A year After the War [Writer's contest]

He stopped suddenly, his head bended to his shoulder. “Those are voices of women and children!” Okeke guessed. He continued walking now slowly, avoiding the crushing sounds of fallen dry leaves of the woods. He could now see the view of a stream in the middle of some overgrown greenish plants clearer. Two women differently sifting fermented cassava roots and some children helping out while some washing clothes on a log at the other end near a man rearranging his fishing net. He heaved a sigh of relief, his face blighted. Since seven days ago that he crawled down that hilly and steeped stream on a late evening,the soothing relief of his throat had been the seed of an utu shrub and his own urine. This Stream seems to open towards a flat land from where these visitors come from. “This is a haven for the sergeants” he mulls. He was referring to army special unit that is in charge of catching young men who fled from being recruited into the Biafran Army and the ones who escaped from the camp.

They used to visit the markets and streams searching for young men to shore-up the shortage of military personnel and fighters. They would hide in the woods in odd hours. Okeke escaped with a whisper the night he fled from the camp and vowed never to follow an invented foot-path in his escape route. Save for two fleeing boys that run on towards him, he could have been caught by the four heavy men that came after immediately he took cover behind a mahogany tree beside the foot-path that night. After many days into his adventurous escape, of mostly walks in the nights, the boom-boom sounds of shells are totally lost in hearing  and the dust infested odorous air vamoosed for a more friendly vegetative one. He is comfortable in being thrilled by the shrills of the squirrels, his new companions through whom he finds out the ripeness of the fruits.

He is more fulfilled squaring up against the attacks of some dangerous animals of the jungle than pulling a trigger against the people, he can not tell the crux of the matter of the war nor had personally wronged him.

He would love to shout in appreciation of seeing fellow men that cannot harm him. Once again, he could talk to people. He may even learn how the war is faring from them. He is standing there pondering over his ecstatic happiness and an impending enduring sufferingness if ended up being caught and taken back to the warfront. The thirstiness to quench his hiccup intensifies. He could not continue waiting for the stream to be vacated before he could have a lease of life again.

He starts to climb down the sloppy hill, feigning mentally deranged in his ragged, off coloured khaki.

“Whooah” screamed one of the women. She, along other women and children run towards the road that lead away from the stream. The fisherman made to his cutlass and wanted to take cover but could not see any frightening figure except a ragged and madman-like Okeke, drinking from the stream on his knees. “Come back all of you!” beckon the fisherman.

“Ghost, Ghost, I am terrified, he has been given funeral rites in our village” replied the woman while pointing at Okeke.

Okeke stands immediately and quipped “I am not a ghost, I am from the warfront”

“warfront?” quizzed the fisherman

“Yes I escaped…” answered Okeke

“But the war ended since almost a year now” exclaimed the fisherman

“Ended!” rephrased Okeke and bowed his head to the ground.

NAME: CHUKWUDEBELU CHIDOZIE