UNTITLED I

When I was a little boy

I thought that human growth had no limit.

I thought that I’d grow until my head touched

The sky and eventually went beyond it and I could see

Heaven or whatever it was that was beyond the sky.

Between this life and the time humans got to see God,

I didn’t know what happened; I didn’t care to know.

I just believed that we would get to see God and laugh

And play with Him in a garden like the ones in

My Book of Bible Stories.

Then one morning, mother found a bullet

On our passage floor, and the day after,

I saw two men downstairs walking with huge guns in

Their hands; the kind commando used in the movies

To shoot at the bad guys.

But there were no bad guys in my neighbourhood,

There were no bad guys anywhere except in the movies.

Moments later,

I heard what sounded like a carpenter

Hitting nails into a roof,

Kor! Kor! At first, then faster, and faster,

And hysterically faster.

My aunt was there and she told me to go

Hide under the bed.

I thought we were playing hide-and-seek

But she warned me not to

Come out from under the bed until she reached down for me.

My young mind did not understand all of that,

But then I heard her whisper to her friend

“Them don come again. I hear say them kill one of their boys

Trowey inside water.”

I started to panic.

I did not fully understand what I’d heard,

But because of human instincts or whatever,

I was dead stone cold scared.

About a week later, rumours went flying around like

A disease in the Middle Ages about how ‘they’ were killing everybody

Because of the fight between my community and the next one.

One by one, people fled the community

Then two by two, and then entire families left.

My best friend with whom I fantasised about growing up

And eventually seeing God, also left.

Gradually, I began to unlearn everything I taught myself,

Unbelieve everything I used believe,

And then teach myself new things while allowing the world

I lived in to also teach me what it knew.

I learned that people in real life were probably worse than

The ones in the Commando movies,

I taught myself that those gardens existed only in

My Book of Bible Stories and no place else,

Whether in the future or the past.

The final blow was struck when I learned that

Human growth was limited; that I may never even grow

As tall as a door frame is high.

The world now felt like a desert plagued with

Eternal darkness that even the brightest of lights

Could never illuminate.

Call it reassurance or whatever,

But through that thick impenetrable darkness,

A little beam of light came shining through and it

Gave brightness and life to that deathly desert.

The moment I first saw my little nephew’s smile,

The smile of just one tiny defenceless human,

The world was redefined with better perspectives.

Everything was suddenly not dark anymore.

Maybe the world isn’t so bad after all,

Maybe there is a chance that people can be good.

Now, older than I was,

I believe that it was the same miracle as my nephew’s

Smile that dropped the bullet mother found in our passage.

She could have found it some place else for all I know,

In my head or in my chest.

I believe it was a feeling or something stronger than what can

Be felt that made my aunty tell me to hide under the bed

And warn me sternly not to come out.

I may never grow as tall as I fantasised,

But as long as such a miracle as my nephew’s smile exists,

All hope is not lost.