“Poisonous Pistol”
The story I am about to tell you I have always kept to myself. I never thought anyone would understand. The embarra**ing childhood compared to everyone else who have lived where I breathe now. Would people understand it? Should I keep such a story to myself? For years I have never told anyone about my childhood, but it has made me who I am. It is a difficult story to tell about where I was in my childhood compared to where I am now. Would people believe me because of how I have adopted to this new culture? Do I leave it behind me and not tell anyone? My childhood of living in such poverty has always stood behind me and in my head. Putting these experiences on paper may relief some pressure in my head and become proud of where I come from. It all starts with being born in the middle of nowhere. Literally, nowhere.
“It's on fire! It's on fire!” the man in all white clothing shouts. All you can see was his face and hands. His bare hands on his knees as he leans, shouting as loud as he can.
He was right; the tent that covered the three babies sleeping was caught on fire. The man quickly grabs a corner of the tent and starts tearing it down, putting it all on the ground. Everyone starts throwing sand onto the tent. Sand everywhere. You can see it miles and miles down, rocky true desert. The man was thanked by being offered some water, who kindly rejected. He rejected a fifth time until he took a sip. The look on his face looked as if he had found gold. Those three babies were not I, but born in the same place. Underneath the tent that provided enough shade to cover a whole racquetball court. I was five.
“We need more water!” I kept hearing it over and over again. Those words would not leave my head. I was seven and never thought I would be using water to make mud. Two years before that a man took a sip of water from us and could never be happier. Water was then flowing more than sand in the steppe desert. Messing with the mud as if I was doing it as a hobby, shaping it into square pieces. Making mud bricks was the most entertainment any kid could wish for at the new refugee camp being built. About two miles wide and two miles long, a big box of sand was fenced. I had been wasting water in mud for two years now, and still didn't sleep in shade.
“Take it off! We must wash it, you must not wear it today.”
The only clothing I had was taking away from me by my mother who refused to let me wear it with all the mud on it. She would throw it in water as she squeezed it over and over again. Every couple minutes she would take it, grab each side by one hand, and start twisting it as hard as she can possibly twist it. Water would drain from the piece of clothing. She would hang it on a stick to let it dry. There it was, just a piece of clothing hanging from a stick. A man from today's culture would say it was a thong, they were my shorts and the only thing I had. That day was fun. All the other kids did jobs that didn't require mud. They got to keep their shorts on. From the start I felt like I was different. Embarra**ed and ashamed to go by all the other kids. They all looked at me different. I didn't understand why I was so different.
“Where do you think you're going?” says the guard holding his rifle. I was scared. I looked at the man with a cigar in his mouth, didn't looked worried about a thing. My eyes wide open; left leg was shaking before I suddenly started running back. Almost falling to the ground as I run, all I could hear at the time was loud laughter from the soldier. All he was doing was guarding the refugee camp. There were guards in every corner of the fenced camp.
I was thinking to myself at the time, how does dad get past those guards? Little did I know there was a certain time adults can leave the camp without consequences. Explaining to my mom what had happened, she told me that most kids get past the fence without being seen. This is what I had to do to go to work. Risk my life. Most kids went together, but I didn't belong with them. They always looked at me as if I didn't belong. They had a shirt. They had socks. They didn't have long hair that made them look like a little girl. Sad to say, I was the kid who rarely said words, always feared everyone else in embarra**ment. But I saw a kid who looked just like me with the other kids, Why was I so different?
I had made it. I had made it to my Uncle's farm. The first time I had ever seen so much green in my life. I stood there not moving a muscle, surprised as anyone could ever be. I was there early, I had just missed sunset. The sun shinning straight at my face, I had one hand on my forehead staring down the whole farm. I had seen as early as then people walking with buckets of water on their head. Buckets of water carried for miles to come water the farm. As I had looked down in front of me I had seen gra**, for the first time in my life. I was told not to eat anything on the farm, but the gra** never looked so good. Plain dirt ground all around. I had not seen any houses or anything of that sort. I would not say this was a farm, just an area where plants were grown. So many rocks on the ground, I slowly worked my way through to the plants. I saw watermelons, grapes and even tomatoes as I walked through a dirt lane everyone else walked through. It was where they poured water as well as walked through. This was one of the happiest moments of my life. I had walked over thirty miles to go work at my uncle's farm.
Ten hours of work and I got my meal. All the kids grabbed their meal and started walking back. I waited. Ate my meal, still waiting there at the small tent with food under it. Waiting for my uncle, I thought maybe I could stay there since I was going to work there everyday until I was told not to. The old man in charge said I had to leave. When I had asked him where is my uncle, he had said that no one can be there but him during the night. It was dark by then. I still had a few hours to walk home, having to walk back to work the next day again.
It was as dark as one could imagine. Trying to look at your own hands only made it darker in front of you. No signs of any light. How was I supposed to get back? How does an old man let a eight year old walk by himself in the middle of the night. I had never been more scared in my life. I just kept walking and walking, no clue where I was going. All I knew was the direction I had came from. All I could think of that time was that guard's loud laugh. “Where do you think you're going?” repeating in my over and over again. Where was I going? It was that night that changed my life. Walking for hours endlessly, I had come upon a small cave in the middle of nowhere. Literally, nowhere. There were small puppies in I had found. As scared as I was, I was as happy as a kid waking up realizing he can open his Christmas presents.
