6
BEFORE
The rat-a-tat-tat draws me farther from my family’s compound like a fish on a reel. Villagers are shouting. Their gut-wrenching cries send riptides of electric fear from my scalp to my toes. These are the cries of my people in pain. The gunfire barely pauses for breath. I force my feet to keep going, one in front of the other, even though all I want to do is run back.
Strange men dressed in camouflage clothing, none of whom I recognize, zoom past in trucks, the odor of diesel trailing behind them. The trucks slow, and some of the men jump out. They run into homes, and screams follow. My hands fly to my ears to blot out the noise. My eyes squeeze shut so I do not see when they begin to drag people from their homes. When I can, I force my legs to move, clinging to the shadows against the walls of homes, hoping I remain unnoticed as these men seek out victims who will better feed their hunger for chaos than I can.
Up ahead, the men are corralling N’nkakuweans in the middle of the village square. They threaten the villagers with an arsenal of weaponry—guns, knives, machetes—which they use to herd our people into a small, indefensible space.
They begin setting fire to homes I thought were empty. Until I see people begin to run out, engulfed in bright-orange flames that no one is allowed to extinguish, screaming in such agony my legs refuse to listen to my brain because my brain can no longer function. I can only stare at the figures in their grotesque dance as they suffer. When the first one drops, my feet move without my even knowing it, the cries of the burning chasing me toward the square. Acrid smells of cooking meat turn my stomach. When my stomach lurches, I vomit everything down the sewer ditch that runs the length of our main roads.
Using the back of my hand and then the hem of my dress, I wipe the mess from my mouth. Where are Wisdom and Josiah? Ofori and Papa? Each passing minute deepens the dread coursing through my veins. And though I try not to, I search the dead for my family. I search the howling mass of my people. One of the aunties’ children is wrenched, screaming, from her arms. She tries running after the child but is clubbed down by an intruder while two others pull the children kicking and screaming toward a line of open-bed trucks. Another uncle is cracked over the skull with the butt of a gun as he begs for the life of his wife, a wife who is already gone from this earth. I spied her body on my way here.
“Aninyeh,” someone calls from within the dark throngs of people.
Rough hands grab me, forcing me to the ground amid a gaggle of arms, legs, and sweaty bodies that ooze the stink of fear. My immediate response is to strike whoever has touched me, but Wisdom enters my line of vision, and my struggle abates, as does all my resolve. I want nothing more than to fold into him and be told this is all a horrible dream.
“Shhh,” he breathes, his eyes imploring me to listen for once.
Next to him Josiah is wild eyed and watching our every move. His eyes most echo mine, full of terror, of confusion, with a question at their very center. Why?
“Where is Papa?” I pant through clenched teeth. “Is he—？”
“There.” Wisdom motions in front of us. His face shines beneath a film of sweat in the suffocating heat. There lies the problem. The heat. It is not supposed to be this hot. This is not normal. None of this is normal. Therefore this, all of this, must be a terrible dream. Either that or we are in hell.
Josiah’s eyes move rapidly, taking in everything around us. He is listening to us but saying nothing, a rarity for him. I finally follow Wisdom’s hand, looking beyond the huddled mass.
“Where is the chieftain?” one of the intruders, a soldier I do not recognize, demands. He stands amid the cowering crowd, the sleeves of his uniform rolled in cuffs above his elbows. On his head is a black-and-white checkered scarf wrap. I know this covering. These men might want to appear as if they are military, like the real Ghanaian soldiers, but they are not of them. And if these men are not the government, then who are they? And why are they here doing this to us?
The intruder holds up one of our village elders, bleeding significantly from a wound above his eyebrow. In his other hand, he raises a club high. “Show yourself, or Uncle suffers the consequence of your weakness.”
Knee-jerk reaction and rage make me nearly shoot to my feet, but Josiah’s hand stills me, warning me to remain as I am. Therefore, Josiah would be the perfect advisor to Wisdom. Impulsivity never overtakes him as it often does me. Most of the time to my detriment.
“I am here,” Papa answers, his rich voice carrying across the sea of cowering heads and trembling bodies. He stands. His clothes are heavily stained with sweat, dirt, and blood. It is the first I recall seeing Papa disheveled in front of his people. He has always presented himself in his very best. And yet now, dirtied as if he has rolled in the dust and muck, with his hair in disarray, still he stands erect and assured and fearless.