The man who told you how to run was butchered three minutes afterwards; the old woman who told you where to run to was hewn into pieces with an axe. The man had said: Run zigzag, like you've lost your balance; fall, but never stay down. The old woman, because she had been in the city for years and knew how it worked, had said: Run through forgotten roads, hide in the forgotten bushes, and pray, my son, that they forget you too.
From where you hid and watched the burning city, you could see the Arewa Boys swiping their cutlasses against the head of every Igbo man on the street; you could see Igbo homes rise up in flames, like sacrifices, to heaven.
Corpses lay, uncared for, along the winding Kaduna streets; flies and vultures gathered alike, to feast on the bodies. You could see Mama Nkechi's body, a little distance from where you were hiding; her hands had been yanked off her shoulders by her attackers. Her legs, too, were parted in strange ways, and you wondered how many lost Arewa Boys had flashed through them. You could see, also, Emeka's father who was your neighbour. He had said, three months ago, that Nigeria was his home too, and the government would protect them. He had banked on his ability to speak hausa language fluently; and he thought, also, that the stretch marks that ran down his chins would pass for a tribal mark. How wrong he was to think they'd ever accept him, how wrong he was to build his hopes here...how wrong! The axe that cut him lay, quiet, by his side; his intestines covered the mass of earth within him. His hands were raised, as if in surrender, and he died that way. Obviously, this world was not his home.
Sometime around June, you had watched on the news as Arewa Boys flooded the streets with a funny declaration that all Igbos flee from the land before the next three months. You had watched with an uncertain kind of awe, when the first rush of frenzy ran down your spine; you knew that to leave here was to begin all over again, and even still, without anything.
Your father had raced back home that evening, to tell you and your mother about the news, but he found you both lying on the sofa, your eyes sore from crying. Your mother cried periodically, like she were a pendulum, and tears were ageing Time. Your father had, however, broken down in tears too, because, somewhere inside his heart, he was afraid of losing you both. He knew that peace was farther, now, than it could ever be.
You knew your father would have loved to leave the city before then. But then you knew, also, that there was no money at home. How could he have saved up enough with the constant raids on his shop? How could he have come up with something tangible, when the landlord breathes his salary like air...demanding for two years' worth of rent at once?
It was today that he saved up enough for the escape, but the city had become fire already. The road was blocked, and boys carried weapons thicker than their conscience. It was a twelve year old boy who killed your father. His name is Adamu – you were his senior in primary school. It still drives you crazy, when you remember how your father knelt to beg the gang for mercy, and when you remember how the gang leader told Adamu to execute your father. The sudden splash of blood would hunt you forever...but that's if you don't die today.
It's hard to admit it, but you lost your mother the same place you lost your father. She had let you escape through the narrow tunnel beside the road; she blocked the entrance with her fat body...and although they struck her many times, she refused to let them in. You know, she, too, died for you.
Now you're in the bush, and you know there's nothing left off of the country. Maybe it was dead, even before now; maybe this was nothing but the funeral. Now you're in the bush, and you feel strange footsteps walking towards you. You find boys sneering at you, matchets, axes and daggers cupped in their hands. You watch as one of them walk up to you; and in what seems like your last words, you ask him: "What happened to your humanity?