all this up.

We walked through the night, and in the late morning we were very close to the border with Ethiopia, and the rain was a mistake. There should not have been rain in that part of Sudan at that time but the rain came heavily and for most of the day. We drank from the raindrops and we collected the water in all the vessels we had among us. But just as soon as the rain was a boon, it became our curse. For months we had prayed for moisture, for wet earth between our toes and now all we wanted was dry solid ground. By the time we reached Gumuro, there was virtually no piece of land that had not been drenched, reduced to swamp. But there was one elevated patch of land and Dut led us to it.

— Tanks!

Kur saw them first. We stopped and crouched in the grass. I did not know if the SPLA had their own tanks, so at first I assumed the tanks were those of the government of Sudan and were there to kill us.

— This should be SPLA territory, Dut said, walking toward the village.

Three military trucks stood in the center of the town. The town was burned everywhere but we were happy to see three SPLA soldiers step out from the husk of a bus. Dut stepped carefully.

— Welcome boys! one of the soldiers said to us. He wore fatigues and boots but no shirt. We smiled at him, sure that we would be fed and cared for.

— Now please leave, he said.-You need to get out.

Dut stepped forward, insisting that we were on the same side and that we needed food, to rest on dry land until the rains let up.

— We have nothing, a weary voice said. It was another soldier, wearing only shorts. He looked much like us, malnourished and defeated.

— This is SPLA land? Dut asked.

— I guess it is, the second soldier said.-We hear nothing from them. They've left us out here to die. This is a war run by fools.

The soldiers, eleven of them waiting at Gumuro, were from another lost battalion, this one without a nickname like The Fist. These men had been left in Gumuro without supplies and with no means of communicating with their commanders in Rumbek, or anywhere else. Dut explained that he did not want to add to the woes of the soldiers, but he had more than three hundred boys who could not walk through the night and would like to rest.

— I really don't care one way or another, the second soldier said.-Just don't take anything. We have nothing to take. Do what you want.