Uzodinma Iweala - Beasts of No Nation

Commandant is shouting, WHO IS DOING THIS? And then the Madam is coming and saying, heyeye now! What is happening here oh? She is looking at her girl who is just bleeding and crying, and holding her throat, and coughing, he is just grabbing my neck and beating me, so what am I supposed to be doing? I am only small girl. How can I be stopping him from doing anything? So I am just seeing this knife that he is having in his trouser and I am using it and just chooking him to get him off of me. I am not knowing it is going to be like this. I am watching how Commandant’s face is darking and how the whole room is smelling of fear and sweat. I am thinking that he will be telling us to be grabbing this woman and shooting her, but he is not even opening his mouth. He is just standing there and looking around us and then at Luftenant who is lying shaking shaking on the table. COME ON! Everybody just get up! Get him up! Let us be getting out of here, he is saying and looking at the big Madam who is just holding her girl and using cloth to be wiping the blood from her face. No woman is even saying anything because they are fearing too much. COME ON! MOVE QUICK! Commandant is shouting and then he is going into the back room to be getting his clothe on and all of the other soldier are taking turn to be doing the same. Then we are picking up Luftenant and carrying him out of this building and into the night. The woman at the gate is sleeping like she is not even knowing anything is happening at all inside and nobody is telling her anything because the men are just trying to be keeping their soldier between their leg and their trouser from falling down.

A whole three day we are staying here and Luftenant is not getting better. Every day somebody is washing his stomach with cloth and water and soap, but it is not doing anything and he is just shivering in the night. We are keeping him in the building in our camp because that way the mosquito is not getting to him as easily, and since it is not too many people walking this way and that we are not having to worry that the building will be falling down. Three whole day somebody is watching him on and off and on and off, but he is never speaking anymore and his face is just growing too white.

We are kneeling around his bed, squeezing brown water onto his face and shining kerosene lamp into his eye. And his eye is so wide we are seeing through to the back of his head. All the morning, he is just groaning and moaning like his spirit is fighting to be let free from his body and all the evening, he is shaking and shivering like it is so cold even though the night is so hot that we are all sweating. We are just watching him like this for all this time and everybody is not saying anything.

It is taking Luftenant three whole day to be dying, and then he is dying when the moon is full and the night is shining like silver. We are dumping his body in the gutter — me, Strika, Commandant, and Rambo — but before that, Rambo is just taking his clothe because Commandant is saying that Rambo is new Luftenant. Then we are leaving his body for the cat and dog and maggot and worm to eat. We are leaving him and I am thinking that he is getting his wish not to be fighting anymore, and I am fearing because I am seeing that the only way not to be fighting is to die. I am not wanting to die.

It is night. It is day. It is light. It is dark. It is too hot. It is too cold. It is raining. It is too much sunshine. It is too dry. It is too wet. But all the time we are fighting. No matter what, we are always fighting. All the time bullet is just eating everything, leaf, tree, ground, person — eating them — just making person to bleed everywhere and there is so much blood flooding all over the bush. The bleeding is making people to be screaming and shouting all the time, shouting to father and to mother, shouting to God or to Devil, shouting one language that nobody is really knowing at all. Sometimes I am covering my ear so I am not hearing bullet and shouting, and sometimes I am shouting and screaming also so I am not hearing anything but my own voice. Sometimes I am wanting to cry very loud, but nobody is crying in this place. If I am crying, they will be looking at me because soldier is not supposed to be crying.

All the time, we are sick and going to toilet, shitting water. We are hungry too and living off anything we can find. Lizard, we are eating them. Insect, we are eating them or even better, if we are finding them, we are eating rat and every other kind of bush animal. Sometimes we are eating this leaf or that leaf, but leaf is what is always making my belly to turn so I am not eating it so much. Meat is also making my stomach to turn because we are not able to use too much fire to cook it because if we are using too much fire, then the enemy will be seeing us and shooting us dead from where they are hiding. I am always hungry, so hungry that I am always dreaming of chicken and how I will be eating it, how I will be crunching its beak and eating even the feather. I am so hungry I can be eating wood if it is making me to hungry less, but it is only hurting my belly and making me to vomit and shit. I am so hungry I can even be eating my skin small by small if it is not making me to bleed to death. I am so hungry that I am wanting to die, but if I am dying, then I will be dead.

But there is so much bombing and bombing and shelling and shelling and sending helicopter to come and shine light on us and kill us. All the time, the ground is shaking and the tree is shaking and the air is smelling of smoke or the air is beating in your ear BOTU BOTU BOTU and you are not even having one second to be thinking anything. So much time pass us now. I am not seeing road or village or woman or children for too long. I am only seeing war, one evil spirit sitting in the bush just having too much happiness because all the time he is eating what he wants to eat — us — and seeing what he is wanting to see — killing — so he is just laughing GBWEM! GBWEM! GBWEM!

All of our truck is gone, just bombed away, so we are having to walk everywhere now, and there is not so many of us anymore. People are just dying like this every day. One boy named Hope is dying, just burning up in the fire of bomb that is hitting truck. One man we are calling Dagger is dying because he is stepping on mine and it is just chewing his whole body to many piece like termite is chewing wood. And Griot is dying from malaria making him to shaking shaking, and Preacher is dying holding his Bible in one hand and his leg in the other screaming to God, come take me come take me. People are dying just like that every day. Everyone I am knowing is dying. And even all the soldier whose name I am not knowing is dying. In the middle of this war, I am even missing some of them. I am even missing some of them.

Commandant is helping some people to be dying. Already he is shooting three people he is calling traitor, including Driver who is trying to run away because he is having no more truck to be driving. After Commandant is shooting Driver, he is laughing laughing and talking to himself and not even listening to anyone. Not even Rambo who is new Luftenant. When I am seeing all of this, all of this bombing bombing, killing killing, and dying dying, I am thinking to myself that now, as we are in this bush, only ant is still making and living. I am wishing I am ant.

Now we are just living underground in trench that we are digging in the red mud and just living inside it like one kind of snake or rat. When it is dry, we are happying because there is no water anywhere and we can just be fighting war. When it is raining, ah! It is so terrible. So terrible. It is like living in gutter. Sometimes water is coming up to my belly and I am just looking at my reflection staring at me everywhere I am going. We are staying in this place for too long. I am tired and hungry and I am wanting to leave.