Eternal Journey

by Ben Dosso

  “Don’t make me mad once again, dude,” said Little Boy.

  “I am so sorry, man!” said Samba Diallo.

  “I don’t want to remember that anymore,” said Little Boy, nodding his head. And he murmured a lot and said again, “You know, dude, when the rebels came in my village, they burned down all the huts present. But, long before the war, there was a harmony that was reigning in the community. And at the evenings, the elders of village would take a seat in their hammocks around big wood fire, telling us about the funny stories of our ancestors, and the legends of village. Sometimes, we would fall asleep when they would still be telling us their stories. Their brains were quiet libraries. But when the war began, the rebels came to terrorize everyone for diamonds and gold that were a few kilometers from the village. And they put a gun on my shoulder. Before leaving my village with them, they asked me a lot of questions. I can remember exactly all questions. But I could never forget the last one.”

  “Which one?” said Samba Diallo.

  “When they asked me to choose one of my parents I loved the most,” said Little Boy.

  “What did you say then?” said Samba Diallo.

  “I looked my both parent faces, sweating, and I said them both,” said Little Boy.

  “Why?” said Samba Diallo.

  “Because I had the same affection for both,” said Little Boy.

  “And?” said Samba Diallo.

  “And the rebels forced me to make a human sacrifice before to be initiated as a child soldier,” said Little Boy.

  “What did you do then?” said Samba Diallo.

  “I-I-I,” Little Boy, cried out quietly.

  “What? Did you…? Oh my gosh. Did you press on the trigger?” said Samba Diallo.

  Little Boy cried for a long moment and they hugged each other again.

  “But why you don’t want to stop this life of child soldier?” asked Samba Diallo.

  “I can’t stop it anymore. I am already condemned to it. I am already one of rejects of the society. Who could be friends with me if there is blood on my hand? I do no longer know the road of my native village. I can’t speak the language of my community. I speak now the language we speak here since they kidnapped me. Anyway, since they kidnapped us because you are among us now. You know what, dude?” said Little Boy.

  “No,” said Samba Diallo.

  “I know only these regions covered with immense sand. Even if I went back to my village, no one would want to welcome me. People need a polite kid who is mentally healthy. My community would never want a criminal kid such as me. A kid who committed some terrible crimes. The population of my village and surrounding villages will always be living in fear. The information will quickly run throughout from one mouth to another. I will be the incarnation of an imaginary monster who will not exist nowhere, and nobody will get the courage to approach me nor build a friendship with me, and I will eternally sink in the deep loneliness. Therefore, I prefer to die here and dry on the hot sand with my weeds and my white powders like a leaf,” said Little Boy.

  Samba Diallo did not know either that Little Boy had endured too many horrible obstacles throughout his childhood life that would go beyond all understanding. On the other hand, Little Boy seemed psychologically free when he had told his story. His heart seemed relieved. It seemed as if he had just put down a weight that was weighing on his head that could not be seen. He looked relieved. In his eyes, there was a radiant joy coming out of his heart that was giving a fine smile on his lips. His face was lighting and his whole body was emotionally speaking. In his uncontrollable emotion, he then asked Samba Diallo if, like him, he had also come into the camp as a child soldier

  “No, it was my dad who was going on a mission for defending our nation,” said Samba Diallo.

  “What? Your dad was a soldier like my senior officers?” said Little Boy.

  “Yes, but not like your senior officers. My dad was defending the color of national flag,” said Samba Diallo.

  “There is no difference. A soldier is a soldier,” said Little Boy.

  “You could be right. But the difference depends on the reason why they fight for,” said Samba Diallo.

  “Alright! Call him then to free us from here,” said Little Boy.

  “I can’t call him anymore,” said Samba Diallo.

  “Why? Are you killing me?” said Little Boy.

  “No, my dad used to defend his nation but when the country was torn by the Civil War, he was considered as an enemy by the new power because he wasn’t in the same political party as the new president,” said Samba Diallo.

  “Really?” said Little Boy.

  “Yes. One night the armed and hooded men broke into our home. They massacred everything that used to move. Fortunately, I was still living but I was left for dead in my bedroom. I was so mad when I found out they also massacred my innocent pet that I loved so much,” said Samba Diallo.

