Uzodinma Iweala - Beasts of No Nation

So I was just standing outside Dike’s house just watching and looking at how big and nice his house is. It is having nice paint that is always looking fresh, and window that is always looking washed, and also the compound around the house is looking very fine because someone is always cutting the grasses and his father is making sure that nobody is leaving rubbish inside the compound so there is nothing like chicken or goat coming to be eating and messing up the place. I was always wanting to go inside the house, but I am knowing not to because Dike’s mother is not wanting me inside to be messing up the place with my dirty shoe.

But this time I am standing outside of Dike’s house, I am not hearing any of the normal sound like music or singing or crying or shouting coming from inside. I am running around trying all of the door and beating on the iron bar of the window with my hand, but they are locking tight which is not normal because someone was always home at his house. This was making my belly to feel big and too small because Dike is my best friend at this time and I am hoping that something bad is not happening to him or his family. So, I am sitting on the verandah and not knowing what to be doing to solve this problem.

As I was just sitting is when the cook for Dike’s house is coming out from the boys’ quarter in the back and asking me what I am doing this morning and why I am sitting on the verandah if this is not my house. If you had been looking at my face, you would have been seeing so much happiness because I am now believing that nothing is wrong and maybe they are just going somewhere and will be coming back later. I was looking up because of the voice of the cook, but he was looking sad even though he was smiling because his eye is having red color and bending down at the edge like he is crying too much. His clothe are having many wrinkle and stain on them like he is fighting food instead of cooking it and also his hand which he is putting on my head are smelling so much of chicken and other nice meats.

He was telling me that Dike and his mother are leaving the last night to meet his father where they are staying in far-away town. I was just looking. Sometimes when you are hearing what you do not want to be hearing then everything in your body stops to working and all you can be doing is looking because unless you are blind then your eye never stop looking. That is how I am looking because my mouth is not working enough for me to speak and even my leg are hardly working for me to move.

Papa said they should just be leaving before war is coming to mess this place up, he is saying to me and I am just looking, but in my head I was feeling so angry because Dike was not telling me if he was leaving. And at all time, we are telling each other all thing because we are best friend almost like brother. So now I was sitting not knowing what to be doing with my day as there was no school and no Dike. I was feeling like somebody is coming to take everything that I like and just make me to sad. And I am watching the cook, who even though he was still smiling, was also looking sad because he was complaining. Even since I go cook them this food, for all this time. Madam can’t even leave nothing for me to find my own way home. Because I no have money like Madam does it mean I no have family to go for find, he was saying to me.

He was sitting next to me and stretching his leg out in front of us so that I am seeing his leg and how they are full of mosquito bite and other dark spot. It was making me to feel somehow in my head and belly when I am looking at it.

I am saying, sorry sorry oh, but he was not even listening to me because he is too busy talking to himself.

Devil bless Madam. Only bad thing go happen to her from now on, he was saying and shaking all the fly away from his head and feets.

Then because I was still feeling angry in my head, and because the cook is acting like madman, I was thinking to be going home. And as I am walking on the road that is going to my home, I am seeing only the feets of all the other people who were living in or had come back to the village because my anger was weighing my head forward. So because of this I am not greeting the older people as I should be doing, but nobody was saying anything to me because they were all having their own worry and I was just going on my way until the old woman who is always sitting on her chair selling groundnut that nobody is buying because person are fearing that she is some sort of witch was saying, you are not wanting to greet me? These young person not behaving well anymore, just acting like animal. But it is okay. Trouble go follow you.

And I am remembering that woman even now because I am thinking what she is saying is why my life is so bad.

Behind my eye I am seeing how one day, the younger children began to be growing thinner. Their belly are becoming rounder because other part of their body was growing smaller. When they are running around in the village they are having to hold their clothe to their body because even the elastic was not tighting their trouser enough. My sister was looking this way with her neck and her arm and leg becoming less strong. She was becoming slower in everything she was doing. When she was washing the plate, her head was tipping to her chest and her arm was becoming harder for her to move so that too much water would be splashing in every different direction and causing my mother to scream. But really, even though she was screaming on us all the time, I am knowing inside my head, also because I am hearing her praying, that she is fearing and feeling sad that we are so thin.

Then the people started coming back and everything was changing. The first one that were coming are looking okay. You could see from how their eye is looking this way and that they are fearing, like they are waiting for some animal to jump out from the bush. But when they were coming, they are coming in their car which were filling with more of thing they are owning than with people. Electrician is coming with their electrical thing, Tailor with all of their clothe. Banker with all of his money.

And when they started coming on transport and bus, there were so many women and their children, so many new people that every day everyone from the village is getting dressed very early to go and be waiting at the bus stop and car park to be watching for which relative is returning home and also to be praying that everyone is returning safely.

And then they are taking the light, but it is not changing how we are living too much. My mother is never using electricity to cook and my father’s radio is using battery, so we are living like normal. My father was still going into town because his school is still meeting, but then one day, my mother is waking to find me and my father sitting together and looking at how the iron he is heating in the fire is just burning his shirt. The spot was just looking brown and crinkly, making the shirt to look like toilet paper. My father was looking to cry and biting his lip. He is wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and using his rappa to be cleaning his finger.

They are telling me not to be coming anymore. There is no more school, he is saying through his shirt he is holding up to his mouth. I am wanting to cry for him because I am knowing that he is never crying himself. I am wanting to open my mouth and scream so that everybody is waking up and listening to all of the trouble this war is bringing, but my mother and my father are keeping quiet so I am keeping quiet also.

My mother was just standing facing the compound. Her own clothe was wrapped under her armpit just where the hairs is sticking together from the sweat of her sleep. She is not turning around to us, but she is not stepping away or even holding the iron bar on the verandah to be helping her stand up. My father is touching his beard and asking what are we going to do and then he is just looking at my mother’s back.