Eighteen

Eastern civilians and soldiers who could be found almost in all business flourishing cites in the Republic were on the long list of soldiers for elimination. Many families which still had relations in the city and bad enough there were many of them were always in wait. They kept their eyes outside for days.  These ones wept openly knowing that their love ones would not be coming home alive. They knew war and the spirit which it was fought.

Akwei , a good Christian from the east lost his immediate elder brother who was only being kind to his friend who ran to him for shelter. His friend was not from his region. He was not a Christian and was unmarried. Two days after, Amah as he was called went in search of his brother and coming back home he met his wife and children in their pool of blood, having been butchered by his friend. On looking back, he met his friend with a matchete and before he could run away, he caught him and butchered him. That was how the family ended.

For days, this saddened Akwei and Ken his younger brother. They wanted to escape for their life. They would die any moment. No place was safe for them anymore. He too died that day leaving only Ken.

Akwei had just died and his body … his body scalped and most abominably mangled lying in his blood, blackened by the sun and night dew. He had been searched all over the place in the last two days. His brother found him. His whole body was covered with blood. He was so exhausted that he only looked. His brother stooped over him and asked few questions, but he was too weak to answer him.  They had missed each other while trying to escape shooting in the bush and never came together again. His brother and two others who were in hide with him stood and watched this fellow, his brother, their brother by regional affiliation. They were easterners. How dreadful this sight must have affected them and robbed them of the strength and hope for this world and life, how bad it had treated them, in this world where God have not killed in our presence, have not caused war, but man kills …man kills

Ken, he stood. He was enduring a few minutes of agony that would not meet him in his entire life; the loss of a brother he would never meet again in life. It was better for him to die, to fight and die like his brother. He had lost yet another one. One's own brothers. He turned to the sun, God was not their. He looked down and back, it was his brother Akwei. A blood brother died in the battle he knew nothing about. He showed his face to the sun again, and said no word, but his appearance was like a kind of dreadful question and pain. He was gabbling; suggesting nearness to death

He stood under the sun so long , never minding the stench of the dead body. It was his brother. Never minded the scorch sun and stood. He was mourning his brother for the last time. Their he stood and watched the dawn creeping on the forest, on the sea, on the road and bombs falling and sounds of the gun booming. He stood.

Tears were in his eyes. He walked closer to the corpse and close his nose. Tenderly he torched the stinking corpse without another word and walked slowly to the path. He walked slowly and slowly until he got to a distance, waved his hand in farewell; indefinitely farewell to his brother.

On a short walk on the path, he saw a young man in his tears. His father had been caught by a straying bullet from nowhere. No one knows exactly. He was holding his son and was making an escape when it happened. The young boy was the only thing remaining for him after the death of his entire household. He wanted to escape with him to avoid being caught and killed. The young boy felled down many times and cried for the war. No one was around to console him. He saw Ken with dry tears that had made a runnel in his eyes. With a broken strangled cry, the boy leaped up and fell on his father again crying and weeping. The most pitiful sight that a man ever witnessed – the death of a father; the only remaining family member. He wept and called father many times and wept and sobbed and fondled the dead body; his father with a passion of a child who dearly lost a big treasure.