  “What? Wait a minute. Are you going crazy, dude? Are you crying for a pet? Dogs that drag down everywhere in my village, eating in the landfills. Are you really crying for that? Shut up, dude, and talk to me about something else, but no more about your damn pet,” said Little Boy nervously.

  “You don’t like dogs?” said Samba Diallo.

  “I told you, don’t tell me more about your freaking dog,” said Little Boy loudly.

  “Well, before the civil war, I used to go to school,” said Samba Diallo.

  “School! I’ve never been to school. What did you guys do there, make the bombs, right?” said Little Boy with enthusiasm.

  “No, not making bombs. Every morning, my genetic umbrella, I mean my mother, used to wake me up early, forced me to take a shower first before bringing me to school like many other kids. Inside these big buildings, we were learning how to read and to write in the different classes, and on the walls the painters had drawn cartoons that were making us happier,” said Samba Diallo.

  “After school, would you become the Lords of War like my senior officers to destroy all villages and to terrorize people again?” said Little Boy.

  “No, we become the exemplary citizens capable to rebuild everything your senior officers had destroyed during all these years of war and reach out to those who intentionally hurt us yesterday and banish internal quarrels. That was what they used to teach at school,” said Samba Diallo.

  “Could I be again a normal citizen to bring my rock to the edifice someday?” said Little Boy.

  “Yes, we can be again new citizens, but we must leave this hell first and find a school to integrate in the society. My genetic umbrella used to tell me every day after breakfast time to be punctual at school and she had also added that the school was the future of a child. Wait! I forgot, do you really love your mom?” said Samba Diallo.

  Little Boy got lost in a deaf silence, looking at the sky as if he was doing a session of hypnosis. Few minutes later, he finally found himself mentally and he was observing the stars scintillating in the sky, and said, “Yes, I do.”

  “Really! What can you tell her?” said Samba Diallo.

  Little Boy aimed at one of the stars and said, “Mom! I know I can’t remember your face anymore among so many faces I meet, but I do still remember your soft voice. This soft voice that forbade me to play with my games of empty cans at dusk. The same voice that was yelling at me when I was taking a shower in the rain, barefoot. Despite when the food basket was all the time empty, you fought in every sense for me, not to miss anything. You used to make sure, in utmost discretion, that no one knew about Dad’s lazy side for the respect of custom and the dogma of tradition. You were the core of family because you carried under your wings the heavy load of the family. And I was the fruit from this union. But today I am the reason of all your shame for becoming a child soldier. I know you can hear me, Mom, even if you can’t hear me. Mom, bitter taste of my tears scorch my throat and flood my eyes. My tears block my throat and my voice shakes. I want to see you. I want to touch you. I want to feel you. To be closer to you
. I want to be in your arms. I would like to talk to you again. My heart is burning down like leprosy devours little by little the fingers of a leper. Mom, apart from you, no mother would have liked to dream of having under her roof a kid such as me who desires to feed himself with blood. Today, I regret it bitterly, I am a remote-controlled puppet. Help me to understand what I could not understand. I would have grown up under your hand. Grown up with your eye kept on me. Even if it often was a bad look. That would remain a look of a mother to avoid being a death machine. I have no idea where you are, but I just want to be accepted by you, Mom. And without you, nobody could dry my tears.”

  When Little Boy was talking to the sky, Samba Diallo had the ultimate conviction that he could see his mother among the stars hanging in the sky.

  As the days went by, they two boys started planning together how to escape the torturer camp with some other children. That was Samba Diallo’s first goal. Encouraging other teens to leave the torture camp as soon as they possibly could. And some kids got mobilized to flee the torture camp, those who still had the sense to escape in a great discretion. Everything was secretly being planned. Otherwise in case of suspicion, they would all get severe punishments.

  A bit far, behind a wall of the sand dune there was another tent, smaller than other tents. At first sight, it strongly looked like a piece of sand deposited by the termites. The dust had transformed it into honey’s color. To escape from the torture camp, they needed to be careful of this small tent. The smallest tent was a royal palace watched from morning to evening and from evening to morning. It was a dormitory for the chief of soldiers where they would bring travelers in and force them to give up any valuables and information they might have had about their families.

