A long way gone

A long way gone

Ishmael Beah

Families who had walked hundreds of miles told how relatives had been killed and their houses burned. Some people felt sorry for them and offered them places to stay, but most of the refugees refused, because they said the war would eventually reach our town. 

Later we learned that the man had tried to escape with his family and the rebels had shot at his vehicle, killing all his family. The only thing that consoled him, for a few seconds at least, was when the woman who had embraced him, and now cried with him, told him that at least he would have the chance to bury them.

Young boys were immediately recruited, and the initials RUF were carved wherever it pleased the rebels, with a hot bayonet. This not only meant that you were scarred for life but that you could never escape from them, because escaping with the carving of the rebels’ initials was asking for death, as soldiers would kill you without any questions and militant civilians would do the same.

Tears formed in my eyes, but I was too hungry to cry.

We were so hungry that it hurt to drink water 

I walked all day and didn’t run into a single person on the path or in the villages that I passed through. There were no footprints to be seen, and the only sounds I heard were those of my breathing and my footsteps.

I sat on the side of the path for a while until my tears were gone, and then moved on.

Sadly, I do not know the names of most of the villages that sheltered and provided me food during those times. No one was there to ask

Everything felt awkwardly brutal. Even the air seemed to want to attack me and break my neck.

 I sat down and tried to think about how I was going to get out of the forest. But that didn’t go well, since I was afraid of thinking

When I was very little, my father used to say, “If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die.” I thought about these words during my journey, and they kept me moving even when I didn’t know where I was going.

As we walked, we examined the rope marks on our wrists and laughed about what had happened to avoid crying.

It was much easier to be sad than to go back and forth between emotions

“Every time people come at us with the intention of killing us, I close my eyes and wait for death. Even though I am still alive, I feel like each time I accept death, part of me dies. Very soon I will completely die and all that will be left is my empty body walking with you."

 I became so sad that the bones in my body started to ache. I went to the river, dove into the water, and sat at the bottom, but my thoughts followed me. 

 I was worried and kept calling out my friends’ names, so that they wouldn’t fall asleep. I was afraid if any did, he was going to leave us

 I sat by myself, covering my face with the palms of my hands to hold back my tears. After a few minutes, my friends stopped crying. We continued on without saying a word to each other. We all knew that we could grieve only for a short while in order to continue staying alive.

 I stood there holding my gun and felt special because I was part of something that took me seriously and I was not running from anyone anymore. 

Sometimes we were asked to leave for war in the middle of a movie

When I was a child, my grandmother told me that the sky speaks to those who look and listen to it. She said, “In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy, and confusion.” That night I wanted the sky to talk to me.

I didn’t know what to do in my happy state. I was still hesitant to let myself let go, because I still believed in the fragility of happiness.

(After I left the center, Mambu went back to the front lines, because his family refused to take him in)

My conception of New York city  came from rap music. I envisioned it as a place where people shot each other on the street and got away with it; no one walked on the streets, rather people drove in their sports cars looking for nightclubs and for violence

It was dark when the plane landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport. It was 4:30 p.m. I asked Dr. Tamba why it was dark so early in this country. “Because it is winter,” he said. “Oh!” I nodded, but the early darkness still didn’t make sense to me. I knew the word “winter” from Shakespeare’s texts and I thought I should look up its meaning again. 

I had seen movies about Christmas, and this white fluffy stuff was in those movies. It must be Christmas here every day, I thought.

I knew I could never forget my past, but I wanted to stop talking about it so that I would be fully present in my new life.

Chances to escape death were better at night, because the red track of the bullets could be seen in the dark.

_____________

“There was a hunter who went into the bush to kill a monkey. He had looked for only a few minutes when he saw a monkey sitting comfortably in the branch of a low tree. The monkey didn’t pay him any attention, not even when his footsteps on the dried leaves rose and fell as he neared. When he was close enough and behind a tree where he could clearly see the monkey, he raised his rifle and aimed. Just when he was about to pull the trigger, the monkey spoke: ‘If you shoot me, your mother will die, and if you don’t, your father will die.’ The monkey resumed its position, chewing its food, and every so often scratched its head or the side of its belly.

“What would you do if you were the hunter?”

This was a story told to young people in my village once a year. The storyteller, usually an elder, would pose this unanswerable question at the end of the story in the presence of the children’s parents. Every child who was present at the gathering was asked to give an answer, but no child ever did, since their mother and father were both present. The storyteller never offered an answer either. During each of these gatherings, when it was my time to respond, I always told the storyteller that I would think it over, which of course was not a good enough answer.

After such gatherings, my peers and I—all the children between the ages of six and twelve—would brainstorm several possible answers that would avoid the death of one of our parents. There was no right answer. If you spared the monkey, someone was going to die, and if you didn’t, someone would also die.

That night we agreed on an answer, but it was immediately rejected. We told Pa Sesay that if any of us was the hunter, we wouldn’t have gone hunting for monkeys. We told him, “There are other animals such as deer to hunt.”

“That is not an acceptable answer,” he said. “We are assuming that you as the hunter had already raised your gun and have to make the decision.” He broke his kola nut in half and smiled before putting a piece in his mouth.

When I was seven I had an answer to this question that made sense to me. I never discussed it with anyone, though, for fear of how my mother would feel. I concluded to myself that if I were the hunter, I would shoot the monkey so that it would no longer have the chance to put other hunters in the same predicament.