A Child of the Universe

[1]
He jerked suddenly, awakening. His wiry, knotty, body sluggishly unwound itself from its curled up position with almost serpentine grace beneath the spiny, sparse tree that somehow clung to life - like an old miser clinging to the last vestiges of sanity just so he could finish counting out his hoard of coins - and offered scant, yet welcome relief from the scorching afternoon sun. He sat up and looked about him rather stupidly, eyes pouched and gummy with sleep. Slowly, his eyes took in his surroundings and images he saw seemed to register in his brain. He reached out a finger to rub his eye as he yawned. Awareness came back to him languidly, gradually. While one hand was busy massaging his eyes, the other lethargically reached into the front of his half-unbuttoned shirt and rummaged around for a bit. It came out clutching a small plastic bag. His child-like features formed a scowl - empty! He needed his "upper" - and fast. With an alacrity that was most uncharacteristic, he stood up to his full 5-foot frame and fairly ran across the camp.

The camp was a motley collection of hastily erected mud huts and goat-hair tents. There were about 350 of them and they all had to share whatever passed for facilities in the camp. He ran past the shoddy buildings and their shoddier inhabitants. A clutch of chickens took evasive action with angry clucks to avoid his careless bounds. He stopped at what seemed to be his destination with his short, curly hair glinting with sweat droplets and his dark skin glistening like burnished copper over his frail, heaving chest. The ramshackle hut he stood in front of seemed like any other at first glance. Then one noticed the wooden door barricading the entrance - the only door in the entire camp, aside from the ammunition store - and the electric wiring going in and out through the porthole-like window to one side. He raised a hand and knocked, "Kabtanka! Kabtanka!"

The door opened and a young girl, little older than himself peered out with dark, dead eyes - one of the Kabtanka's wives. He knew her - like a haze lifting off a fog-bank, his mind remembered a buried memory - they had been in the same village, long ago. They had played together. They had been...friends? The word seemed unfamiliar, almost alien. She clung on to, what seemed like, at first glance, a bundle of rags as if it were her only link to reality. He stared at it again as his eyes adjusted to the dark interior behind the girl. Why, it was a dirty, moth-eaten, rag doll! He knew it too. He had been there when she had first received it. It had been a present. A birthday present for her eighth birthday. From her mother. From HIS mother! She was his sister then. His elder sister.

His mind pieced together these bits of information in a methodical, sterile way bereft of emotion. He had had no emotions, not for the last three years, not since "The Youth" had come to his village and rounded up all the able adults. His village was small and poor even by the standards of his country. The number of recruits was insufficient for "The Cause", they said. The Youth had then begun to turn the huts inside out and herd the children together. He recalled being one of the "picked ones", while his sister had not been. He had then laid eyes on the great Kabtanka who had personally given him his gun. He was then shown how to work the trigger. He had shot for the first time that day. Yes, he had even gotten his first kill that day. They had asked him about his family and he had pointed them out. They had kept his sister with those children that hadn't been picked, but his parents, they'd pulled out of the fold. They had knelt them in front of him and had made him shoot. He hadn't known what would happen if he pulled the trigger. He had found out too late - as he watched the life ebbing away from the bodies that had once been his parents. It didn't matter now. They say The Cause was all that mattered. To him, The Cause meant nothing. To him, family meant nothing, not anymore. The only thing that mattered to him was his "bubbles" - and the Kabtanka was the one who would give him some.

The girl continued to stare at him passively. "Kabtanka!", he reminded her. She gave the briefest of nods and held the door open for him to enter. The inside of the hut seemed to reflect his sister's life - drab, dank and dreary. In a far corner stood a small camping refrigerator. There was a curtained doorway leading to an inner chamber through which the girl vanished. The only furniture in the room was a dusty wooden table and two, equally plain chairs. He stood by the table, twitching in anticipation like a greyhound on leash. The curtains flicked back and a tall, beefy man entered. His bullish frame seemed about fit to burst from under his ebony skin. Beetling brows framed a pair of jet black orbs that seemed to discern and strip bare all they cast their gaze upon. He wore camouflage trousers and vest with boots to match. He was the all-powerful Kabtanka, their chief. "Well?", growled the bear of a man, he was a busy man with a Cause and had no time for his foot-soldiers. The boy, as always, was filled with awe in his presence. "Bubbles", he stammered. The Captain laughed cruelly, "Not until after the job tonight, Cabdalle! You must earn it!", he admonished. Cabdalle wheedled for just a tiny amount, he would take less than his normal share afterwards. The Kabtanka looked the boy over and retreated into the backroom. He returned in a few seconds and placed a small plastic pouch of white powder in the boy's eagerly upturned palm. Cabdalle nearly tripped over the chair in his hurry to get back to his spot under that tree of misery. As he ran, he fished out a roll of thin cardboard fashioned into a pipe. His Cause was fulfilled, for a while anyway.

