Uzodinma Iweala - Beasts of No Nation

Agu, he is saying. But he is so tired his word is dragging instead of jumping off of his tongue. Do you want to know something? Let me tell you something.

I am not wanting to know anything he is telling me. I am not wanting to be hearing his voice even if it is only sounding like dull knife because he is so tired. I am not wanting to hear him breathing or to be smelling the anger or worry in his breath. All of this is making me to want to take the fire from outside and be swallowing it so that it is burning out my inside and making me empty shell. But I am saying Sah! Yes Sah! He is putting his hand on the back of my head and I am swallowing hard. The spit is growing in my mouth and I am drooling on the pillow. He is looking at my back, and I am feeling his eye all up and down my naked body. I can feel his stare crawling on my skin like many ant that is moving slowly slowly on the land and eating the world to many piece in one million tiny bite. I am turning and looking at him from the corner of my eye. Even though the room is not having too much light, I am seeing his eye with the red and it is making me to think he is demon. The light is making his nose to sharp more and his lip to shine too much with saliva from his tongue so he is just looking like he is eating very good meal.

Agu. I am not bad man, he is saying softly and putting his hand on my back.

My tear begin to running down my face and are mixing with my spit in the pillow. I want to be telling him that I cannot be fighting anymore, that my mind is becoming rotten like the inside of fruit. But I am knowing that if I am saying anything like this, he will be slapping me the way he is always slapping all the other soldier — until their bloody teeths is cutting his hand. I am biting into the pillow so I will not be making any noise. I am feeling the wooden splinter digging into the top of my mouth and tongue. I am wanting to leave.

Commandant is dragging his finger down the back of my neck and letting them dance and drum on the bump of my back. They are feeling like many drop of hot hot boiling water. Then he is closing his hand around my own hand and moving them away from my buttom.

Don’t worry, he is saying. It will be okay.

We are leaving this place and before we are leaving we are tearing it all down. Tearing it all down. The morning is cool and it feels nice on my skin. And if there is no war and we are normal person and not soldier, we are jubilating and saying, how nice the morning feels. How nice it is before the sun is coming out from all the cloud. We are all waking up and walking around stretching our arm and leg, and we are all hungry. Nobody is eating. Everyone here is doing zero zero one. I am not knowing what this is meaning before I am soldier, but now I am knowing that it means no breakfast, no lunch, only dinner. If you are wanting to eat when it is not dinner, then you are having to keep your dinner from before to be eating the next day. Or if we raiding or finding farm, then we can be eating.

We are all knowing what to do when it is time to be leaving. Food is going in one truck. Kerosene and fuel is going in another truck, and everybody is making sure he is having his own gun or knife because if you are losing this gun or knife, then Commandant will be losing you.

So this is what we are doing, loading this and loading that until finally we are pulling all of the building into one pile of palm and wood and so before we are leaving the camp, we can be burning it all up. Burning it all up. Commandant is saying, quick. Tear it down. Make the pile. We are not wanting to leave any nice place for Government to be using if they are coming this side. Soldier is getting kerosene ready from one jerry can and pouring it all over all the palm that is just lying there like dead thing, and then Commandant is coming to me with match and saying to me, you should be lighting the fire. Commandant is making it big honor to be lighting the fire and I am knowing that he is giving it to me only because I am saluting his soldier for him. I am liking very much to be setting fire, but it is still not making me like what he is doing to me last night. Nothing he is giving me is ever making me to like that, but I am not saying it or he will be beating me.

I am taking the match from Commandant and striking them well well until I am hearing SHHKA and seeing the fire on the end of the matchstick. The smell is coming into my nose and making me to want to sneeze. I am holding the match, holding the match until the fire is just eating up the stick and then I am throwing it like that into the pile. The whole place is bursting into big flame but not GBWEM! like if they are bombing or shelling. It is still very hot and still rising up quick quick until everything is burning burning. The flame is having the color of sunset, just orange everywhere, but everything it is touching it is only making them black so quick that there is nothing nice to be looking at. I am not liking the way this orange is just making black smoke to be flying everywhere and if you are looking through it, it is making everything to move back and forward even if it is standing still.

We are all watching for some while and drinking in the smell of the smoke rising up up to the sky. I am watching all the other soldier around us and how everyone is staring at the fire growing bigger and bigger until it is becoming to be very hot and we were also not wanting to be waiting around because the smoke is now beginning to get into our chest and making us to cough and getting into our eye and making us to cry.

Then we are lining up and I am next to Strika waiting to take my place in the truck and watching all the other soldier load up quick quick until the weight is making all the truck to groaning like wounded beast. We are waiting, but before we are getting in, Commandant is coming over and we are saluting him. He is saying to us, no. No. You two are bodyguarding me today. You will be riding in my own car with me.

There are so many of us to be sitting on one seat of Commandant’s truck, but we are all squeezing in. Driver is sitting behind the wheel. I am sitting next to driver, Strika is sitting next to me, and Commandant is sitting next to the other door. Inside of Commandant’s truck is so nice past anything that all the other soldier are even having. His seat is not made of wood but cushion so it is feeling very nice on your buttom when you are sitting on it. He is having button to be bringing down the window and you can even be turning on the radio when you are driving so we can be listening to music. Driver is turning it on and we are all moving our head up and down like lizard and tapping our finger to the song.

But I am looking out the window too and seeing how thing is just flashing by so fast, WHOOSH there is tree, WHOOSH there is house, WHOOSH there is person, and I am thinking that everything is moving so fast, I will be old man before the war is over. I am knowing I am no more child so if this war is ending I cannot be going back to doing child thing. No. I will be going back to be teachering or farming, or Doctor or Engineer, and I will be finding my mother and my sister, but not my father because he is dying in this war.

My thinking is like the road, going on and on, and on and on, until it is taking me so far far away from this place. Sometimes I am thinking of my life far far ahead and sometimes I am thinking of all the life I am leaving behind. And then I am looking at Commandant and Strika and I am also thinking to myself that both of them are looking so peaceful and beautiful like how we are looking before the war, like how we are being after the war, but not like now. Now we just be looking like animal.

Driving driving and walking walking and driving driving and walking walking and fighting and soldiering and running from road into bush and bush onto road. That is all we are doing. That is the only thing we can be doing until one day we are coming to one town. Commandant is calling it his town because he is living here as soldier sometimes before this war is starting. I am seeing sign that is saying, Welcome to the Town of Abundant Resources. I can read so I am knowing what welcome is meaning. I am knowing what town is meaning. And I am knowing what is abundant resources. But still I am wanting to know what this sign is meaning for us. I am wanting to ask somebody but I am not saying anything. No word is coming out of my mouth.