Run
By Ashley C. Goff
A non-fiction short story
Twenty
people sat on their knees, hands bound to their feet behind them. Soldiers
reigned over them, keeping the prisoners in their rifle sights while
simultaneously discussing among themselves in their quick and sharp native
tongue. I was among the bound.
We sat in a line.
Not a very neat line, but a line nonetheless. We had been there for some time
and I could no longer feel my feet or hands. Keeping my head carefully bowed so
as to avoid unwanted punishment, I managed to examine our captors with quick
stealthy glances. Though dressed in matching green military uniform, the state
of their clothing was deplorable. It betrayed their rebel status. Rebels;
fighting against an indifferent government and all who tried to bring aid to
this faltering country. Such as our team; a mission team sent to bring medical
aid and the Gospel to a village in the mountains. Unfortunately, this village
had been under surveillance by this guerilla pack and when they caught wind of
our underground operation, we had immediately become a target on their radar.
It was hot, very
hot; over a hundred degrees with equally cruel humidity. The jungle pressed in
around the small wooden lean-two in which we were being held; suffocating it.
The color of the immediate foliage was of a most brilliant green, but peering
into the distant depths of the jungle, the green became a foreboding black,
scarcely green at all.
The
lean-two did in fact look as though it had been halfway suffocated. Even though
the beams themselves were of a hard, reliable wood, there was not much to be
said for the rest of it. Haphazard bits of plywood and tin roofing metal had
been used to fix patches in the walls and roof but these patches were so
numerous that one could scarcely tell of which material the original walls had
been. Mending in the roof had primarily been done with burlap sacks which had likely
contained coffee beans. It had probably been an old storage post for the
shipments of coffee, awaiting the next stage of their journey which would take
them in trucks down the nearby road and to the factories where they would be
roasted; but it was difficult to tell.
Without
warning, the ape-like chatter from the soldiers stopped and a large deal of
shouting began. Our captors, who were doubling as our judge and jury, had
reached a verdict and had sprung to life. One in particular began screaming our
sentence at us, but I could not understand his words. The translator who had
been traveling with us certainly did though, for he sank forward, back bowed,
and began to weep and pray aloud in a voice that strained, cracked and faltered
like chipping paint. This enraged our captors and they roughly yanked him back
to an upright sitting position. But he went limp and tipped over onto his side
as though the bones had vanished from his body. The din reached a feverish
pitch, and then,
Bang! –
---
-
The
report of the rifle stopped everyone’s heart and filled our ears with the
silence, hollowing out our heads. As the echo of the shot ran away - doing what
all others could not and escaping into the dark jungle - everyone stared at the
corpse that had just a second ago been a living, breathing, crying man.
“Run! Run! Run! Run!” The
echo screamed as it ran deeper and deeper into the jungle.
Shot in the
forehead, the force of the shot had arched his back in the opposite direction
he had previously slouched, and toppled him backwards over and off his feet
which he had been sitting on. His body, lifeless and distorted because he was
still bound, tipped over and then ceased to move, lying on his side while his
vacant eyes stared fearfully at us, no longer controlled by him but of a
different force altogether, a deadly force. That was when we realized we were
to be joining him very shortly. Most were too numb and shocked to shed tears
and it wasn’t until the second and third rifle reports had occurred that I even
understood.
Bang! --
Bang! --
Bang! --
The succession of
the three shots passed too quickly and before I knew it they were standing
above me; next in line. I did not want to look at them. To say that I was not
frightened would have been a lie. Certainly I was grounded enough in my faith
to know that I would see the face of my Beloved in a very short time, however,
under immediate threat, survival instinct involuntarily took over. My heart
began to pound, hammering the inside of my chest as though trying to escape
through the flesh. I became possessed, one thought, one thought only. One
thought slowly pushed the others from my mind. Very, very slowly through no
will of my own, I raised my eyes and met theirs, peering down at me through the
black barrel of the rifle:
“Father,
forgive them…?”
“Run! Run! Run! Run!”
-----
---
-
The
bullet ripped through my chest, seemingly in slow motion. I felt it part my
flesh though my brain could not yet comprehend the pain, and I felt my body
distort from the impact; I began to fall. As my back hit the hard floor, my
eyes flashed open…
It
was at that instant when my eyes flashed open and I awoke in my college dorm,
my heart skipping beats and my body drenched in sweat. Disoriented by my
surroundings, I sat up and cast a quick look to the opposite side of the room
to make sure I had not woken my roommate by my sudden motion. Finding her
slumbering peacefully and altogether unaware of my horror; with tremendous will
I twisted by body around and sat dangling my legs freely over the side of the
bed, attempting to catch my breath, which came with effort. The clock read three
in the morning. Slowly, both my body and mind began to realize that I had not
been ripped open by a bullet and was not, in fact, dying. But as the sweat
vaporized and my heart returned to its normal tempo, a chill began to creep up
my spine and radiate through the rest of me. This nightmare was unlike most
others, after waking and even in retrospect, the horror remained undiminished.
My
face sunk into my hands and I wept.
