In Darfur
Divinus Arma

I keep my eyes closed and try to hold my breath. I can hear them approaching with each slippery crunch of their heavy footsteps on the mound. I lay motionless silently screaming as my cheek presses down against her slimy rotting breasts. The scorching oven of the sun roasts me within my hovel, surrounded and covered as I am and unable to move. Flies climb inside of my ears and nostrils, as do the maggots into my ragged torn undercloth. I feel them inside of my mouth, in my throat, and I wince in agony, depraved and desperate simply to allow myself to gag or choke.

There. They are closer now. I feel weight above me.

Crunch. Hot thick liquid oozes across my thigh.

Crunch. I feel the weight heavier and pressing now. Pain. I feel his heavy boot break through the flesh canopy covering and press onto my back. The hard rubber buries into my skin and takes my breath away, but I make no sound.

The soldier struggles to pull his foot out of the hole and the crushing pressure is relieved. He lifts himself up and complains of the stench. A second voice tells him to keep moving.

I betray myself and vomit. The reaction is instantaneous. The corpses above me are cast aside as excited voices fill the air. I make no move but it matters not as they grab me by my tiny arm and lift me from my hiding place, covered as I am with rotting flesh and insects.

My eyes open to light and the sting of the sun. I am thrown about and beaten and see myself cast aside within the pile of decomposing carcasses where I had been hiding. I feel a deep thud across my temple and the world goes dark. I never feel them rape me next to the pile of what last month was my family and tribe.

****

I awaken within a chain link cage, with twelve or so others. I am not the youngest girl, but close. I feel pain everywhere, and lay in my own blood, which I feel oozing from my bottom and my head. Outside of the cage, soldiers in ragged uniforms sit and stand around talking to each other. Some are my age. Some are very little boys, even younger than I and, shirtless, rest their oversized rifles in their laps.

A large straw wall is brought up by a group of men and placed around our cage. A gate is opened and one of my people is led outside, behind the straw. The gate is closed and I can see nothing. This happens again and again, until finally it is my turn. A brief fleeting desperate hope and fear overwhelms me but is quickly replaced with acceptance as I am led to the side of a small concrete wall. I sit against the wall, eyes open, and lift my head to better expose my throat. The blade cuts through the meat of my neck and flows hotly onto my chest. I never mattered.