Mama Said...

I can’t sleep because they’re back. 

The bad men, or at least that’s what mama calls them.

Outside, the fireworks were brighter…not colourful though.

Shades of orange and yellow danced across the sky, some blossoming into flowers, a layer of soft ash decorated the floors.

Men lay sleeping on the ground outside the window. Quite a few men, all in silly costumes, some were even playing together! Was it hide and seek? I wanna play!

But mama says no.

She tells us to say hidden under the table, she says the bad men might come she says the bad men will take me from her.

She says it’s because the people incharge did a bad thing, and now everyone’s fighting. 

I wanna eat!

The hunger was ever-present from dusk till dawn it gnawed at me. 

But mama says no.

Mama says the food has run out, she says the men in silly costumes need it.

Days pass by. We’re still hidden.

I wanna eat, I wanna play.

But mama says no. 

Her eyes dulling, her hair thin. She no longer played or laughed, she sat still and quiet like a doll. 

I miss the sun, big, and round like mango. The choir of birds performing at the break of dawn. The butterflies that decorate the already radiant flowers.

So I step out when mama’s sleeping, she doesn’t have to know.

The fireworks were sparking on every turn, the flowers in the sky blossoming bigger and brighter. The layer of ash decorating the ground now like a thick winter coat

I think mama will like it, she likes the color of ash. I turn around to bring mama out and then… 

Boom, boom, boom.

The last echoing sound I hear before I fall to the ground. 

It was the bad men. They got me.

I should have listened to mama, when she said no.