So many door from this room. They are leading down hallway. The smell of shit and piss is all around us. At the end of the hall, soldier is breaking down door, KPWAMA, KPWAMA, they are kicking and knocking it with machete until the wood is breaking.
In the room, I am looking up and seeing — sky. There is nothing to be keeping out the rain or God from watching what it is we are doing. The sun is coming loose like someone is cutting it and it is bleeding red and yellow and purple and blue above us. In the corner, there is desk being eaten by termite and in the other corner is bed smelling like chicken and goat. I am wanting to kill. We are all wanting to kill.
Under the bed there is woman and her daughter just hiding. She is looking at us and worrying worrying so much it is looking like somebody is cutting her face with knife. She is smelling like goat and we are wanting to kill her so we are dragging her out, all of us soldier, but she is holding her daughter. They are holding each other and shaking like they are having fever. They are so thin more than us and the skin is hanging down like elephant skin so I am knowing she is fat before this war is coming and making rich and fat like poor and thin. The girl is so shrinking, she is almost like unborn baby — I am knowing because I have been taking them from their mother’s belly to be seeing who is girl and who is boy. Are you my mother, I am saying. Are you my sister? But they are only screaming like Devil is coming for them. I am not Devil. I am not bad boy. I am not bad boy. Devil is not blessing me and I am not going to hell. But still I am thinking maybe Devil born me and that is why I am doing all of this.
But I am standing outside myself and I am watching it all happening. I am standing outside of myself. I am grabbing the woman and her daughter. They are not my mother and my sister. I am telling them, it is enough. This is the end.
And now the woman is praying to God, please take my daughter safely to heaven. Forgive her sin. You are saying blessed is the children and who is living in You. They are never seeing death. Am I wronging You? I am trying to live for You. Please Lord I am begging to You. I am laughing laughing because God is forgetting everybody in this country.
Strika is pulling down his short and showing that he is man to this woman while I am holding her one leg and another soldier is holding the other. She is screaming, DEVIL BLESS YOU! DEVIL BORN YOU! But it is not Devil that is borning me. I am having father and mother and I am coming from them.
She is still screaming screaming, AYIIIEEE, like it is the creation of my village when long ago great warrior and his army are just fighting fighting enemy in the bush near my village. They are fighting for many day, but nobody is winning until finally they are growing tired and saying, let us stop. Let us stop. So they are stopping and feasting together, enemy with enemy, and rejoicing well well until they are going to sleep. But in the night enemy is attacking warrior and wounding him until he is running away into the bush. It is at this time that he is falling down by this river and almost dying, but the goddess of the river is coming to help him and make him better. She was the most beautiful thing to be seeing in the whole world so when the warrior is waking up to see her he is saying Kai! and falling in love right there. Then, because he is loosing from his own village he is saying, well I will just marry this beautiful woman so that we can be having some children which is exactly what he is doing at the time. When the woman is having her baby, she is having twin boy, very strong because of their father being warrior and their mother being goddess. Also, because of their mother being goddess, they could be changing from one animal to the other. So sometimes they are changing into monkey to be climbing into the tree and getting the best fruit and sometimes they are changing to bird to be seeing the whole world. And they are loving each other so much until one day they are changing into different animal. One is becoming ox to be going to the river to drink because he is thirsty and the other is becoming leopard so that he can be hunting in the bush. Leopard was hunting hunting, but he is not finding anything to be killing so he is coming back to find his mother and his father. When he is coming to the river, he is seeing this ox just standing there drinking and he is saying, oho I will be killing this thing and bringing food back for my family to be eating. He is coming to Ox very quietly until he is so close he is biting Ox on the neck, but at the same time Ox is fighting him and chooking him in the heart with his two big horn. Since they are wounding, they are changing back into human being and seeing that they are brother and not enemy so they are crying crying until they are dying right there and their blood is just running into the river and turning it to brown. Their mother and their father are coming back and finding them dead just like that and the mother is screaming AYIIIEEE and crying and saying that she is needing to get away from this place where her children are dead because it is abomination. So, they are moving up the hill to where the square of the village is now and having more children, but every year, goddess and warrior are coming back to this river with all of the rest of their children to be visiting the place where their son is dying.
AYIIIEEE! woman is just looking at me and screaming. And I am shouting, SHUTUP! SHUTUP! SHUTUP! This woman is enemy. She is killing my family and burning my house and stealing my food and making my family to scatter. And this girl is enemy. She is killing my father and making me to run from my home. I am pulling the girl, but she is not letting go of her mother’s arm. She is holding holding her so the two of them are like one animal. I am with Strika and we are pulling the girl, pulling until her leg is cracking, but she is not letting go. She is screaming and I am seeing her breath is coming out from her mouth, just coming out and coming out. Then Strika is taking his knife high above his head and chopping and everybody is coming apart.
The girl is having no more hand.
She is not screaming or shouting or making any noise. She is just having no more hand. Commandant is saying that she is enemy, she is stealing our food, and killing my family because she is enemy. I am jumping on her chest KPWUD KPWUD and I am jumping on her head, KPWUD, until it is only blood that is coming out of her mouth.
You are not my mother, I am saying to the girl’s mother and then I am raising my knife high above my head. I am liking the sound of knife chopping KPWUDA KPWUDA on her head and how the blood is just splashing on my hand and my face and my feets. I am chopping and chopping and chopping until I am looking up and it is dark.
Another night.
~ ~ ~
Time is passing. Time is not passing. Day is changing to night. Night is changing to day. How can I know what is happening? It is like one day everything is somehow okay even if we are fighting war, but the next day we are killing killing and looting from everybody. How can I know what is happening to me? How can I know?
Everything is inside out like my shirt I am wearing. Sometimes I am seeing thing in front of me when we are walking or drilling or killing, and sometimes I am seeing thing that I am knowing is coming from before the war, but I am seeing it like they are coming right now. If person is dancing or singing in the camp just to be doing something to not be thinking about war, then I am closing my eye and seeing how when I am in my village we are loving so much to dance. We are dancing too because it is how we are learning to become men. Young person is having to spend one whole year learning all the dance that is turning you to man, and if you are not learning, then nobody is thinking that you are man.
If I am seeing celebration in my village it is because I am closing my eye and seeing how everybody is coming to the village square and the men are standing to one side while the womens and childrens and boy who are not dancing are standing on the other. It is starting in the morning when the air is still cool and it is fulling of the smoke from everybody’s morning fire. I am remembering how the village square is always being swept clean by all the dancer and how the broom is making line in the sand from the chief ’s house all the way to the gray wall of the church.