For Blood And Country

March 7, 2014 - KHALID

I had satisfied my curiosity the day before, thanks to Folakemi. Our former house had been rebuilt and now a more beautiful house stood in its place. Being at the spot though, I felt a kind of connection and a little better in that moment. Folakemi and I talked a little more and exchanged contacts and I promised to give her a call soon. When I got back to the lodge I was in high spirits until I saw Khalid wasted. I didn't know the man quite well but the little time we had spent together suggested he was a jovial person. Or maybe he was a sociopath who was only happy when he had something insane on his radar. Anyway, I took the bottle of beer he was clutching as unto dear life from him and helped him get in bed.

It wasn't until this morning was I able to get him to talk after he had sobered up. He told me about his family, how his wife had been a trader in front of their house in Borno. Then late one afternoon she was coming back from the market and almost at their home when she was hit by a vehicle. The passengers were drunk army men and they had blamed her for not watching where she was going, before driving off. Witnesses rushed her to a nearby clinic and sent for him in his workshop few streets away. On getting to the hospital, the doctor told him she had lost the baby he didn’t even know she was carrying at the time, but that she was in stable condition. She was discharged the next day, after gathering the money for her treatment. Later that day, she started coughing up blood. He rushed her back to the clinic and they found out she had been bleeding internally. She died few minutes later.

He was determined to avenge his wife and if that took killing as many soldiers as possible with the help of the sect, then so be it. Even the hospitals that were supposed to help take care of her were incompetent, and their incompetence had cost his wife and unborn child their lives.

The day before had been the anniversary of his wife and unborn child's death.