Uzodinma Iweala - Beasts of No Nation

I am bending down to him and seeing his body which is almost just disappearing beneath his clothe. His face is just looking so terrible because all of his skin is just coming away, and his eye is rolling up into his head and showing yellow and red everywhere like going to toilet and blood. Strika is just looking like one piece of refuses on this road. I am trying to be crying, but no tear is coming out from my eye, and I am trying not to be fearing, but Strika — Strika is my brother and my family and the only person I can be talking to even if he is never talking back until now. I am watching him and then I am looking up because I am not hearing all the other soldier walking on this road. I am not wanting to be left behind. I am not wanting to leave Strika behind. Strika, I am calling his name. Strika, but he is not answering. He is not saying anything. I am saying, Strika? Strika? Strika?

Nothing is the same anymore. I am not being able to be sleeping at all when it is time to sleep. Each time I am lying down my head, some voice inside of me is shouting and starting to make too much trouble so I cannot even be closing my eye. And all of the time this is happening I am fearing that I am not knowing myself anymore. If it is day, I am sitting and staring at the sun like it is the only thing to look at in this world. I am watching how sometime it is bright and other time it is like it is just struggling too much to be shining and I am wanting to ask it why it is even thinking to shine on this world. If I am sun, I will be finding another place to be shining where people are not using my light to be doing terrible terrible thing. At night I am staring at the moon and looking to see if a man is smiling. They are saying man is living there and smiling, but I am never finding anything at all. Nobody is smiling in this place. If it is night, if it is day, nobody is smiling.

So many time I am saying to myself that I will be running away, far far away to where no one can be finding me or seeing me and I will be staying there to the end of time when God is coming to judge the dead and the living. So many time I am telling this to myself, but when I am getting up to go and run away, I am thinking about all the animal and the spirit in the bush, and I am remembering the map which I am seeing in the town and thinking to myself, how can I be running if I am not knowing the way to be taking me away from the war. All I can be doing is sitting here and dreaming about how my leg will carry me far and fast like I am standing and it is the world that is moving to help me. I am dreaming this so many time, but I am waiting for it to happen.

One day we are on the road and then we are just hearing some noise like truck and then we are scattering into the bush, all of us to one side just moving moving quickly into the shadow of all the tree and leaf, just stepping on this branch and that rock running running so that whoever it is will not be seeing us and maybe killing us. I am running running and not looking at where I am putting my feets until KPWAWA, I am just hitting something and my body is falling down KPWOM just like that on the ground. My knee is paining me because I am falling hard and I am looking down to be seeing what is tripping me too easily. I am seeing one dead body just lying on the ground as if he is sleeping. The man is stiff and his whole belly is big like he is fulling of gas. It is so big that it is pressing on the button of his uniform until it is looking like it is going to pop. I am just looking down at this man because something is telling me in my head that this is meaning that we are getting closer to the war.

One soldier is also seeing this dead body and then he is coming and kneeling down next to him and unbuttoning the shirt. There is insect all over. Shiny beetle with silver on its back and little white maggot is just crawling up and down this dead man’s chest. Then the man is turning the body over and taking off the shirt and rolling it up and putting it under his arm. He is going to the leg and removing the boot from it and putting his own slipper on the man’s feets. He is looking at me and smiling and showing his brown teeths and then he is quickly running away to be joining the other soldier. I am watching him running away and I am wanting to be getting up and running after him because I do not want to be staying in this place with one dead body. But my leg is not getting up. I am just thinking thinking and I am asking to myself, why, if I am killing man and woman and beating them until their blood is just covering my whole body, if I am seeing my friend just sitting down by the road and shaking like Devil is possessing him, why am I wanting to cry and vomit if I am only seeing dead body?

And then I am thinking of all the thing I am doing. If they are ordering me KILL, I am killing, SHOOT, I am shooting, ENTER WOMAN, I am entering woman and not even saying anything even if I am not liking it. I am killing everybody, mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, soldier. It is all the same. It is not mattering who it is, just that they are dying. I am thinking thinking. I am thinking that I cannot be doing this anymore.

Then I am getting up from where I am sitting and wiping the mud on my hand onto my short. I am looking at my gun and I am saying to it, I am not needing you anymore. Just stay where you are. My shoulder that it is always sitting on is hurting so much, but I am feeling it jubilating because it is not having to be obeying gun anymore.

Nobody is seeing me as I am getting up and walking through the tree right to the road. I am feeling breezes to my back that is pushing me to walk far far away from here and I am moving quickly quickly onto the road where I am just walking walking walking to where the sun is setting. I am looking at it and wanting to catch it in my hand to be squeezing until the color are dripping out from it forever. That way everywhere it is always dark and nobody is ever having to see any of the terrible thing that is happening in this world.

In heaven, I am thinking it is always morning. It is not mattering when I am waking up, there is always the feeling of warmness from the sunlight that is coming in through the window, and the sound of bird singing outside in the tree, and the sound of the cock shouting KROO KROO, and the smell of smoke coming from where they are making fire. Everything is new. Everything is fresh. That is how I am feeling each time I am waking up in this place.

I am not knowing how long I am staying here, but I am staying here for long time — some week, some month — I am not knowing. All I am knowing is how it is feeling here. From my window, if I am standing on my bed, I can be seeing ocean and hearing how it is just grumbling. And all the time I can be hearing the wind talking when it is blowing through the coconut palm that is standing at tenshun in front of the ocean. Every morning I am getting up and I am going to walk in the sand that is rubbing the skin between my toe until that skin is becoming very red. And every morning I am looking very closely at everything that is here and seeing how crab is running in the sand, and mushroom is growing on the palm-tree truck. Sometimes I am seeing how ant is eating up the coconut that is falling and how new plant is just growing everywhere in this place. When I am seeing this, I am thinking everything is so nice. Everything is so good.

I am not having to worrying about anything from war, like bombing or shelling, or dying. At night we are sleeping inside with fan instead of outside in heat or rain. They are giving us much of food and telling us that we can be sitting down to eating it at the table in room with wall that is painting blue and floor that is just white. They are giving us as much food as we can even be wanting. We are not having to ask if we are wanting more. They are just letting us to take it. Plantain, rice, meats, chicken, fishes — anything we are wanting we are having. Sometimes I am eating even if I am not hungrying too much because I am fearing that the food is finishing and I will not be eating any for the next day.