Voice of a village

A Story by Roland Corvus

Cecile says goodbye to the village that defined her.

She could try her best to shut her eyes from the terror, yet she found it much more difficult to block out the noise invading her ears, her brain. The people she had grown up with, her friends from the village, their families, her own family, soon to be victims to the noose if they weren't already. "To the noose" is of course merely a saying in this instance; they would each be gracious for the noose at this point. But no, their fate was to be much more dreadful than the noose. They would soon be praying for such a merciful, relatively quick death. Their loved ones would watch them lovingly embrace the rope around their neck, struggle violently for a few moments, then watch the life drift from their eyes as excrements oozed down their legs. But no, none of them here would have the luxury to be offered such a convenient and merciful death. The bullets had been used up hundreds of bodies ago, on the lucky ones who received one in between the eyes. The devils moved on to using machetes, and when the machetes had become too dull to be effective, they had resorted to the bashing in of the brains with large rocks, hopefully large rocks.

Cecile had watched as her loved ones were dragged helplessly from their homes, it was sickening how casually the devils had dragged them to the mass grave and executed them like dogs, or rather like insects. Cecile watched as her neighborhood friends were forced to the ground, helplessly waiting for their extermination. The only reason Cecile and her niece had been left alive was because the killers had gone to retrieve more ammunition, they promised to be back. After resorting to machetes and rocks for a few hundred bodies, they decided to go retrieve more ammunition, this of course would be the most effective and practical means of carrying out their business.

During this time of anxious and sickening anticipation, Cecile accepted her death, embraced it. She convinced herself she had no reason to stay alive. After all, why should she be spared when almost everyone else in her village had just been exterminated. The devils had told her, rather amiably, to pray. The most sickening part of it all was the genial demeanors of the killers. But Cecile found no other remaining option other than to take their advice, sit there and pray. Of course she could run, but to where? The rebels had the area completely surrounded for miles, if this was not to be the place of her death, then a nearby village surely would be. Why would she be so eager to die somewhere else, when it seemed so appropriate to just accept her fate right here next to her family. Cecile was trying her best to accept her fate, but found it difficult given the present circumstances. She remained sitting with her niece, sitting in small pools of blood, guts, and excrement that where her village had once stood. It is amazing the haunting, sinister thoughts the brain conjures up when faced with imminent suffering. When her brain fervently searched for alternative thoughts to dwell on, all that she could focus on were the sounds of the dying, the pain and agony. She remembered her nephew, no more than a month ago, falling down and scraping his knee. He had come running to her crying, wailing, as if he were truly suffering. Of course that sound was nothing compared to the shrill terror that she heard from him as his small skull was made into soup before her very eyes. The words of the leader were echoing in her ears. He said, "those we have killed will serve as a mattress for your dead president, you will be the blanket." She saw the pleasure in his eyes, the devil himself.

Cecile looked around at what was left of her village. She looked into the distance, as if it held the answer to her suffering. She was so accustomed to being the mother figure in the family who would be approached by old and young who were seeking guidance. That had always been her niche, she had enjoyed that. That, and much more, had been robbed from her on this fateful day. What would she tell her niece beside her, surely not that everything would be alright, her niece was too clever to be offered such hollow attempts at comfort.

It was known that along with the mass grave sites, the rebels were also disposing of the bodies in local bodies of water. She looked at the bodies of water now, shimmering alluringly in the distance, their true horror concealed.

Now it was time, Cecile closed her eyes and waited patiently as she heard the distant engines of trucks approaching. The devil's carriages that were transporting the devil's prophets. As they drew closer, time slowed down, her final moments were upon her. She considered herself lucky that the killers had gone to resupply their ammunition. Not for her sake, but for the sake of her niece, she was grateful she at least would be granted some degree of mercy. This was the last semblance of comfort she received before the trucks invaded the village. She opened her eyes and was shocked to see the flags flying from the truck, flags not of the rebels but of the patriots. It took her a moment to perceive what was going on. When a godly looking man climbed from his vehicle with food and water, she knew salvation had arrived. Their arrival was not met with Cecile's tears, for she had exhausted them all in the recent moments of atrocity. Before the killers could come back, soldiers from the Patriotic Front found Cecile and her niece and brought them to a camp for safety. Cecile turned and gave one last look at the place that was once her home, and then fixed her eyes on her new home, on her grieving niece that was joined to her purely through fate. The killers broke their promise to return, a new life was given to the two females now riding in the back of the truck. Cecile did not know what she was eating, but it was the most delicious food she had ever tasted.