Cigarette

One time, after he had killed my neighbor and chased the screaming women and children towards the river, a soldier sat under a small tree behind my kitchen and smoked a cigarette.

His brothers were retracting back across the dry flood plain, Ak-47s now slightly relaxed, a few isolated war cries still whooping across the paralyzed air.

But this soldier’s gun lay at the foot of the tree, discarded alongside the leaking yellow jerry cans and pink headscarves that littered the dirt path running South.  

He lurched like a drunk when he dropped it, staggering a slow full circle with head raised heavenward and long empty arms twitching loosely at his sides.

From the cement horizon of the porch half-wall where I hid, I saw him slump to the ground by the small tree and I was certain he was injured, bleeding out from a wound I could not see.

But I watched as his comrades filed slowly past, ignoring him as they ignored me, moving back towards the camp with casual rage.

Black smoke bruised the sky above the airstrip as the tall soldier pulled a pack from the breast pocket of his uniform. Like a man on a mat outside the market, he cupped his hands near his face as he lit up. Then sagging back against the tree he sucked in over and over again with deep hungry breaths.

Twilight eventually gathered herself up out of the haze and slipped discreetly home. I returned to my family on the floor inside. Later, when I came back out to draw water from the barrel, he was gone.   

I think about that soldier today as I cook supper for my children. From where I stand at the half wall stirring lentils I can see the small tree where he sat one afternoon a few years ago. It rises above the chai colored flood waters rippling over the field, sunlight shattering brightly against its wet shade. Hot oil pops against the skin of my wrist as I watch the tree and listen to the splash and cry of swimming children.