The Beef That Breeds Nightmares!
In light of the recent killings by fulani herdsmen in Benue state, I wrote this down. It is not my intention to downplay what happened to a place of fiction. It's just me, trying to make it feel more real, trying to picture it from the eyes of a victim.
May the souls of all those killed rest in peace.
There’s a flight response
triggered in both humans and animals alike in the face of danger. Adrenaline, a
metallic taste in the mouth, impaired cognitive function, fleeing, a strong
desire to survive and there’s the other way we respond to danger, the freeze, and that is my response today.
Legs firmly planted on the dusty ground, not shaking; fear lounging in the
corner, not interested in what my eye is taking in, my heartbeat regular, my
cognition is alive…. more alive than it’s ever been. I take in everything
happening around me like the reporters who dare to go into the carnage of war
torn zones, but unlike them, I have no security. I am exposed. I have no hope
for survival, or rather, I’m not thinking about surviving or being a victim, I
am just existing in that moment, frozen.
There’s a trickle down my
legs. I have urinated on myself… that’s the only thing that gives away what my
subconscious mind feels in the back of my freeze moment, or maybe I just
couldn’t hold it in anymore, I was on my way to find a spot to squat and pee when
everything changed.
I imagine the jests Terwase
my brother would throw at me if he knows what just happened to me…. I, the city
girl, the self acclaimed ‘know what’s up’ girl with painted pepper red nails
and pink lipstick, with well lined perfectly highlighted brows peed on herself.
He would laugh for a
lifetime, but he wouldn’t as it were, because he can’t, and he can’t because he’s
lying dying a few feet from me, his stomach with a deep gash that has left his
intestine or something that looks like it hanging out, his right hand semi-detached
from his body from the shoulder… his eyes open and bewildered, fixed on me, his
sister who was going to be a nurse, wanting me to do something to stop the pain,
or maybe wanting me to run? But I am frozen. Beside him is his pregnant wife
Ieember, dead already with a nasty gnash on her head and her neck, the baby
that was on her back, ten month old Bem is sprawled, half removed from her back,
his naked body looks lifeless from where I stand.
My grandmother screams calling
on God as she falls from a machete hitting her back. The people that matter in
my life are all falling or have fallen dead. I see others, neighbors and some
relations running. Would they be able to escape?
The smell of roast yam fills
the air.
I love roasted yam. In fact,
that’s what lured me to the farm today. While they farmed, my grandmother and
the very dead Terwa were going to roast some yam with some bush rat the younger
kids caught and I wasn’t going to miss out on it. Just to show them that I
wasn’t a farm girl anymore, I wore my borrowed shoes, the ones I took from
carol my roommate, and I sprayed a little too much perfume… I came to slay them
with my sophistication but here I am in the midst of the worst kind of slaying
I have seen.
Heaps of harvested yams are
on fire, yams from our hard work, yams that were to be sold for out livelihood
and to sponsor my education set on fire… the smell of burning yam, fresh blood,
dust and burning flesh hit me… I smell the screams of the fleeing, the dying
people and the killers more than I hear them. I smell the smell of evil.
Bodies drop, babies cry, and
as the blood hits the ground it cries out for vengeance. I see the humans, who
may as well be demons raise their machetes and land them on the babies. The
barbarians, eyes expressionless, a dark evil looming as they do their evil like
zombies, controlled by something beyond what the human race can describe.
The Christmas holiday is
over, and nursing school resumed two days ago, but with all my city girl façade,
I love being home, I love being on the farm, even though I hate the work. I
love being around my grandmother and her funny jokes, I love the pride my
siblings have when they show me off to everyone in the village. I love speaking
‘perfect’ English to the clan head and the admiration of my childhood friends
who didn’t get to continue school like me. I love my mother’s cooking and Father’s
endless pride as he calls his first daughter ‘Doctor’…. so I delayed resumption,
because as much as I love to become a nurse and one day a matron in a big
hospital, I hate the stress of classes and homework, the teasing of some of my
classmates calling me a ‘village girl’ just because my grades are better than
them but I have a tiv accent they say.
If I left two days ago, I would not have had to witness this. But I’m
thankful I did not leave, because what is life without my family? I wonder
where my mother is, is she dead already or did she run? She was to come meet us
in the farm. What would my father say when he gets back? He went to the
neighboring village to sell some products.
As I stand in the midst of
the carnage, I see one of them running towards me, I still don’t run, he raises
his machete with a menacing look on his face, it lands on my skull, I feel no
pain, just a thud… in the freeze mode, there is a decrease in the feeling of
pain. My legs suddenly shift as it gives way for me to hit the ground, before I
land, another blow hits my side, I feel the blood gushing out, then a throbbing
headache and for the first time, I begin to shake as my body no longer answering
to my mind jerks, and then its blank. The last thing I see is the face of the
devil, a herd’s man not older than eighteen.
My name is Mercy, or Mhorun
as my grandmother named me, a child of mercy, reporting live, or dead as the
case may be from the carnage of Guma.
A second year nursing student,
an aspiring matron. First of its kind from my family, the only educated one
beyond primary education. The city girl. The shanpepe of my father’s house.
With all of this
achievements, I am still equated to the life of a cow… my life and that of my
loved ones, taken in exchange for a cow, that is our beef, their beef with us…
their excuse to wipe us out.
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