Nadifa Mohamed - The Orchard of Lost Souls (227-28) lyrics

The red-haired elder swivels at her approach and swings his can at her face. She doesn't notice her finger squeeze the trigger of her rifle as her whole body recoils from the blow. The knock of the rifle against her chest surprises her, as does the sudden pop of bullets. When the elder falls back on his behind she a**umes that he has lost his balance trying to strike her, until points of blood spring up over his shirt, turning the white cloth a red that darkens before her eyes. Then the two other elders drop to the ground, their open eyes still watching her. Movements at the periphery of her vision blur so she does not recognize the grey shadows as her comrades advancing on the prostrate men. “Hold fire!” shouts Lieutenant Afrah. Filsan looks down at her feet and sees bronzed beetles scuttling over them; she presses one boot on the other, and the beetles are stilled, transformed into empty bullet shells…. “Get in the truck, Jaalle, we will secure the area,” Liutenant Afrah orders. Filsan peers down at her distant boots. “But I can't move.” Afrah clicks his fingers and a conscript no older than 15 comes to his side. “Escort her back to the truck.” The conscript takes her elbow gently, like he would his grandmother, and leads her forward as she stumbles over the broken ground. “You did well, Jaalle,” he keeps repeating in her ear as they trek the half-mile back to the vehicles. “But what happened? Who k**ed them?” she whispers. In the dark cocoon of her room Filsan watches scenes from the day flash across her mind: three corpses hitchhiking back to Hargeisa with her, the smeared viscera of flies wiped back and forth over the windshield, a line of vultures silhouetted against the midday sun, the quick untruthful briefing to Major Adow back at Birjeeh, the soldiers gathered around her in the canteen describing their own k**ings, the smack smack smack of the typewriter as she wrote a report of the operation in Salahley.