We Are the Ones Who Were Buried There!!

Umaima Abdullah

The creaking of the heavy door as it opens, the steps of the stairs to the top, and the dazzling bright sunlight. A year away then!!

My eyes went blind for minutes, fourteen months inside a grave with a slightly raised ceiling, they took me out with three others, I struggled to extend my hand to them to bid them farewell but it became heavy as did my tongue and my steps, and they did not care about my farewell, they were absent-minded and absent-minded, and I was as if I were in the seventies without a stick to lean on or a companion, my body was weakened by illness and humiliation, we were lost where we were going, despite the daylight we did not know our direction or our direction, and I was groping to walk like a child at the beginning of his time to stand, I struggled to get away, the sounds of their laughter reached me, not like human voices nor their language that they shout with nor their hands like human hands nor them, their faces covered with hair, their clothes that emanated a foul smell like the smell of a corpse. The road is strange and deserted, the sky is pale and all the doors and windows are open, the sound of the wind is as if it comes from the world of the jinn, there is no trace of a human being, the houses are empty of their inhabitants and the mosques are without minarets and the minarets are without the call to prayer, houses without roofs and buildings and walls are demolished, the skeletons of burnt cars, electricity poles pierced with bullets and clothes and utensils scattered along the street and on the ground are the remains of the fire and the air is filled with ash,

and eyes that can barely see and a heart in amazement and the question is does this country have a conscience?! Oh Lord of the heavens, what is the outcome of the situation?

Fourteen months in which we did not see sunlight seeping in from a window nor moonlight coming from a crack in the wall, nor did we know where we were, only the dim light of a lamp emanating from somewhere, a large grave that gathered us, separated us from the world and its people, a hundred or more people, young men and men over forty years old and old men who did not have much left in this world, most of them were overcome by grief and oppression bent their backs so they left our grave for their own, and boys between fifteen and six, we were crammed in that basement in one of the multi-storey houses. I was like everyone here, far from knowing what was going on between the ruling people and the parties, their competition, their disagreements, and their conferences, I did not care about their news on the radio or on television, I went out in the morning to my work at Al-Zahra Hospital on the outskirts of the neighborhood, or rather it was a health center, and the neighborhood itself was on the outskirts of western Khartoum, and if I had known what awaited us I would have been more interested in the news and would have gone to Al-Rabita Square to listen to what they were saying and followed their travels and alliances, and if I had known I would never have trusted the rulers. But all I cared about was graduating from university and completing my final year with distinction that would later enable me to find a respectable job that resembled my dreams. Now, there are no dreams, no life, no people, and no country.

If I had known that war would break out in the heart of Sudan, I would not have waited for it here until these people attacked me. Who are they? I don’t know, a type of people I have never met before and I did not think that their likes could live here among us, among humans and demons. They came from this mixed race, incomplete in their limbs, with neither heart nor mind. They kill for fun, laugh to hurt, and are happy to violate honor. They live among worms and corpses and eat as if they had just discovered their types. They steal from each other and betray.

How were these people here?! And since when have they been here?! Oh, how strange, my country!!

The war broke out suddenly like a fire in a cat, a raging flame and fire, without us knowing the truth of the matter, we thought that it would not end in a few days, our confidence was due to our ignorance of the correct assessment of what was going on around us, so we did not flee and it did not occur to us to leave our homes, three whole months under caution, electricity was cut off from all the neighborhoods in those areas, and after the second month people began to sneak out at night, leaving their homes and their situation, the shops only opened their doors for two hours during the day and I became the only doctor in the center despite the lack of medicines, the rest of my colleagues left, my aunt Zainab stayed with me, she opens the center every morning and waits with me, she does not leave me, and we tried to treat emergency diseases as much as we could, and on a Thursday morning I was sitting in the center’s courtyard under the shade of the hyena reading, and suddenly they came, until that time I had only heard about them, they broke the entrance gate with their military vehicle, he stopped it right in front of me, holding the brakes tightly, to scare me, he did that, after that the rest stormed the place, they were screaming, and from my panic My limbs froze and I couldn’t stand up. One of them took the book from my hand and threw it. Another shot Aunt Zainab, fell immediately with blood pouring from her head. Another didn’t give me an extra second to be stunned. He stopped me with his strong fist. I didn’t understand what they were saying, but they were laughing among themselves. One of them slapped me and I fell to the ground. Their laughter increased as they pointed at me. They lifted me up and then began to take turns slapping and kicking me. One of them slapped me on my nose with his fist until blood flowed from it and my mouth. They lifted me up easily and threw me into the trunk of their vehicle while they shouted and hit me with a metal club on my back.

– You are with the army, bringing them news. You are their spy.

Finally, one of them spoke something I could understand.

However, I didn’t dare to correct him. Suddenly, everything went silent, the clubs were on my head, my vision began to fade and my heart went silent.

I regained consciousness in that grave among dozens of people, the crowding and the smell of sweat, blood, urine, humidity, and mold, the smell woke me up, and from the shock, I could not ask.

Can a person become accustomed to the grave, darkness, and death? We have become accustomed to it here.

I was thrown near a closed door, what was left of me here in a completely dark place or so it seemed to me. Where am I? I was confused, with terrible pain in my chest, ribs, and face, I felt very thirsty and dry in my throat. Someone as if he came from hell, opened the door with a noise and a voice that excites the nerves, shouted at us warning of nothing, just said

– Beware

Like this, then closed the door with the same noise. Where am I? This is hell itself.

Their weapons that never leave their shoulders, their colorful turbans and their slaps on our faces with all the violence in the world, their need that they satisfy however they are, they do not care about concealment and do not know it, the palm of their hands fell on our faces as if it were a piece of jagged iron and not human flesh.

– Are these the ones who are fighting now? Are they the ones who are fighting us to rule us? Woe to us if they win.

And because I was a doctor, I knew I wouldn’t get out of here unscathed.

My eyes began searching in the darkness for a cup of water as I spat out my blood, or just a sip to ease my dry throat, and despite the crowd of people present, there was no sound, they were all silent, with no movement, my body trembled. A sharp fear gripped my heart like an eagle grabs its prey with its sharp talons.

A sip of water, except that it was the most expensive thing requested in this place. Instead of water, the door opened and they entered, carrying whips wrapped in metal threads, striking indiscriminately while we received their whips without spirit or soul, our heads down and our souls hanging in the sky, and I began to free myself from what was most precious to me, my soul departed from me and my body sank into absence.

On the opposite wall, I read between the stings of the whips, that we were inevitably falling into the black hole and we would not escape soon.