THEME: KNOCK YOURSELF OUT
TITLE: One Way To Paradise
Written by Tebatso Motsepe
It’s a hot sunny day, with clear skies and the sun is halfway across. The smell of palm trees and pine trees are mixed with the smell of dried and dusted blood, rusty bullets that were meant for the fallen soldiers. This is all you could smell, because it is all the wind carried, especially now that it’s after the dragging wars in this country- Mozambique. Sometimes I wonder how war really looked like. Was it all cries and screams, blood and bodies, and sorrowful just like they tell us? Or was it something different that is intended for peace-making? Wouldn’t you wonder too, if you were born in a country that is full of unreasonable hate, purposeless wars and endless suffering?
“Anastasia… Anna?”
I hear a woman’s voice, a low filtered voice. I suddenly realise that I am sleeping, in class, again. After the wars, schools were left vandalised. Twenty years after the great war and nothing has changed; it’s only getting worse. The school is a ruin of dozen single walls with bullet holes, with each class held under a huge tree that can occupy 10+ learners. I’m 18 and in the 13th grade, that’s like the final grade of high school in this country, such a drag of school years for a hopeless country.
“Anna, wake up. This is my class and you can’t keep on sleeping whenever you like!” Mrs Sithole yells from the side of the tree where she moves around while teaching. Even though we share the same last name, we are not the same. I’m brown skinned, with a black Afro – Mozambican. She is a light skinned, with long curly brown hair, Brazilian-Mozambican.
I raise my head from the wooden desk I am lying on, stretch my arms and release a quick cat-like yawn.
“Were you daydreaming about paradise again, Anna? Perhaps you should take us with you some day,” Mrs Sithole teases me and the class laugh dumbly. She’s teasing me, but what she says is true. I always dream about paradise, a place with no hate, war and poverty, a place far across the border.
“At least it’s better than…this,” I kick back, trying to protect my imagination.
“No place is better than home, Anna.”
“This is no home, how is it a home when it has turned into a grave of ruins?”
The class stares at me, and for a minute, no one says a word. A scream from the other side of the walls brings all of us back to life with fright in our eyes. The screaming multiplies until it is a cry from the many learners, young learners. Something with a sound like crackling fireworks rings from the other side, followed by a ‘Boom’ that shakes the very ground. Smoke and dust rises to the air.
Before we can think, we are surrounded by men with objects. They are in dark green and brown costumes, just like soldiers were described, with black short boots that cover the end of their trousers. They are wearing red cloths on their heads. Their clothes have red marks that are very close to blending in with the colours. They look young but angry and deadly. Most of them look like they are of my age group, born after the war. Some look a few years older, probably born during the war. They seem to know more about it than the rest of us.
“Gentlemen, wouldn’t it be better if you didn’t scare my children?” Mrs Sithole asks, and the men say no word but warn her by pointing the AK-47 at her. Our poor teacher stops talking. She stands beside me, and this is the right time to ask questions.
“Are these soldiers, Mrs?”
“No.” she answers with a shaking voice. “These are not soldiers; they are terrorists.”
I feel a chill run down my spine and my heart starts racing. All the concepts of war we were taught and none ever mentioned unauthorised soldiers whose only purpose is to make the earth bleed, make people cry and for what reason? No one knows. A few minutes later, a man comes from the other side of the wall. He wears the same clothes as the others. He is a beast in the clothes with a huge chest, broad shoulders and huge biceps. He looks like he’s in his late 40s but his beard is as dark as night. He’s mostly bald but he wears the red cloth on his head, so it’s less visible.
“All boys line up on the wall!” he orders with his deep voice.
There is hesitation before Mrs Sithole speaks. “What are you to do with my boys, Mr?” She stretches her arms to form a shielding sign.
“And what are you? Their negotiator?” the man mocks her as he moves forward, pointing at her with his 9mm pistol. Mrs Sithole flinches.
“No, I’m their teacher and their safety is my responsibility.”
The man looks back to his group and back to Mrs Sithole with rage in his eyes. At point blank range, he shoots her in the head and blood sputters to the ground before her body hits it with a thud.
I was born two years after the great war and all I know of war is what I was told, but no one told me that it was a non-negotiable act. My instinct tells me to run and I do, but I crash face first into an AK-47 that sends me flying back to where I came from. The cracking sound of my nose has no pain at all. I drop to the ground like a sack of maize meal and dust flies up. I’m unable to raise my head, so I look at the sky as it blurs up and everything turns black.
I wake up in a camping tent that is the same size as a chicken house. It has a paraffin light placed beside me. I’m lying on a huge blanket that stretches to every side of the tent and a pillow that is impossibly uncomfortable. My nose hurts like hell.
There is a fire outside. I look through an opening and see the terrorists gathered around it. It must be twenty of them , or less. Felix is seated in the same way but at the other side, facing my direction. I recognise a lot of them but he’s the only one I know by name. The way they sit around the fire reminds me of my parents, for they like sitting around fires till late at night. The thought of them sitting alone tonight, waiting for me to return breaks my heart, but the fact that these vultures outside might’ve harmed them breaks me the most. I hope they haven’t.
My heart starts racing when the commander leaves the fireplace. He’s headed in my direction and the others also head to their tents. I crawl back to the far side opposite the entrance and cuddle my legs that they cover my back thighs and below.
