From death unto life
From death unto life
Ours was a village like any other with quaint houses, lush green trees and clean rivers. Every morning cattle danced beatifically in the waters and women sang songs of glorious warriors while going about their daily chores. Our men were mostly farmers except for Jomo Ongayo. Rumor has it that he studied medicine and has become a doctor since, first one from our village if it were indeed true!
I was one among those women, for whom her little boy meant the world. Noah! His laughter filled my heart like an inflated balloon while his tears debilitated my soul into tiny fragments. He was the ‘egusi of my eye’. Egusi was a very important crop in our area, it quenched our thirst and pacified our hunger.
My daily routine was unexceptional except for my son. My husband, Mongoya died a year ago. It was the famine that killed him. A lot of us had reached the brink of death that year, but we were spared, I want to believe for a bigger reason.
Post famine, our village was exposed. Vulnerable men and women grabbed every opportunity to make bread. Little did they know that life as they knew it would be destroyed in the coming days.
The sun had set and the sky had fallen asleep. My little Noah had drifted off to the land of fireflies and rainbows. As I walked along the lawn, a cool breeze lightly brushed my hair. A muffled screaming was consciously growing louder. I walked towards the sound. A pale Narisa, my neighbor was wailing uncontrollably at the body of her dead son. She was surrounded by 3 goons holding swords dripping with blood. And that was the first murder that I witnessed.
This continued for days and weeks. Goons would enter a household, slash the throat of the man in charge and loot the valuables. No one knew who these men were and why they did this. The local authority riveted in fear at the mention of them. They came to be known as “Khoff” (terror). Gradually, we came to realize that this was not going to end, we had to either die at their hands or flee from this horror. Though the former provided instant respite, my resolute to live and love led me to the latter.
We noticed a visible pattern in their atrocities. They came out in gangs and wreaked havoc on Fridays. With the passage of time, the Khoff burned down men, women and children only to scale the heights of monstrosity. Charred remnants of dead carcasses and uprooted vegetation was piling up week after week. Our bucolic village had been transformed into a blood bath.
Fridays did not cause panic anymore. We became inured to murder, blood and hardships. If we were lucky, we survived the week. And then came that fateful night. That was the first Friday in months the Khoff did not come. They did not kill, they did not harm. I slept through the night with my eyes open. When the first rays of the sun hit the earth, it was clear that they did not come. “Have they gone for good? Have they eroded our village of everything that they will not come anymore?”
The coming weeks saw our lives return to normalcy. Men went to the field, women washed in the rivers and children played under the sun. My baby Noah saw his mother smile in a long time. I took him to the river, bathed him in the cool waters and fed him fresh, ripe egusi. My eternally pulsating heartbeats calmed down, mind stopped racing and head called off its throbbing. But gods would not be kind to us for long. Their kindness had an expiry date and that day was the last day I stayed there. The Khoff returned with full might and I decided enough was enough.
Grabbing Noah by his waist, I began to run. I ran for two straight kilometers, till I saw the last field that marked the end of our village. They buried houses, belongings and everything that was once mine. They killed my friends, neighbors and surroundings, but they could not kill my spirit to live. . I was determined to find a way.
Leaving my horrendous life behind me, I walk with my son, my last ray of hope.
---Nimisha E P
