|
PETE COURT
Day of Rebellion
Third Prize Winner, SLQ
Short Story Competition (April 2010)
Mujutu is
changing, like a snake, tearing its own flesh, turning over,
shedding in flames. We have run from the thin clickety tin
school toward our red round home as the heavy trucks of the
army pounded around us. The faster land rovers of the
militia coiled about them as we cowered behind falling walls
or turned our faces from Mista Colleki, lying in the dirt of
the street with a splattered watermelon head. I hauled up
little Tavo, his puffy hand wet and slippery, shoved and
stopped, the army men ruthlessly slaughtering the crust of
the homes, I am screaming at the fires that burn as the
militia streamed mayhem and more putter pak pak of guns. Not
booms or bangs. Just chatter pak pak. And then the air is
full of haunting ghost bees, slashing the tree beside Uma
Lullas car. We are using it to be invisible. They shoot
children. The militia, they eat them. The army, they eat
children too. Probably. The home over there explodes in
flame, smoke runs from it, chasing a fat woman, Mama Summi,
it must be, but now with only one arm and flames are running
up her legs as she stumbles, flames dance at her like
excited puppies. A truck obscures her, the truck is
shooting. I pull the puffy wet hand and we run, across the
playground, now steel and bits of wood are playing there,
hot, smoldering, stinking of eggs and fuel burning. We run.
A lane way. Two dogs have vomited their bellies out, slashed
open by stray metal. My heart is bursting, knees won’t work
for trembling. Little Tavo stumbles and I drag him, skin
leaves his knees to blood the earth even more and I can’t
help but run, and labour, hauling him. In a brutal gush the
air crushes me and sound vanishes, the pak pak, the howling
crying, the exploding distance. All is silent and I’m flat
on my face. Donkey shit, or goat shit stares at me. I can’t
hear. I tremble. My belly is climbing into the narrow of my
throat, burning it with acid. Little Tavo’s hand is slipping
from mine and now his pathetic arms are under me, lifting me
and failing, urgency, he is grabbing at me but weak and
small. I roll over and his cherub fat mouth is blattering on
but I can’t hear him and he is jumping and pointing. I see
where. And I can move. A little tin hall, a tiny almost
shed, that the missionaries use for their singing hall. My
ears are screaming now, high pitched as I follow little Tavo
and rumble tumble totter into the tiny tin hall. He slams
the thin wooden door and the screaming in my ears begins to
hush up. Chairs are sitting patiently in two rows before the
silent piano. A truck thunders past, delivering my returning
hearing, and dust falls like angels as a smashing explosion
shakes the laneway outside. Pak pak and the woosh and rip of
rockets and grenades are filling the air out side. The men
are tearing at each other with metal and eyes of hate and
anything they can. Slaughtering the dogs, blowing up the
streets, murdering Mujutu. And in this tin shed Tavo and I
shudder on the patient plastic chairs, looking at the piano.
Battered by love and travel, it glows with care and the
yellow keys are a grandma smile.
And grandma’s
teeth begin to move.
I don’t know
piano songs much and this one I have never heard. A happy
tune. One two one two three three four, and then again and
around, horribly getting faster and faster. Tavo grabs my
arm, trembling, fat fingers biting as the terrible piano
plays itself faster and faster.
“It must be
her” He whimpers into my shoulder and his eyes cling to the
impossibly playing piano
A truck roars
past and then back again and gun fire and hot metal
explosions fall from it and all about it. A little Militia
Jeep makes a big whoomp as it dies screaming in the lane and
the men fall about on the ground as blood rushes between
their fingers or they try to put their eyes back into their
heads. The piano is playing very fast now, fast and so fast
that Tavo and me don’t hear men screaming at the little
wooden door until the horrible piano suddenly stops. We turn
in our special plastic seats and there are three big men
standing in the open door way with massive guns pointing
toward us and the impossible piano. The truck behind them is
weeping smoke and leaning on a slashed wheel and the men are
covered in dirt and the blood of other people. They lift
their massive guns and begin to fill the tiny tin shed with
their hurt and rage, the anger exploding from their cradled
weapons, explosive, imminent and enormously heavy violence,
from men the same colour as Tavo and me. The distance, not
much more than a hand shake or a nodded smile, their weapons
roar in the tiny space as they bend their faces to our
personal and deliberate slaughter.
Tavo and me, we
can not close our eyes but we both open our bladders.
And not a
single shot enters our tiny haunted shed. Not one piece of
murderously heavy projectile, nothing gets past the door. In
a cloud of stinking grey smoke the men stare at their handy
work. Useless. Impotent. They stare at two children in a
tiny shed. Alive and unhurt. They look at their weapons,
they hastily reload, busy, at work, hateful and in pain.
They raise the machines again. And then, in the space
between action and death, the piano starts to play. Slowly
at first and then getting slightly quicker, now more so as
the three raging soldiers stare inside, their faces have
become pale, ashen, the piano plays louder, faster, fast and
loud and the men can not see the ghost of the small girl,
they don’t even know of the stories of the little child who
died and never left, but they know something plays. The
ground shakes as a rocket of some noisy explosive type
smashes their truck into the ground.
And the three
killers run from the door way, seeking easier slaughter,
more reasonable bodies to splay.
Tavo has
slipped from my embrace and pushed shut the thin wooden door
of the tiny tin shed and the terrifying piano has slowed to
a pleasant, jaunty pace. A happy song.
A song of
peace. My belly is not afraid now.
The end.
|