  In the working world, the dusk marks the end of the work, but in the desert, the convoys of big trucks full of war arsenals and gas were coming from Algeria to Mali. From the beginning, Samba Diallo used to believe that there was a highway that facilitated the truck’s movement. But there was none. While the high beam headlights of big trucks were making holes in the darkness, Samba Diallo and a few kids were planning on their escapes. The first attempt was a fatal failure. And Samba Diallo was punished severely because he did not know whom to pay the ransom to in order to be left alone. He did not want to become a child soldier so he disobeyed them, as his genetic umbrella had taught him to save a life and respect women, but never to take a life. He was electrocuted and whiplashed. But he could not denounce Little Boy. Because he still needed to draw another plan. Samba Diallo really needed to leave the torture camp. Nobody knew Little Boy was the central pivot of this escape. All the looks were on Samba Diallo. He bitterly paid the consequences of this escape attempt in the suffering. If the chief of soldier had known that Little Boy was in the complot, that would have cost him his life for betraying his hierarchy and the whole group. And he would be severely tortured before getting shot. Samba Diallo did not have the same fate as Little Boy. Samba Diallo could be just punished with a simple whip. Soldiers still thought Samba Diallo’s head could bring some money to them. Yet it was Little Boy who had drawn all the escape plans like a surveyor who is drawing the plan of a future highway, because he knew all possible ways that could help them run away from the camp. They were so close to Algeria. After this punishment session, Samba Diallo had been locked up under another tent so as not to encourage others to run away.

  Few days later, Little Boy came to see Samba Diallo again under his tent discreetly. The true friends didn’t let each other down. As soon as they were together again, they started drawing another escape plan. One day, during nighttime, they tried to escape again at a late hour in the night. They were pursued for a while. Soldiers tracked down some kids with their lamp torches. But, Little Boy and Samba Diallo were hidden behind the sand dune thanks to the techniques acquired by Little Boy; how to stay hidden in case of an attack.

  After a while, Little Boy and Samba Diallo came out of their hiding place. They continued walking together the whole night, heading towards the lights that they were seeing until early morning. Samba Diallo’s ankles and feet were swollen. He had never walked so much like that before, apart from this long journey. He was so tired until the last energy. His feet nerves no longer supported the weight of his size. He wanted to try to walk on his hands. But he could not do that. This walking technique is not allowed to everyone. It requires agility and practice. Even though Samba Diallo’s feet and left arm were hurting, he could not stop either. The only solution was to move forward despite the pain.

  At dawn, the two boys were sitting in the cold, covered by a bunch of horseflies as a blanket. At the beginning, both boys used to chase these horseflies with bare hands. But, until to a moment, they were tired of chasing them. And these horseflies with their pointed mandibles were flying around the two boys to obtain blood. And when the boys chased these horseflies from left side, they would fly and sit on the right side. But these bites and stings from these horseflies were comparably less painful than the pain of the whiplashes that Samba Diallo had experienced before. At the same time, the policemen were patroling the city in cars. It seemed that they were doing the border control. Samba Diallo did not know what the meaning of a police patrol was. The car was coming to them.

  Suddenly, Samba Diallo heard, “Stop. Do not move. Neither a step forward nor backward.” These orders were coming from one of policemen by lowering the car window. “Hands in the air,” said the policeman. The boys quickly executed the orders.

  “Back up! On the ground and hands in the back,” said the policeman, getting out of the car.

  “ID control,” said one of policeman, adding, “I hope you have your ID on you. Do not tell me you don’t have any ID, little snotty kids.” One of policemen seemed nervous as if he was waiting for them. They got arrested for lack of ID and led to a police office.

  And when they were on their way to the police office, the second of policeman said, “It is a big issue to cross another border without any ID.”

  Samba Diallo lost his temper. “What do you talk about, mister officer?” said Samba Diallo.

  “I am talking about your ID, sir,” replied the second policeman.

  “I did not know that a piece of paper was facilitating people to move from a country to another country,” said Samba Diallo. During the discussion, Samba Diallo remembered his school ID. It was only this paper where there was written his family name, his name, and his birthday with a numeric picture and more information about him, to his knowledge. That could facilitate this identity control and calm down this policeman who had twisted his arms in his back. But he could not bring it. Even if he had brought this ID, he would have lost it already somewhere.

