Uzodinma Iweala - Beasts of No Nation

He is not even saying one more word to Witch. Cloth Seller was rushing off into the bush and after some little time was coming to the bank of great river that was just shining silver with all the sun. He was kneeling down and laughing to himself because he was almost having all of the rich in the world. Then he is finding one rock for his pillow and even though he was too too happy to be sleeping, he was putting his head down and finally, after some time, falling asleep.

This Cloth Seller is never waking up. Instead, he is becoming the market and having everything that anybody can ever be wanting. That is why you can be standing above this town and seeing how it is looking like man lying near the river. And that is why they are saying, you can never be trusting anybody or anything in this town. It is the market. It is having everything, but nothing is ever really how it is looking.

Commandant is telling this to me and I am stopping to open my eye wide wide. I am looking this way and that, just seeing how all of the soldier is agitating and agitating. They are talking about all food and drink and womens they will be finding for this place. As we are moving down the hill into the town, I am seeing market stretching forever and ever swallowing up all of the house and building in this town. Everywhere, the street is full of refuses which are lining the road up and down and smelling like dead body rotting. I am seeing animal leg and head and it is making me to want to vomit even if I am seeing not just dead animal body but dead human body before. This one on the road is making my belly to be turning over. Everywhere we are going, we are seeing refuses, dead animal, and people everywhere. All of the house, if they are looking fine from far away, they are not looking fine anymore close up. They are all looking like old man and woman who is wanting to fall down. Bullet hole is everywhere like bullet is locust and just making their nest in anything around, even concrete. And now, I am seeing how there is small small crater here and there. Sometimes you will just be looking as you are driving — house, house, house, no house, and where there is no more house, the ground is looking like somebody is pressing thumb into it, only the thumb is like giant’s thumb. In these place, everything is sometimes shining with broken glass and sometimes you are still smelling the smokes from the rubbles. I am looking to see if anybody but me is looking at this kind thing, but I am the only one looking and thinking, KAI! this is just too very bad. They are all just thinking about all of the drink and woman that we can be getting in this place. I am too young to be knowing about these thing even if I am knowing from how the men are talking about woman that I am really wanting one to be making my soldier feel good. I am wanting one, but not like how we are getting them in battle.

If this town was big place for all of the trader to be buying and selling this and that, I am not seeing it. The market is empty. The whole place is just empty. Too many of the roofs is just falling and showing bullet hole inside of them making me to thinking, how much person are dying here every day? So so much because they are not enough people to be burying all of the dying people. They are just throwing them into the street like refuses.

We are getting out of all the truck and walking, looking for some good thing. I am not knowing if Commandant is telling everybody about all the thing we should be finding in this place. I am thinking he is not because they should be madding since we are not finding any good thing. We are walking through the market and finding nothing. And when we are walking out of the market, we are still finding nothing.

I am looking left to right and left to right at the compound on each side. There is nothing like what Commandant is saying here even if I am beginning to see that there is more life here than I am first thinking. First, I am seeing bony cat licking dusty old chicken bone on the ground. The bone is so dry that it is even looking like rock, like it should be breaking the cat’s teeths, but the cat is not minding so much because it is at least feeding small small on the thing it is finding. All of us is then going around one corner and I am finally seeing few person walking around. These people are acting like soldier is nothing new or real to them in this place where in other place everybody is fearing us. I am thinking, what if they are not seeing me? What if they are not seeing us? What if we are dying and becoming spirit? What if they are spirit because they are all looking the same? The people are all looking the same, and I am not knowing who is old and who is young or who is man and who is woman. I am thinking to myself, this place is making me to confuse too much with its kind of people.

I am following behind Commandant and Luftenant and Rambo and Strika. All the other soldier is following behind me. We are turning onto one road that is only just wide enough for us to be moving one man behind the next man, one truck behind the next truck. On each side of us there is building with two or three floor and as we are walking, woman is just looking down at us and I am seeing how they are just holding cloth around their breast like that. Commandant and Luftenant and Rambo and everybody is looking round and round and licking their lip like this is the best thing we are ever seeing. All of the building is behind wall that is crumbling, but they are each having gateman or woman just sitting with stick and looking at us, not smiling. I am hearing one man shouting loud, enhen now! Don’t worry. Don’t worry baby! We are coming back for you!

It is some time that we are walking and driving like this until Commandant is saying, enhen, and we are stopping in one place. The place we are coming to is just one house that is having no guard or anybody at the gate. We are opening the rusty gate and they is screaming so loud. Behind the gate is one compound where person is not coming for long long time. I am knowing because the grasses are growing very high. I am wondering why Commandant is bringing us here when suddenly I am seeing gun, big gun, the biggest gun I am ever seeing, so big that they are coming with seat so you can be sitting down when you are shooting them. Next to them is big triangle of bullet, bullet even bigger than my arm. These gun are standing on wheel even bigger than my whole body and it is making me to want to go and touch them. All of these bullet and gun is rusting like nobody is even using them for too long. None of us is seeing such thing before.

Commandant is yelling, TENSHUN and I am seeing that now all of us is standing here and all of us is forming tenshun very quickly. Then, Commandant is saying to us that we should be behaving ourself and looking sharp and resting well well that we will be knowing what is happening in some time. Everybody is listening but nobody is really understanding what he is saying about moving to the front and fighting the enemy in this place or that place because I am never seeing this place or that place for my whole life. Anyway, it is not mattering too much because I am just following order and not having to do anything else. After he is shouting on us like this, he is telling us to dismiss and make our camp.

The rest of the soldier are now going every this way and that way to be seeing what is in this kind of place that we are never seeing before. I am wanting to go especially to all the big gun so I can be seeing if I can sit in them and look at the sky to be shooting, but Commandant is telling me and Strika, follow me. We are going, and he is walking to one house, the only house remaining in this compound.

We are opening the door of this house into room with sunlight that is having many window with all of the glass gone. I am knowing immediately that this place is school because I am seeing bench, and table, and blackboard, only every place is having so many many map with green pin, and yellow pin, and blue pin, and white pin, everywhere. These map is covering every place on the wall and table and also sometimes the floor. My head is spinning this way and that way because I am feeling like I am inside the world and I am looking at how everything must look from the inside instead of outside. It is not map of the world, but map of my country so everywhere is name of place I am hearing sometimes there is fighting or place where I am hearing there is the enemy one day and no enemy the next day, but I am not knowing that everywhere there is war. I am looking at this pin and that pin and thinking, if I am to run away where can I be running to? Where can I be running to? War is everywhere. My heart is beating so fast and I am sweating so much. I am wanting to sit down.