[2]
He jerked awake, suddenly. The world was dark, but there was a terrible tumult around him. He squinted into the inky blackness and made out faint shapes of jeeps and soldiers - some adults, some like him. "The job!", he jumped up and ran towards the vehicles and stopped - he needed his gun - he ran back towards the buildings. Someone called out to him and threw him a automatic rifle. For a twelve-year old, he caught it with practiced ease and gave the safety and the cartridge a once-over. Cabdalle backed up again and headed to the trucks, pausing only to pocket spare cartridges off a table. As he climbed into the back of a rickety old truck - a vestige of another time, another war - the convoy began to move. He lost his balance, what with the gun weighing nearly as much as him, and was about to fall out when a sinewy hand shot out and grabbed the back of his shirt. The ragged cloth rend some more and nearly gave way, but not quite, luckily for him. Cabdalle leaned back against the truck's metal stomach gratefully and muttered a whispered thanks to his saviour. He looked up and saw it was Xassan. Xassan was about his age. They had both been recruited around the same time, both "picked". It had been a relief to have Xassan next to him during those initial days of hell until "bubbles" took them both. He hadn't seen him in a while - he forgot how long - anyway, he didn't know to count beyond his fingers and toes. He had never even bothered to find out if he was still alive. It hadn't mattered. Nothing mattered, but for "bubbles". But still, it was...comforting...knowing Xassan was alive and standing beside him again.

The jeeps and trucks trundled along ill-maintained paths in the sub-Saharan night. A dull, unhealthy sliver of a moon poked out from behind a cloud from time to time. Inside the truck, there was no sound save for the raucous thumping of the diesel engine and the clinking rattling of an assortment of loose nuts and bolts. The occasional creaking of the chassis springs kept time. After a long time, when Cabdalle's high was almost gone, they stopped to sudden and complete silence. The boy peeped anxiously out from around his fellow soldiers. They were in some town. Low, whitewashed, single- or two-storied buildings stood in eerie, silent rows as far as his eye could see. One of the big men got out of the truck. The child-soldiers waited within. The man came back and motioned for them to disembark. Cabdalle followed Xassan out the back of the vehicle and ran into the welcoming shadows of a narrow side-street. Others followed suit heading off in different directions, into different shadows that swallowed them up enthusiastically.

[3]
One of the men in the front pointed out toward a large building. Cabdalle nodded though no one could see him. They didn't need to. Everyone assembled there knew what they were doing. They didn't get to stay alive if they didn't. The building was a high-walled, large-compounded affair. Cabdalle guessed there would be guards with dogs about. It didn't matter. There was a flash from a dimmed torch. As one, they all began to move. Cabdalle's brain shut down unnecessary functions. It told him there would be "bubbles" later. For now, he just had to follow the others and shoot. They burst through the gates and into the well-kept lawns, shooting; as always, the adults hung back letting the child-soldiers forge ahead. The children surged ahead unmindful of the danger, their thoughts on the amphetamines and the marijuana back at the camp awaiting their return. Some fell to enemy fire, others took their place. Cabdalle was firing at anything that moved in the distance. He bumped into a shoulder. He turned and looked into Xassan's face. Then something wet exploded into his eyes blinding him. He dropped his gun and fell to the grass instinctively and began rubbing the sticky liquid off. Some of it was in his nostrils - it smelt acrid. He finally opened his eyes - his hands were wet with water. No, water wasn't red - it was blood! He looked down - Xassan's body was lying unmoving. Xassan's head was mostly missing. Cabdalle felt a tiny twinge of...something within him.

Someone roared something unintelligible in his ears. He was roughly hoisted up. His gun was thrust back into his arms. The gun's familiar features allowed pure habit to take over. Cabdalle pulled up the barrel to point it forward and cradled the butt in his armpit. Suddenly, he felt a pounding shock in his gut. He gasped as his breath was physically expunged from his lungs by the force of the blow. As he bent over, he realized he was staring at his torso - or rather what was left of it. The left side of his hip seemed shattered. Parts of his shirt and his flesh were dangling, tattered and shredded. He was leaking blood by the gallon. He fell over backward in his surprise. He fell down hard and the pain began. It was intense and blinding. He supposed his eyes were still open but he could only see intense whiteness - it hurt. There was a buzzing sound in his ears - no more gunfire - it was such a relief. He coughed and tasted blood - his own, he realized. He blinked - once, twice. The white smog cleared a little. He was lying on his side in the grass - it had been freshly cut, green, and smelt nice, thought Cabdalle. He was lying next to someone. Someone familiar. It hurt to think, so he stopped. It didn't matter if he couldn't think. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered.

He closed his eyes again. He would not open them again - they hurt too much. He coughed again and more blood welled out. Around him, the battle raged - all quite pointless. Cabdalle felt his mind growing smaller and smaller. The whiteness in his head was going gray - and then black. Quite unbidden, an image formed. The last image Cabdalle would ever see. Unconsciously, his lips formed a smile. In his head, Cabdalle saw a dirty, shabby rag doll.