BEYOND INSANITY

The Day Dawns

Chapter 3

THE YOUNGMAN man looked on with disdain. It had been too long since the war should have ended but it would not. Standing several feet away from the soldier, his heart beat increased and it was clear that he was afraid of what might happen next.

The war had been panting for the lives of its enemies and he was sure that baring a miracle, would he survive. The other night, soldiers, several soldiers from the Armed Forces of Liberia had visited his family. Just eighteen, and little experience in the difficulties that sorrounded the political crisis in the country, the city of Monrovia where he had lived with his mother and four sibblings had been relatively safe. No, it was safe until the political troubles began and it eventually progressed to the direct confrontation against the Gios and Manos and other political figures in the country.

As the man had said to him, when they came, "All you Gio and Mano people are marked for destruction." The soldier had meant business, for he had demonstrated that statement by whipping his mother with the butt of his gun.

"You are killing me," his mother had wailed, pleading for help that James Zonn could not give. In fact when the soldiers saw him starring at them, they thought he was taking mental pictures of their action, and he was warned to look away.

"If you want to live," the other soldier had warned him, "you must never look at us like that, rebel."

From here, he turned his face to the other side of the house but that did not satisfy the soldiers. And he was not looking when he felt a heavy metal slapping at the back of his head.

"Ma they are killing me," was all he was able to say, and then he had blacked out.
He did not how long it took, but by the next morning, he awoke to find his mother was missing, and his two brothers and two sisters sprawled on their mats. He thought they were dead but he was glad that when he began to shake them, they all awoke, with tears in their eyes.

Two of his sisters, one was sixteen and fifteen, he saw, had their underwears torn in several places. And there was blood also.

In tears, he grabbed the hands of the girls and pulled them along to the bathroom.
"They took mamie away," the seventeen year-old girl said, as the rest of the children began to shriek.

Their father?

He had been missing. He had gone in search for food for the family in Saye Town when news came that he had been arrested. From the pieces of information he could put together, he learned his father had been arrested at a checkpoint by some soldiers. And he also learned that his father was a "rebel."

He was now becoming use to the description of being a "rebel" and from then on since any Gio and Mano was considered a "rebel" he realized that it was no longer safe for him to accept the description of being a "Gio or a Mano." But can he change it? He knew being a Gio or a Mano simply meant the tribe he originated from which had its distinctive cultural practices and songs and other things. But he also knew that it was a designation about the language or dialect he communicated with at home with the family. But was a language a crime that others must pay with their lives?
Since his mother was taken away and the father had also been long arrested, he saw how unfair life had become. He thought about one of his uncles in the national army. Was he still alive? Had he been arrested and perhaps killed, since he was also a Gio?
There were sounds of shooting outside and he could hear people running here and there.

"The soldiers are coming," he told his sibblings and they went inside their room. Hunger pangs were bitting them deeper, and he did not know what to make of the situation.

Yes, the day had dawned on him and the future looked bleaker than he had anticipated. He wished he understood the reasons for the suffering of the Gios and Manos, and likewise the entire Liberian people.
He wished he knew.

He also knew that by 1700GMT, the BBC would broadcast the lastest news from the war front, and at the time he would be able to hear what the National Patriotic Front of Liberia's leader, Charles Taylor, say about the war. It was now 1500GMT and there was 2 more hours to go.