Robertsport, Liberia
CniDaria-15
"Where will we get our next meal today….
This seemed like the daily question I asked myself back in those days. Every morning I would lie, eyes wide open, hungry, and in longing for home cooked meals. Fried chicken, yellow rice, and greens; mother's favorite thing to fix us. Something you couldn't get anywhere else but from her. She used to tell us that her mother taught her how to do it back in America and one day she would do the same for me. As a woman I guess it was a happy fantasy for a little while to one day cook that meal for my husband and see how appreciative he was. Stuff like that used to bring a smile to my face. That version of me seems so long ago. I like to think it died in that warehouse two years prior where I almost lost my life. I look over to my brother who is still fast asleep next me. He's finally grown taller than me and started to develop his muscles but no matter how he's grown physically he's still my annoying and immature little brother. I can't help but smile at him each morning though. He's the only thing I have left in this world. We got each other's back no matter what the world throws at us, we will survive.
I started to shake Ty up so we can start our day. He's always less than eager to wake but I don't have to push too hard. We now live in a small shack, Ty and I built it ourselves out of scrap metal. We decided to build it just outside of town since it's closer to the lake and no one bothers us out here. We bathe in peace and have all the water we could ever need.
Living alone with just me and my brother isn't too bad, we fend for ourselves. We tried to contact our parents to no avail. We even stayed in the vicinity of our burnt-to-a-crisp apartment building for almost a month, sleeping on the sidewalk every night, rummaging for valuables in the wreckage and selling them for food and water. We stayed for as long as we could, but they never came looking. We later found out that our little community wasn't the only place to get terrorized that night. Towns all over the country were ravaged and it begged the question of why, the purpose of it all, and why the government didn't put a stop to the madness. No matter how many other orphans I met my questions were never answered. The police started rounding up refugee children about a week after the incident. Ty wanted to let them take us so we can go into the system as orphans, but I knew better. I had heard rumors for years of what our government did with orphans our age. Our country had no money to house them, feed them, and educate them. So, they turned them into child laborers. A life of slavery is not what I wanted for me and my brother. So, by selling the most valuable figurines we found that survived the fires we hitched a ride out of country to Robertsport. A place where we could escape the possibility of that life, a place where no one could recognize us and we could forget our painful past. Even though we started this new life, we still are in the same spot of struggling and begging for our lives. As well as these blatant questions hanging over our heads. Where are our parents? Are they dead? If they were, someone would have come to give us that information, right? If they're alive, why didn't they come looking for us? Did something happen to them? Did they ever reach America in the first place? For our own sakes I couldn't dwell on these thoughts, what mattered right now was our survival. So, we press on living for only today because tomorrow was never likely.
Our days consisted of scavenging in trash and stealing from shops for our next meal. It was always difficult to do, food here was at a premium to begin with. We were also not the only refugees that wised up, got out of Sierra Leone, and came here. Ty and I never really spoke out loud about it but we both knew we didn't want to live like this anymore. It was a surprise to me when he finally spoke up one day regarding our situation. He had just come back from one of his scavenging trips that he liked to take alone, when he approached me with a worried look on his face throwing away a newspaper where the front page had some government official committing suicide.
"Ny, listen and don't get upset with me but I was at the town library-"
"Stop." I was furious "Libraries require identification, Libraries exposes us to the public. If you see a kid alone often enough you start thinking where his parents are at. Questions arise, haven't we discussed this many times before?" To find out he had been going there and risking our exposure. Being in a foreign country wasn't enough of a reminder that we needed to stay out of the public eye to keep safe and free.
"I know you're upset but I've been very careful, keeping a low profile, I just needed something to anchor me down to this pathetic life we have been living". He paused, waiting for me to respond but I didn't, I waited for him to continue. Something as obvious as that didn't need a response. "I've been learning a lot of things reading various novels about engineering and mystery but today was different because I got noticed" My heart dropped, and my mind started racing about the steps that needed to be taken if it came down to us having to relocate. "When the man approached, he stared at me a minute and said that he sees me in here quite often and I reminded him of our dad…" I stayed silent, for once my mind was blank with shock. How could a total stranger recognize us in a foreign country? The probability is miniscule to non-existent, this wasn't a coincidence. At that point I asked how he knew our father he continued "He said that they used to be business associates and asked if I wanted to discuss more about our parents that I would have to meet him tomorrow along with you." This was far too risky proposition, putting aside how he even knew about me, why would he even make this request in the first place? Was it immigration control trying to bring us back to Sierra Leone? No, we can't go back, we'll have to decline this offer and move away from here. "Before, he left," Ty could see the gears working on my face. "He said that if we fail to show up that he will report us to the city and have them chase us out of the outskirts near the river and back to Sierra Leone." I sucked my teeth. Who is this man and what the hell does he want? He even knows where we are living. I don't know what to do, there's no way out of this, either way it's dangerous no matter what we do. So, the question becomes which option is less dangerous. My mind is racing furiously thinking of the best option available to us until Ty interrupts my thoughts. "Ni! Calm down, I can see you stressing over what we should do but the truth is, going to the meeting or ignoring it all together and running are both equally dangerous. So, the only thing to do is make one of the options more advantageous for us. Where he messed up was telling us where the meeting was." Of course, set up conditions in case things go south we can still come out on top.
"Alright you're right Ty, let's go now and set up some little surprises for him for tomorrow. There is no point in panicking thank you." We headed over to the meeting spot to lay out the land. It didn't take much time to prepare, and night came quickly. That night I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking of that night two years ago. It was the first time in my life where I felt weak, the first time how powerless a little girl could be. I froze in the moment, resigned myself to the outcome that was inevitable. For that I don't think I can ever forgive myself. I betrayed myself. My younger brother had to save me. That isn't how it was supposed to be I'm the eldest it should be the other way around. Thinking back, I remember that moment clearly. I'm not totally sure if it was feasible but it definitely happened. The gym shook, I could see the vibrations coming from Thylonius like he was the one that caused it. Also those eyes, it was a fleeting moment but the iris's of his eyes turned into a pure white. I kept thinking that I was seeing things, but I can't ever seem to remember something different. I spent the rest of the night contemplating what it even meant to cause such things.