Final Concoction
The final concoction is what I intend to call it;
The fluid that will flow this desperate soul of mine to Utopia.
It will all be over.
All I need is patience and strength;
Strength to grind these drugs to dust
Just as my life has been pounded to nothingness
My heart has been dropped into an abyss of sorrow
And my mind belabored to the frontiers of oblivion.
In short, I am in limbo
From a series of guerilla blows in this jungle of survival.
The first gorilla blow came soon after I was posted to a difference station.
I remember I was called to the boss's office.
As soon as I entered, he went straight to the point,
"Tekwane, we will soon be sending you to a different office.
We need more people at the coast office."
"I understand, sir," I replied.
And when I replied my voice was even
But inside, inside my heart sang and danced the Isikuti.
Besides,
I thought of myself seated at the beach
My black skin absorbing the ferocious rays of the sun
As I looked far and wide at the horizon of the deep, blue sea my
Hopes were high.
When I think of it, how wrong I was!
But this, this concoction will right all those wrongs!
It was in my new house at Likoni
And it was late at night
I had not slept when they came
At first, I hear rustling
Then I smelled smoke,
My house was on fire!
I rushed to the door and opened it
Only to see the cowards brandishing firebrands, sprinting for the horizon.
For a second, I wanted to go out and catch one
Just one! And wring the life out of his bloody body.
But I couldn't-my house was slowly catching fire.
I rushed to one bedroom and shook Maria awake.
"Maria, Maria! Wake up, the house is on fire!"
"Umm . . . ummm," she looked at me with a face that resembled a burned chap
But this was no time for her drowsiness.
Together with our son Tommy we dragged her out.
Outside running, Maria stopped and I asked her, "
Maria, why the hell are you stopping?"
"The baby . . . we've forgotten the baby!"
But just as she turned, our house exploded into a ball of flames
Our tiny, innocent two-month old child inside.
In the distance, I could hear the chants.
In the distance, I could hear the screams.
In the distance, I could hear the yells.
Of the burners of my house,
Saying that those who did not belong there should go back up country.
And we did go back.
We joined one exodus that the money-bringing tourists had begun.
I could not help thinking of the baby and I took to drinking.
And one night, Maria's complaint irritated me and I beat her.
The next morning she and my son were gone.
Worse still, I lost my job.
- Kim Simon Jial
Victim of War by Ajak Mayol