  At the police office, the policemen were a little bit indulgent with them than when they were taken in by the other policemen. Despite they had respected the orders, their chests were violently flattened on ground like some cattle. One of policemen did not want Little Boy to open his mouth to say something wrong. The policeman was threatening them to keep quiet. Little Boy knew him by his face. He had already murmured it in Samba Diallo’s ear. The policeman knew a lot about all the arsenals of war that were crossing the desert like a line of camels. That was reason why he was demanding to send the two boys back to where they had come from. Meanwhile, the police officers were filling some forms out.

  Few weeks went by. And the process of deportation was going around. But there were no more buses available for deportations.

  One day, as there were no more people left to be expelled, the two boys were released on the pretext of deportation, but they were driven out of the city. They were treated like animals at the police office, they were not considered humans by the officers. And about two weeks of detention later, policemen were tired of feeding them with some rotten foods, and they got rid of them at the exit of Algeria. That exit of city was one of the smuggler fiefs. A piece of land where most people were dying in the Mediterranean Sea. It was the place where was planned pr
etty much all human traffic to Morocco and Libya and then the European coasts. Over there, people and different destinies were meeting each other and were sharing what we could call “human suffering.” Some of these travelers used to call this moral and physical suffering “the reality of adventure.” On this piece of land, people were suffering from exaggerated abuse. Those who owned passports were automatically confiscated by smugglers. And all ID were given back to their owners when they finished paying off the required ransom by smugglers. However, as everyone might have a skill for any job that he aimed, these smugglers had a particular art to persuade people. From the beginning, they used to relieve people through words as if their sufferings would be turned into happiness by a magic wand flick. The smugglers used to promise them safety and a better life. Like any human being who, when hurt and desperate, easily releases himself in the arms of someone who hugs him, who tells him some sweet words to heal his injuries. Throughout of this consolation, the smugglers would take advantage of people’s mental weaknesses to open another big injury by plunging them in forced labors. From Saturday to Thursday, Samba Diallo, Little Boy, and many others were continuing their journeys in the different construction sites, working for the smugglers, singing their sufferings to the rhythms of hammers, shovels, trowels etc…hoping for a glory day like the elders who were singing about their damned lives in colonial factories, hoping for a change or for freedom from the grasp of the smugglers. Friday was a holiday. The day equivalent to the Sunday in other countries. This holiday was one time a week. And Samba Diallo and Little Boy were domestic workers with empty stomachs because of the burden required by the smugglers. This backward and forward on the stairs with cement packets of fifty kilos on their backs was literally destroying their fragile backs. And their wages were directly destined to the smugglers’ pockets. The journey was becoming longer. In this misery what they were calling “job,” some people who did not yet have opportunity to do their Hajj (pilgrimage) were profiting through their presence by rocking them, holding their noses. Samba Diallo used to get furious when he would see the smugglers negotiating with other people about him to work and was daily twisting his back for earning nothing for him. Furthermore, women and young girls, minor or not, virgins or not, in the same journey that was less important for the smugglers. Any feminine gender should make some money for them. No matter the way. Young girls were big sexual supermarket where men were entering and exiting like bees in front of their hives. All women adults and minors were doing the same job. Young girl minors were suffering more than old women. Young girls were mostly attracted by men than older women. They were often murmuring that they had become some sexual objects. But they could not say it openly. They could not refuse to do it also. Otherwise, they would be beaten with hands tied behind their backs until they respond positively to do this job loyally. It was the law of the jungle. Nobody could escape. They all were forced to laboriously work to escape the muscled deportation in the desert. There were only two possibilities: being expelled to the desert or keep working on the smugglers’ account. Sometimes, behind any misfortune, there is always a flourishing business. Samba Diallo, Little Boy, and many others were so happy of being between the smugglers’ claws than being deported to the desert. The Sahara also had become a cemetery for hopeless people. And to maintain their business healthy, the smugglers were dispatching their human commodity from one ghetto to another. From a city to another. And from a country to another. From mutation to another.