Uzodinma Iweala - Beasts of No Nation

There is so much mist that is wrapping around people like extra shirt. No shooting still for today and I am wanting to think, HEYA! WAR IS OVER! WAR IS OVER! but then I am thinking, is it really over? This whiteness that is hanging around all of us and making it hard to breathing is making me to feel like somebody is wanting to fly into my chest and close my nose with cotton. My feets are staying in the water all night so I am feeling they are curling at the end like the feets of rat. Some of the men are sleeping and hugging themself against the wall of the trench with their shirt on their head to be protecting them from the rain. They are shivering because there is cool wind that is coming through the whole place. It is hard not to be stepping on them because they are just appearing quickly quickly from the mist. One second everything is all white around me and then I am kicking foot that is just appearing and the man is screaming in his sleep but not waking up. I am learning to see where the heat from body is making it less thick so I am walking carefully when I am seeing this. Some of the men are awake because they are on guard all night and I am moving gegerly gegerly to not be disturbing them.

Strika is standing outside Commandant’s HQ which is only just the trench, but with one blue cloth covering with leaf so he is not getting as wet as the rest of us. Strika is holding gun that is so heavy in his hand it is pulling the right side of his body to the ground. We are looking at each other for long time and then I am bringing my hand to be beating away the mist. I am not liking Strika’s eye because they are too red and his teeths because they are too brown and his head because it is big, but he is my friend even if he is looking ugly. He is giving me the gun and then walking past me.

I am stepping inside HQ to see Commandant sleeping on his crate with his back against the mud wall and his boot stretching into the muddy water. Cigarette and ash is floating in the water around him and the whole room is smelling of smoke. I am taking deep breath to be drinking it all in because it is somehow making my body to full so I am not feeling as hungry.

His beard is growing so thick now that it is almost covering his whole chin and cheek. When he is breathing out, the hairs is shaking with his breath. Commandant is looking like wild man and behaving like madman. I am thinking of him running naked through the bush with only his big beard reaching down to his feets and it is making me want to laugh, but I am too hungry. Laughing is making my belly to hurt too much. Commandant is fearing the other soldier so much now that he is saying it is always good to be sleeping with one eye open. That is why either Strika or myself is always standing outside when he is sleeping. I am his one eye. Strika is his other.

Come on. Out of my way, Rambo’s head is following his voice out of the mist while his spit is spraying onto my face. He is stepping from the whiteness to stand right in front of me. I am seeing him with his gun hanging on his shoulder. My belly is tighting and my neck is becoming stiff. I am holding the gun Strika is giving to me.

Commandant is sleeping, I am saying to Rambo. Well wake him up, he is saying back. I am stepping in front of him and kicking water in his boot. He is tiring so don’t be bothering him, I am saying. My leg is shaking shaking and my feets are too too cold. Out of my way, Rambo is saying again and stepping right so I am holding my gun tighter and stepping in front of him. His boot is squishing the mud. No he is resting, I am saying.

Rambo is bending down so I am seeing his face and his beard that is growing thick and black. Listen you small boy. Get out of the way. We are not playing game. I am not remembering the last time I am playing game.

What is all of this noise, Commandant is saying. Sah it is me, Rambo is answering. Idiot can’t you see I am sleeping. Enhen now Sah I can see. Then shutup and go back to your post. No Sah I am not doing that anymore Sah. And why not? Because we are leaving Sah. WHO AND WHO IS LEAVING? Commandant is shouting and then I am hearing him laughing quietly to himself from the shadow of his HQ.

In front of me, Rambo is swallowing so hard that I am feeling it in my own throat. And from the back of the HQ, Commandant’s laughing is growing louder and louder until I am feeling him standing right behind me. He is pushing me aside with his arm and I am hitting rock in the wall. My shoulder is beginning to hurt. Who is leaving. Idiot. Go back to your post. You are leaving when I say leave. Understood? No Sah, never, Rambo is saying. We are going, Rambo is saying. I no want trouble oh, he is saying. Who is this we enh, Commandant is saying and laughing. You are the only one stupid enough — I AM GOING, one voice is shouting. I AM GOING TOO. AND ME, AND ME, AND ME, the voice keep yelling from the mist softer and softer until the farthest person is shouting small small, saying and me. Rambo is sliding his finger to the trigger of his gun and I am sliding my finger to my own trigger because I am fearing what Commandant will be doing to me if I am not protecting him, but then I am remembering how much he is hurting me when he is chooking me and I am saying never. Never will I be feeling sorry for him. Never will I be helping him. I am lowering my gun.

See! We are going, Rambo is shouting to Commandant. Then he is just taking his gun and shooting him. Only one shot just right in the chest and I am seeing Commandant looking down to his chest with his whole mouth open like he is screaming. But no sound is coming out. He is not saying anything. And then his body is just falling and making the water that is running down the trench red like that.

Rambo is stopping his shaking and is puffing out his chest. Rambo is looking at me and I am looking at him. He is looking at me for long time and then he is just turning and climbing up wall and I am hearing his boot crunching the leaf near my head. Then I am looking up and hearing how all of the soldier is climbing up out of the trench and I am hearing Rambo shouting, COME ON! COME ON QUICK QUICK QUICK! MOVE FAST OH! MOVE WITH SPEED! HOME HOME! WE ARE GOING HOME! I am looking at Commandant and then I am climbing out of the trench. I am tired and hungry and I am wanting to go home.

Commandant is dead. It was so easy to be killing him. Why we are not doing it before I am not knowing, but I am not wanting to think about that right now. I am tiring too much.

We are walking the whole night on this road, left right, left right, left right, left right, and carrying everything we are having, gun, knife, clothe, but that is it because we are not having anything else. How can we be having anything else if we are staying in the bush for so long? I am so tired that it is hard for me to move my leg, but I am following Rambo. So are all the other, just following following even if Rambo is not having map like Commandant. No one person is even marching, left right, left right, like soldier and instead they are just walking almost right almost left, dragging this foot and that foot on the ground. My slipper is sticking to my feets because they are so worn down and almost spoiling, and my feets are paining me because my skin is just rotting and peeling away from too much time standing in the water in the trench. I am feeling like I am always walking on nail and I am wanting to stop to be resting, but nobody is stopping. Strika is not stopping even if his face is cracking everywhere and all his body is just shaking shaking the whole time so I am just moving on almost left almost right, and saying that if he is doing it, then I am also doing it. Sometimes I am falling to the back and then I am getting to fear very much because the man fronting me is like shadow, not person, so I am running to the front which is making my leg to pain even more. I am wishing that I am having boot or canvas shoe so my feets is not hurting. Or even I am wanting to be having car to be driving away so when we are walking I am always hearing car in my head and it is making me to look from side to side for car that is coming to rescue me and take me home. No car. I am thinking I am car and trying to make my feets to move like wheel that is never stopping, but I cannot. I am hungry and I want to stop and rest and eat.