“Ah, you’re awake?” he says as he enters the tent. “How foolish of you to think you can run from us. Now your beautiful face is ruined.”
He crawls towards me after his entrance. His look is lusty and it makes me feel naked as he looks all over my body. Disgust grows in my throat as he proceeds to move his hands atop my thighs, pushing my skirt back to reveal my underwear. He pulls me forward so hard that my head hits the ground. I try to fight back by pushing and kicking. I wish I didn’t do that. He throws a slap across my face and doesn’t give me a chance to rub over the pain. He proceeds to unbutton my white shirt that is now brown with dirt. He stops and stares at my revealed breasts that are now jiggling because I’m shaking and sobbing in pain.
A girl screams in another tent and it has him turn and look back. A tearing sound of the tent is followed by a gunshot that puts an end to the screaming. The mighty commander turns to face me with a smirk on his face.
“That’s what happens when you resist.”
You mean “disagree” with your decision to rape. I slowly extend my arm towards the paraffin light and grip it tightly. I pick it up and smash it across the commander’s face in a speed of fear. The liquid splashes on his face and onto the tent and catches fire. There is little liquid on my hand but I manage to get rid of it before it catches fire as well.
He screams and yells in pain as the fire spread across his face and that gives me a chance to run for my life. I jump out of the tent and enter the long grass behind it. I run into the bushes of long trees and look for one that I can spend the night on and rest. The first rule of wildlife is to never sleep on the world’s grounds.
It’s been four days of running and sleeping on wild trees. I have been depending on fruity trees for energy. I now carry a stick to help me navigate through the long grass and hold snakes away from my reach, like mostly killing them. I reach the end of the long grass and I’m at a beautiful sighting, a huge river in front of me – the mighty crocodile river. It is as described; humongous without beginning or end. The banks are packed with crocodiles, except for where I am. There is a boat on the side of the grass. Whoever put it here must’ve come from the other side and they chose a safer bank to store their boat. The boat is with paddles for movement in the water. I pull it with all my strength towards the water.
There is movement in the long grass that I just came out of. Could it be crocodiles? I pray not. It’s the commander, the one I thought I had killed. Seeing him makes me pant in fear and all I see on his face is anger. I push the boat into the water and he starts to run towards me. I jump into the boat and start paddling. I’m not fast enough.
He jumps into the boat, his weight making it float faster into the river away from the bank. I’m in my fight or flight situation. I choose to fight. I pick my navigation stick and try to hit him but he grabs it, pull it off my hands and throws it into the water. He pulls me by my shirt and punches me across my face with a fist that was meant for a man. He repeats until all I see are the stars and his face. It’s all burnt up with his tight side in wrinkles and his left with his skin completely burnt, only his flesh is showing. I had to burn him and reveal the demon and monster that he is.
He grabs my hair and dips my head into the river. The boat tilts to his weight allowing him to hold me in place. Through the water, I can see his determination to end my life, to end an innocent life. He is so strong and I’m almost losing my breath. My fist don’t work on him, my head is still in the water and I’m almost dying, but I can’t die. I don’t want to die. My hands and legs are free. I move my hands across his face and touch his fresh scars. They are sticky, slime-sticky. I scratch him without measure and he lets go to cover his face and yells.
At the instant I kick him from behind that he falls into the river in a splashing fall. The boat tilts a little and regain its balance as I fall flat into the boat and gasp for air. I think about what might happen If I wait longer and it scares me. I sit and grab a paddle and paddle fast, faster than my strength allows.
The commander pops out of the water. He is battling to remain afloat; clearly he can’t swim. I paddle to the other side without looking back. I see the other terrorists on the other side and it seems like they have been watching for a long time. They shoot at me but the bullets do not reach my bank and I’m grateful that there is only one boat. I stand there looking at them like I’d just won a race until they turn back and disappear into the long grass.
I look into the woods I’m to walk into and I run. I don’t know why I run this time without danger on my tail but I run, just in case. I run more days; two more days but without fruits this time. The grass is mostly dry and so are the trees. The fence is near and I just have to make an opening and run once more.
The fence is impossible for a pass through. I use a stick I picked along the way to dig an opening. The soil is soft, and I succeed and cross over to the other side. I cross a black road, I’m not sure what it is made of, but I can tell that I’ve never seen something like it. It is another run into the bushes and I can feel my body losing the little strength left in me. I’m tired but I can’t stop until I’m out of the bushes. I’m getting more tired as I run and I’m slowing down as I go. Finally, I reach the end of the bushes and land in a field with a lot of black people like me. I stop running and look at them.
“Dumela sesi,” a man says looking at me but I do not comprehend this language. The strength in me is lost and I fall with my back onto the field.
“Thušang!”
A woman shouts and before I know it, I’m surrounded by people and others are holding me. I don’t know if this is the paradise I always dreamt of, but I hope it’s not as ugly as the place I come from. I believe that we cannot choose where we come from but we can always choose where to go. Whether we’ll be accepted or not, it’s totally not up to us.
“Help!” is all I manage to say.
My energy is drained and the background is starting to blur, until all I can see is total darkness.
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PUBLISH’D AFRIKA Magazine Facebook Short Story Competition is funded by the National Arts Council, Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme 3
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