"Do they put jenajesh [child soldiers]in front of the firing squad? I asked the captain sitting beside me. Night had fallen, the other men were asleep, and it was dark in our prison, but I couldn't close my eyes.
"No Jal. They wait until they grow."
I shivered as I sat in the darkness.
I'd been in prison for many weeks now after being taken out of the small hole. My new home was a bigger pit where eighteen men lived, and I had climbed down a ladder into it. The men were dirty and the air was full of the smell of them as they looked at me. Above, I could hear metal scraping along the ground as sheeting was pulled over the entrance.
At first I had felt afraid and kept quiet as I listened to the men talk. One had shot someone, another had slept with a commander’s wife, and three had run away from the battlefield to a refugee camp. All had stories to tell. But while I slowly realize that the men would not hurt me, I knew that I would not escape the dangers of my prison so easily. We were kept in the hole for hour after our – gasping when the sun shone and the metal roof heated up until it burned, or sitting in mud when the rain fell and soaked us. The only time we were allowed out to squat over a hole in the ground, for a lashing, or to do our duties. I had to sweep the camp for hour after hour but was always returned to the hole at the end of the day.
At first I’d tried not to think too much about how long I would be in prison. But as I listened to the other prisoners talk, I understood that some know they would end up in front of a firing squad, and it scared me to think that I might too. I had been whipped and beaten but still refused to admit to stealing, so maybe Commander Jurkuch would want me dead. My head ached heavily as I thought about it. I didn’t know how long I would be here or whether I’d ever be a soldier again.
“Why don’t you tell me a story, Jal?” the captain asked as I sat silently.
He was my friend now that we were in prison together. The captain and I laughed when mud covered us or when another prisoner farted, and then, when the guards tried to silence us, we laughed even harder. Sometimes, just like tonight, we also told each other stories to pass the time.
I turned my head in the blackness and began, “There was once a man who fell in love with a beautiful girl. Bu the man could never meet the girl because she lived in a big compound guarded by lions.
“And so the man would climb trees to sing beautiful songs to the girl and she would come out to listen to his voice. But no matter how often she did, the man was always too scared to climb down from his tree and speak to her because of the lions.
“Day after day he sang, and as the days turned into weeks and months, the man told himself that the had to be brave because the beautiful girl would never want to marry a coward who stayed hidden up a tree. So one day he decided to climb down.
“But as his feet touched the ground, he saw a lion in the distance and he stared running, Soon he was going so fast that his legs flew in the air behind him and his ankles hit his head. As he reached the compound where the girl lived, he was sure his own feet were the lion’s paws touching his back, and with a scream he grabbed them, tripped himself up, and fell onto his belly in the dust, where he fainted in fear.
“Did I kill the lion?” he asked as he woke up.
“What lion?” a voice asked.
“He looked up to see the beautiful girl.
“The lion that chased me to you,” he replied as she smiled at him.
“The lion has gone forever,: she said.
“You see, the beautiful girl knew the man had never been chased by the lion, but she had already fallen in love with him because of his beautiful songs and wanted him to be her husband even though he was a coward.”
I heard a soft laugh in the dark. “Well done, Jal,” the captain said. “It is only in a story that a beautiful girl would fall in love with a coward.”
“Of course, Captain. But it is nice to think that songs can be so powerful.”
__________
War Child by Emmanuel Jal, pp.115-117 .
And the power of the songs written and performed by Emmanuel Jal has transformed my life and given me the strength and the courage to do things that were difficult and almost impossible. The songs of Emmanuel Jal made me believe in myself in my brokenness. So, I run.
