Loudly I call out to God – if He really is out there – to give me another chance. If I come out of this alive, I swear I never ever will do this again, I scream out loud.
“Please let me go! I beg you! Please! God help me! Somebody please help me! I promise I will be good,” but all my attempts are swallowed in the sea of screams, curses and yells.
My pool of tears mix with blood, giving it a metallic taste. I don’t even bother wipe the tears away, as my hands are busy trying to block away the blows that are coming from every side.
Someone kicks me one the sides, another one throws something at me, it feels like a rock, something slashes my calf, it must be a panga. The pain is so excruciating that I had lay on the ground writhing in pain, crying, begging and praying. I didn’t choose to be like this, I tried to explain but the blows and voices rose above my screams.
From the corner of my eye I see someone rushing towards me with a cane. By the time the cane hits my head, I feel I was half dead. I wince and close my eyes – willing death to take me. I have no strength left. I can’t even find my voice. I can’t get up to run nor fight back. I lay there, letting the cane, blows and the kicks find their mark. My mind works on and off between screams and tears. Please help me, please forgive me, my mind screams. I can hear people around me – some laughing – I know they are laughing at me. Finally they have gotten me.
Suddenly I feel a sharp pain around my right hand. The pain is so sharp that I can’t even scream. It is so sharp that slowly I started sliding into a sea of blackness. The blackness becomes my friend. With wide opened arms I welcome it. I start praying that it is the end. It’s not so painful, it’s not so bad, I think as the blackness embraces me, quite warm actually.
When I finally come to, the sun is hot above me, but the voices are still there. Louder this time. My body is numb, but there is such pain around my right arm. Somebody is holding something bloody ahead of me. I can’t make out what it is immediately as my eyes are covered in blood. I try to blink the blood and tears mixture away. Slowly I manage to make out something mangled.
The holder of the bloody thing is jumping up and down joyfully, in a crazed dance. I strain my eyes to get a better focus. It is wrapped in a piece of cloth that was once checked blue, but the blood has turned the fabric into a dirty shade of crimson. Four boys have joined the crazed jumper in the dance. He is waving the bloodied thing around. It seems to be waving – as if it has fingers. I blink again. A bit of the now crimson piece of cloth flapping in the wind. I suddenly realize that I have seen that piece of cloth somewhere. In a daze I quickly look down and notice my shirt. No, I silently scream! The sea of blackness embraces me once again. This time it is accompanied with a flood of warm fluids between my legs.
The voices wake me again. I try to look around. I see nobody but I hear voices. They have all left. They took from me one of the things that assisted me in wronging others. The voices are louder. I shake my head willing the voices away, but my head is aching. I listen intently. Words – a sea of words. Words start ringing in my ears. Flooding angrily like waterfalls. Screaming! Pleading! … Please let me go. God help me. I have a baby. Don’t kill me. Take whatever you want. I’m expecting. I have a family. Please don’t rape me.
It was easy. It hadn’t always been easy though. It was scary at the beginning but I had to live. It was heart wrenching. Some nights I slept hungry. I was scared of getting caught. I was scared of hurting. It was survival of the fittest. I started smoking marijuana to close off every feeling that I had. Finally I wasn’t scared anymore. The marijuana gave me a high, a buzz, a push. I felt invincible, on top of the world and could do anything.
Hell. Yes, that’s what she had said. This one didn’t plead like the others. She didn’t ask me to let her go. Her eyes were not scared or angry like the others. They were kind – almost feeling sorry for me. I will find my hell right here on earth, she had said with kind eyes. Her eyes were light brown and warm. Forgiving. I had looked at her kind eyes then spat in them. I felt they patronized me.
“Hell is right here on earth, my son,” she had repeated.
“Shut up, old woman!” I had slapped her. Her naked body weak in my right arm.
She didn’t even wince, “it can be for just a minute, but it will be hell, my son.”
The marijuana in my head wanted me to pull out those eyes – but I couldn’t. Quickly I had looked at them for the last time; they had reminded me of home, of the family I had left behind years ago, of my mother. The eyes still looked at me as her soul left the world – maybe to hell, who knows, or maybe to heaven. The eyes looked at me, as if telling me, I forgive you. Yes, it was only yesterday.
Cold, scared, in pain, with no marijuana in my head I drift away. As I drift away alone, leaving this earth – maybe to hell – I see her eyes. Hell is on earth.