He was screaming for his mum, for his dad, for all and everyone. His leg was in bloody shreds and hanging by a thread. It was a sorry sight. He was sweating huge drops of sweat and bawling, ‘I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die like a fly!’ A kid like that, giving up the ghost like that, it’s not a pretty sight. We made a makeshift stretcher.
Kik was carried back to the village on the makeshift stretcher. One of the soldiers had once been a nurse. The nurse thought Kik should be amputated immediately, at once. Back in the village, we laid Kik on the floor of one of the huts. It took three guys to hold him down. He screamed, he struggled, he called for his maman, but the nurse cut off his leg anyway, right at the knee. Right at the knee. He threw the leg to a passing dog. We propped Kik up against the wall of the hut.
Then we started searching all the huts. One by one. Thoroughly. The villagers had run away as soon as they heard the machine-gun bullets we were firing. We were hungry and we needed something to eat. We found chickens. We chased them and caught them and wrung their necks and then we roasted them. There were kid goats wandering around too. We slaughtered them and roasted them too. We took anything worth eating. Allah never leaves empty a mouth he has created.
We searched every nook and cranny. We thought there was nobody there, absolutely nobody, so we were surprised to find two cute kids whose mother hadn’t been able to take them with her in her frantic escape (‘frantic’ means ‘violent and desperate’, according to my
Larousse
). She just abandoned them, and the two kids had hidden under some branches in a pen.
Among the child-soldiers there was a girl named Fati. Like all the girl soldiers, Fati was really cruel. Like all the girl soldiers, Fati smoked too much hash and was always fucked up. Fati dragged the two kids out of their hidey-hole under the branches and ordered them to show us where the villagers hid their food. The kids didn’t understand a word, not one word. They were too little. It was twins and they were only about six years old. They were scared. They didn’t understand what was going on. Fati decided to scare them, decided to fire her machine-gun into the air but, on account of she was totally fucked up on hash, she completely machine-gunned the kids with her AK-47, leaving one of them dead and the other one wounded. The bullets had ripped his whole arm off. Fati broke down and cried because you’re notsupposed to hurt twins, especially little twins. The
gnamas
of twins, especially when they’re still kids, are terrifying. (‘
Gnamas
’ are the shadows, the avenging spirits of the dead.)
Gnamas
like that never forgive. It was sad, really sad. Fati would be forever hunted by
gnamas
, the
gnamas
of little twins, and all because of the fucked-up tribal wars in Liberia. She was finished; she was going to die a terrible death.
Yacouba told Fati that the grigris would not protect her any more on account of the little twins’
gnamas
.
Fati cried, she cried her heart out, she howled like a spoiled brat; she wanted proper grigris. But even though she cried, Fati was done for; she had no grigris to protect her. That’s how it goes.
After accidentally going and murdering two innocent kids, we couldn’t stay in the village, we had to get out of there fast, get out
gnona-gnona
(according to the
Glossary, ‘gnona-gnona
’ means ‘on the double’). We left Kik leaning against the wall of a hut and ran off, foot to the road,
gnona-gnona
.
We left Kik to the mercy of humans in the village the way we left Sarah to the mercy of the animals and the insects. Which of them was better off? Definitely not Kik. That’s wars for you. Animals have more mercy for the wounded than humans.
OK, since we knew that Kik was going to die, that he was as good as dead, we had to do his funeral oration. I’d like to tell it because Kik was a nice kid and his passage wasn’t long. (‘Passage’ is
Kik was carried back to the village on the makeshift stretcher. One of the soldiers had once been a nurse. The nurse thought Kik should be amputated immediately, at once. Back in the village, we laid Kik on the floor of one of the huts. It took three guys to hold him down. He screamed, he struggled, he called for his maman, but the nurse cut off his leg anyway, right at the knee. Right at the knee. He threw the leg to a passing dog. We propped Kik up against the wall of the hut.
Then we started searching all the huts. One by one. Thoroughly. The villagers had run away as soon as they heard the machine-gun bullets we were firing. We were hungry and we needed something to eat. We found chickens. We chased them and caught them and wrung their necks and then we roasted them. There were kid goats wandering around too. We slaughtered them and roasted them too. We took anything worth eating. Allah never leaves empty a mouth he has created.
We searched every nook and cranny. We thought there was nobody there, absolutely nobody, so we were surprised to find two cute kids whose mother hadn’t been able to take them with her in her frantic escape (‘frantic’ means ‘violent and desperate’, according to my
Larousse
). She just abandoned them, and the two kids had hidden under some branches in a pen.
Among the child-soldiers there was a girl named Fati. Like all the girl soldiers, Fati was really cruel. Like all the girl soldiers, Fati smoked too much hash and was always fucked up. Fati dragged the two kids out of their hidey-hole under the branches and ordered them to show us where the villagers hid their food. The kids didn’t understand a word, not one word. They were too little. It was twins and they were only about six years old. They were scared. They didn’t understand what was going on. Fati decided to scare them, decided to fire her machine-gun into the air but, on account of she was totally fucked up on hash, she completely machine-gunned the kids with her AK-47, leaving one of them dead and the other one wounded. The bullets had ripped his whole arm off. Fati broke down and cried because you’re notsupposed to hurt twins, especially little twins. The
gnamas
of twins, especially when they’re still kids, are terrifying. (‘
Gnamas
’ are the shadows, the avenging spirits of the dead.)
Gnamas
like that never forgive. It was sad, really sad. Fati would be forever hunted by
gnamas
, the
gnamas
of little twins, and all because of the fucked-up tribal wars in Liberia. She was finished; she was going to die a terrible death.
Yacouba told Fati that the grigris would not protect her any more on account of the little twins’
gnamas
.
Fati cried, she cried her heart out, she howled like a spoiled brat; she wanted proper grigris. But even though she cried, Fati was done for; she had no grigris to protect her. That’s how it goes.
After accidentally going and murdering two innocent kids, we couldn’t stay in the village, we had to get out of there fast, get out
gnona-gnona
(according to the
Glossary, ‘gnona-gnona
’ means ‘on the double’). We left Kik leaning against the wall of a hut and ran off, foot to the road,
gnona-gnona
.
We left Kik to the mercy of humans in the village the way we left Sarah to the mercy of the animals and the insects. Which of them was better off? Definitely not Kik. That’s wars for you. Animals have more mercy for the wounded than humans.
OK, since we knew that Kik was going to die, that he was as good as dead, we had to do his funeral oration. I’d like to tell it because Kik was a nice kid and his passage wasn’t long. (‘Passage’ is
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