Uzodinma Iweala - Beasts of No Nation

All of this is really happening to me? It is all happening like it is happening again and I cannot even be believing it.

I am opening my eye and seeing how everywhere is dark in some place and orange with fire and lamp in other place. I am seeing men lying everywhere with gun lying next to them. My heart is beating beating, so fast. I am feeling thirsty.

We are at the camp and I am watching how the sun is just dropping down behind the hill like it is not wanting to be seeing us anymore. All the color is leaking out of it and looking like flame from hell all over, eating up the top of all the tree, making all the leaf bright, bright. Suddenly it is night. The earth is changing from bright orange to black and I am seeing steam rising up from some darkness, just chasing the sun away.

At this time, I am thinking all the building of this camp we are living in is not just the terrible place that we are to be sleeping but are looking almost like simple village house made of palm wood and thatch. I am looking and thinking that if we are not having war, then this place would be too nice to be looking at. All the palm tree, so kind to us, giving us oil and wine, is stretching high up to where they are brushing the sky clear of cloud after it is raining. And when the night is coming, I am thinking the bird and animal should just be singing back and forward to each other before they are going to be sleeping.

But we are coming here and bringing the war. When we are coming here, we are stripping all the palm tree to build our shelter and because there is no more place to rest all the bird is flying away. The night is now too quiet because we are so hungry that we are eating everything that is making noise. And those thing that we are not catching stopped to making noise so they are not getting eaten. Behind this camp, there is also stream that was just shining in the clear sunshine and smelling so fresh with life that you are even seeing how the fishes is enjoying and the frog and their baby is acting like they are in heaven, but we are emptying our rubbish and using this place for washing ourself and going to toilet so it is becoming terrible to look at.

I am just watching as they are unloading all the thing that we are looting from different village off all the truck. I am watching as the sun is leaving small by small from the sky and how all the color is making truck driver’s skin to be shining when they are going into the engine to make sure that they are running well well for the next day. And in the small small light, they are coming out just shining with oil even if it is getting dark. Still if I am looking too hard they are beginning to disappear like ghost. All I am seeing is their eye blinking like all the firefly that are one time living in this area. They are walking to the stream to wash off and their singing is making me to feel somehow at ease. I am stretching my leg out in front of me and placing my hand behind my head.

Every night they are making fire and soldier is sitting down and talking. After some time I am getting up to go and sit with them around the fire. It is warm and it is making me to feel a little bit okay and I am happying to be back at the camp because it is nice here — at least nicer than having to be in place with all of its screaming people that you are killing all the time. And here, I am relaxing because there is no enemy that I have to be watching out for if they are wanting to kill me. But I am sitting here listening to the other men talking and breathing and breathing and somehow looking alive. When it is so, we are really all just waiting to die, I am still sadding too much. I am not liking to be sad because being sad is what happens to you before you are becoming mad. And if you are becoming mad, then it is meaning that you are not going to be fighting. So I cannot be sad because if I cannot be fighting, then either I will die, or Commandant will be killing me. If I am dead, then I will not be able to be finding my mother and my sister when this war is finishing. I am thinking to myself of all the thing that I will do when the war is over and I am alive. And I am thinking that when it is over, I can be going to university to study. I think I am wanting to be Engineer because I like how mechanic is always doing thing to the truck and I like to be watching even though there is no chance for me to try what they are doing. And sometimes I am thinking that I want to be Doctor because then I will be able to be helping people instead of killing them and then maybe I will be forgiven for all my sin. I am thinking that if I am both Doctor or Engineer, these people are the one who are the big men. I know because the richest man in our village — even though he was old and died before the war is coming — he was Doctor and he was always having little monies to be giving out to people who are asking him. He was also big man with fat stomach because he was having lots of monies to be eating a lot of thing here and there. So also when I am big man, I know that I can be reading my book without anyone troubling me like they used to be troubling me before and nobody will be able to say anything to me. I will be saying all the thing to person, telling them to do this and do that and making sure that they bow their head and only look at the ground when they come to greet me, also making sure that they bring me my water when I want it or that they are bringing me my food when I want it. And I will be fat because big men are always fat; they are always having so much to eat. And I will be eating all the food until my stomach is full and then I will be eating even more until my stomach is so full that I will not be able to see my feets even if I am stretching my neck all the way forward. I think that this will be fine because if I am ever not able to eat for long period of time, then at least I will not be turning into ghost like we are turning into because of war.

Then I will go back to church. I will go back to church to ask God for forgiveness every day. And I will go back to church and sit on the bench under the fan that one day will just be falling and crushing me and I will not even be minding the splinter that is chooking into my leg because I will be paying attention to Jesus. I won’t even be moving my eye from the statue of Jesus and instead I will just be sitting there watching Him and watching Him until one day He will be telling me that it is okay.

I am smelling food that they are cooking that is making me so hungry. What should I do? When we are killing people, their blood is getting all over the food we are stealing from them. It is getting all over their animal and vegetable. We are finding farmer and his goat on the road and we are killing him. Now I am not knowing what is farmer and what is goat. And the yam, they are having blood on them. And the rice, they are having blood on them. All the other soldier are saying that since they are boiling it that nothing will be happening to us, but I am not thinking you can be boiling away the blood of farmer even if you are boiling rice or yam forever. But I am hungry and I am eating vegetable and fruit and rice and meats and I am not thinking anymore. I am only eating. When we are eating, we are not speaking. We are so hungry and just eating and eating until we are so full all we can be doing is sleeping sleeping.

We are going to be sleeping in our four building that we are making them of stick and palm thatch. They are not even having any wall, just roof to keep the rain from beating us, so all of the insect is coming up to us in the night. There is not enough room for all of us under these building, so some soldier is sleeping outside where the rain can be falling on them. No animal is coming up to eat anybody because they are all gone away. They are so afraid of us that they are not wanting to come back.