--Everything!
He told me, looking up at me with blood in his eyes.
--Everything...everything...every..!
He tried, but he couldn't complete his sentence; no matter how hard he tried he just couldn't. Of course he was resting on a piece of log beneath a rain-soaked shed, all covered in blood; of course my hands pressed on to his neck to apply pressure on the blood guzzling from there, but I think he couldn't bring himself to complete the sentence not because of his physiological wounds but because of the ones that ran way deeper.
So I told him not to speak. I told him it's okay. I lied, of course, and I hated it. I hated that I was pushed to lie. But I couldn't possibly let my best friend; my brother, die believing that everything he had ever believed in was all a lie. But I didn't start the lie.
When we came in they told us we were fighting for the right cause. Of course we believed them, our own flesh and blood, who couldn't possibly lie to us. And of course we saw it with our own eyes. Documents, files, newspaper articles. It was everywhere. 'They' are evil and 'we' are good. 'They' are dogmatic and 'we' are fighting the good battle of liberalism, for liberalism, with liberalism. Little did we know that 'their crime' was a lot simpler; that we were only invading because 'they' are 'they' and 'we' are 'us'.
That knowledge eluded us, however, so we did everything they told us to, like good soldiers that we were. And Batu was a good soldier too, the best of us. Only his mind, with its inveterate tendency to probe, would not let him rest.
From the first day of touchdown he had told me--he always had the most uncanny sense of descrying what others couldn't--he told me in his fragile but somehow sepulchral voice:
--Something don't feel right. Something just don't feel right.
I laughed and patted his shoulders.
--Getting cold feet?
I said, good humoredly. It was harmattan and we were running over cold water.
His sense of humor deserted him, though, he only kept saying 'something don't feel right something don't feel right', then when he saw that I didn't believe him he started muttering it to himself: 'something don't feel right something don't feel right'.
After the first raid we camped somewhere in the heart of the great Bissa Forest. Our last night around the fire he appeared unusually cheerful. He staggered all around and made terrible jokes and we could all swear he was inebriated.
Then we went to sleep, trying to block out the massacre that was to come from our mind.
Then the gunshots woke me up at midnight.
I sprang up instantly, and even before I looked I knew he wouldn't be by my side sleeping as he was supposed to. I saw his blanket empty, looking unruffled as if no one had slept on it at all. Then I put on my uniform, picked up the M16 by the entrance and ran outside into the cold, cold night, with just a single thought on my mind.
I found him resting on a log at the spot beside the river. It used to be our spot. We went there the first day we arrived and then some time after. Then It became his spot. He started using it so much I felt I had better leave it for his privacy; He even built a shed.
--They lied!
He said immediately he saw me. Before I saw him.
--They lied. Everything they told us. Everything I ever believed in..everything...everything...
I rushed to him. He looked so angry resting on that log; sad and angry and with a lot fight in him that he knew he wouldn't be able to carry out anymore.
--Everything!
He kept on saying.
Then I moved nearer and saw the blood. And memories came rushing by; all the blood 'we' shed. Maybe 'we' aren't so different from 'them' after all. It was a shattering feeling.
--Everything....everything they...everything...
--Don't talk, I said, hold on. Don't talk.
Then as if he thought I'd doubted him again, he began saying it to himself.
--Everything..everything...
So finally I told him it's okay. Everything will be okay. I lied, of course. But that's the last time.
END.
globalresearch.ca