My Village

Back in 1950.. a man came to our village every month in the same time.. he has many small colored toys that always made me follow him through the streets. But my parents knew him from the big uncolored things he would bring from Cairo.

my mother would spend hours choosing from his goods. And dad would spend ours bargaining. and after my mom n dad would go up my brother would exchange a few words with him. words like "papers" and "inspection" and sometimes "martial"... I didn't understand back then what they meant. And when the man leaves he would either give my brother something small or takes a similar thing from my brother.. some paper I guess it was.. 

one day, when I was 9, my curiosity overcame my reason.. I took the small yellow paper from the man's bag when my dad was paying him. he didn't notice it by then.. and when I opened the paper I understood absolutely nothing.. I could barely read by then.. I read something that included numbers.. names which were closer to adjectives... some kinda small story.. and an address.. and the last line, the only line I understood, was: "burn it now!".. I did it... I burned it.. I thought it was addressed to me.. so I did it..but I did not burn it till 2 days later...

Before the sunset of the same day I stole the paper, the whole village was at the small village market which served also as a public square.. police cars were also there.. and a man in a uniform was standing there... the man from Cairo was on his knees. his face was a bloody mess.. only his eyes were visible.. the man with the uniform was looking down at him.. only one line was persistently coming out of his mouth: "where is it?".. his voice was plain.. hollow.. emotionless... he didn't look as if commanding.. but merely wondering.. the man from Cairo didn't answer.. "where is it?" the man in the uniform kept asking.. but he never got an answer.. then came another question:" where are they now?".. again and again he will ask but will get no answer.. until he took out his pistol.. he looked at it coldly and then looked down at his prey. "pathetic" he said without a look of hate or disgust or even indifference... nothing at all.. he raises his gun to the kneeling man's head. and before the loud bang and the dead silence came, the kneeling man raises his head to see me clutching the small yellow paper in my small hand and his mouth articulates the soundless words: "thank you"...

I never stole anything again..

Reviews

[emmajoy]

Oh what a terrifying ending!!!! You've described the scene from a child's perspective so very well And the market really came alive to me. That second paragraph really moves along smoothly but you suggest something's going to happen, quite eerily.

Fine post. Thank you for sharing it.