I spend up to an hour just petting the puppies, slowly, wondering where their mother was. The next thing I know the sun was shining right at my eyes. I had fallen asleep. Jumping up in fear, I had realized I had better get to work. I had to work to get my one meal of the day. My dad worked to get my sisters and mom meals for the day, as well as himself. Most kids would start labor at the age of five. I started at that age building homes out of mud. Three years later I was in the middle of nowhere with some puppies not knowing what to do. Second day I was already tired of the farm, the work was tough and none of the kids helped me out. When I got my meal, all I could think of was the puppies. The piece of bread and two tomatoes in my hand had never looked so good.
The puppies wouldn't take the food from me. I tried feeding them over and over again but nothing. No sign of their mother. I started eating the watermelon I had stolen from the farm. It seem as if I was mad at the watermelon, eating every bit of the outside and inside. I was that hungry. That second night I had no intention of going back home. I wanted to be with the puppies.
The guy in charge of the farm knew goods were stolen. I had stolen a watermelon. No one knew it was me who did it, yet all the kids believed it was. They all left and came together, if they had not taken it, it must have been me? All the kids worked for no meal that day. One kid argued that it is fair, fighting to get a piece of the food. He was pushed to the ground as the old man started beating the kid. The kid lying there crying, couldn't keep up with his own tears. The kid was beat up pretty bad. I still remember that picture. It's hard to forget something when you end up in the same position hours after. The old man had dismissed us all together, forcing me to walk at the same time as everyone else. I kept my distance from them as much as possible. If I remember right, I even stood for a good ten minutes so they could get ahead. I wasn't thinking about going home, I wanted to go see those puppies.
The puppies had eaten the tomatoes, and the piece of bread. I can't remember how happy I was that they did. It was then and there five minutes after seen the puppies where I got stabbed. Stabbed by the kids who I thought were hours ahead of me. As I was stabbed in the shoulder I started running, not even looking back as I stumbled and fell. Around eight or nine kids all trying to get a punch on me as I lay on my back. My feet kick back and forth trying to fight them off. The kid with the knife got me a good four times on my left leg. I can still feel that feeling as it just happened.
There was still one puppy left. They had taken all of them but one. To this day, I still do not know why they left one. I picked up the puppy and started going back home. It took me twice as long to get home, covered with blood. I do not remember having much pain until after I got home. That was the night I found out why the kids treated me differently. They didn't hurt me because they thought I had stolen the watermelon. They had planned to hurt me regardless.
Eight-year-old kids hated me because I was not the same religion as them. When I had found that out, I never cared to look at them either. Always ignored them. From that day one, I was not embarra**ed anymore. I would go to work everyday and back with no fear, with my new best friend, Sharro. I had named the puppy after my uncle's name. Sharro and I got by the guards with no problem at any point that we wanted to.
“Where do you think you're going?” the man yelled. This time it was not at me. It was at the kid who happened to be the one who stabbed me. Sharro and I stand inside the fence looking on. The kid starts running outside the fence as the guard started chasing him. Sharro started running as well and already knew which part of the fence to crawl under. Within seconds I could barely see Sharro, so fast I didn't know what to do. I had no choice but to follow, knowing I could get in trouble too. I was already in trouble with my best friend chasing them. When I got there, Sharro had bitten the guard, and there was no sight of the kid. There I was again, scared for my life. I ran home with Sharro and never spoke a word to anyone about it.
The next day a guard walking around giving out chicken to all the dogs. He was at our home. Sharro was in the back. He knew. He knew my best friend was the dog who had bitten a guard. Looking at my dad's face, I knew he couldn't do anything about it. I didn't know any better at that time. I was convinced that they want to help out all the dogs and give them a meal. The dog I had shared my one meal of the day with every day was about to get a full meal. He gave me a raw piece of chicken. It was a wing. The wing was longer on one side then the other. It was pink on one side, covered in white salt on the other. It wasn't salt. I had fed my dog the one wing that was given to me. What looked like a wing then now looks like a pistol to me. A poisonous pistol.
It was weeks later when I started playing with all the other kids. They had accepted my religion views because my dog had saved them that one night. Kicking a ball made out of socks, I was no longer the lonely kid. It was one long sock that mothers would wear, filled with smaller socks. If you had one of these back then you were a like a king. Not everyone's mom let them take all the socks in the house. Socks were like shoes to us. We did not have shoes, yet we still wore socks due to burning sand. There I was, hanging out with the kids I once feared. There I was, as if I had never been lonely before.
I still felt lonely. The one thing that had kept me happy was shot by me. It was me who shot Sharro with the poisonous pistol. Deep down I had always felt that way.
Why would I be embarra**ed by this story? Because I no clothes but shorts. Why would I be embarra**ed by this story? Because I had no friends. Why would I be embarra**ed? Because my childhood is not believable. Why would I be embarra**ed? Because I wasn't educated enough to realize that the piece of chicken was poisoned. Why be embarra**ed? Because I still escaped through the fence to see my uncle that I never had.
“Where do you think you're going?”