Dancing Around the Fire
I approach the smoke hoping to find food.
What they are roasting, I wonder. A rabbit family in its prime,
plucked from the barn of a village farmer. Or a goat: one of the many
that roam the streets, idly gnawing at women's laundry.
Or even better: An elk... an elk, in Africa? I am delirious. I should
hurry. Whatever it is, sweet juices will stream with each bite I take
from it and I shall thank God for his good grace: I am alive.
The jeep tracks are laid in the direction I am headed. But what way
were they heading?
A day and a half I have walked, the balls of my feet torn, my left arm
perforated by a constellation of shrapnel and I can feel it no more…
too late to worry about safety. Move forward Kwenda… only a few
hundred meters to go.
Over the welcome sign at the village entrance, it has been written:
The inferiors shall die. Half the thatch in town has been torched,
houses abandoned, left to burn. Yet there is joy here.
A victory celebration is ongoing. I can hear it in the rhythmical
beating of the talking drums. They were more fortunate than I was:
They pushed back the rebels' guns and jeeps, and protected their girls
from rape. Now they revel in victory (as they should).
Some were lost. I know because that smell is still here; the same
smell that soaked my sister's burning body as she charred on the
family hut’s floor.
I see the people dancing around the fire in military trousers and
casual white shirts, their guns raised above their heads, glistening
in the scorching sun. Screams of joy burst from their vocal cords.
I see it tied up in the fire: food at last.
It writhes free of its ropes and crawls out of the flames towards
freedom. My heart skips at the thought of losing my meal. They push it
back in.
That smell again…
I must be delirious. For a moment, I thought I saw the shape of lunch,
and lunch, was a man.