Maybe it was from the time my mother spilled her blood from her womb for me, or after my head steamed with a hole through, sometime between or after, I was chosen. Chosen for many things, some I did not want, some I did want. I saw my life through like the hole in my head, but I didn’t recognize what my head was leaning against.
Right now I’m walking down the Mount Pleasant Rd.
As I walk, I’ll tell you my story.
This chosen thing wasn’t new for me. However being able to choose was a different one. Back home in Somalia, everything was chosen for me. Even my name was chosen for me, Nayanik, meaning god’s gift in Ghana, and I’m not even from Ghana. I didn’t even have a choice of stepping in this world. That doesn’t mean I’m not thankful, but it also doesn’t mean I am thankful.
My father and my mother were both executed because they stole two live chickens. They were both executed in the middle of the town hall with a single bullet to the head. I still remember the thick air that time. It was like a festival, everyone in the town came out to watch, and I got a VIP view. I couldn’t swallow my own saliva; air was sluggishly slithering through my muted throat and then it crawled into my shivered lung. Every time I breathed in, I could feel my ribs and when I breathed out, I could feel my hairless skin stretching out of my stomach. They said that my parents were making an example for the thieves around the village. My eyes were glued to the finger of a man. He was awfully small, compared to the size of the gun he was holding. I kept looking and looking, neither at my parents, nor the executor but at the finger. I had my eyes squinted and stared at his finger with all my strength. I could see the wrinkles and unorganized hair strands on his finger. I even counted them. It lay on silver steel. When he tensed his finger, his veins crumpled, his fingers spread out and wrapped around the trigger, like a mother holding a baby for her life. And when the baby cried, so did the mother, and so did I.
This is the reason why I never eat chicken. I think I’m internally allergic to it or something. After my parents were executed, my sister was adopted by another family and my brother was sent to the military. So you see; my life hasn’t really been in my power. The world revolved around me and I was always swept up by some magnetic force, always attracted to the things I did not want, and always repelling away from my desires. In this North and South Pole of my life, no fragments of imaginative creatures lived; Santa didn’t live in North Pole or South Pole.
Oh now I turn right to Broadway Ave and here goes another 20 minute walk.
Now, there is another thing I was chosen for, I was chosen for a full scholarship in Landry’s Musical School in America. It’s kind of funny because I never played an instrument my whole life except my little drum. Ever since I can remember, I sang and danced. Any noise I heard I composed it into a rhythmic beat. My favorite noise to compose was gunshots, too bad I couldn’t find those delicacies in America too often. For this, they called me gifted. It’s kind of funny because I really am god’s gift. One time, one of the soldiers saw me and told his friends about my “talent” and you would be amazed how fast words can travel. The word caught interest of Principal McGill; the principal of the Landry’s Musical School and he decided to give me a full scholarship with meals and boarding expenses paid. This opportunity has given me a choice of leaving my muddy life. I chose, I’ve decided to get on the plane. Even though I flew over 50,000 miles to get away from home, I still couldn’t divest from the muddy footprints which followed me like an echo, telling me bedtime stories.
14 years I have lived; that’s 5110 days, and 5110 meals. Within those 5110 days I have never seen a plane, a building or a white person without authority. In those 5110 days I always believed that the Trima Tree was the tallest thing ever standing and nothing can go over its apex peak. Not in those 5110 meals have I had green vegetables or red meat. I have never even had 3 meals a day, nor have I even dreamed of a life like this because I was oblivious of the “world”. How can I imagine when I don’t even know what to imagine? So there I was, oblivious even to the air breezing across my arm. My 14 years of life was just a bunch of burnt up ashes for my new fire, a new life. So there I was, 1 year old American, 14 years old Somalia. I was just an infant learning how to walk with shoes, eat with spoons and forks. It seemed like my heart and my brain got switched, my heart just stopped and my brain started to beat rapidly, because there was just so much stuff to hear, just so much.
So there I was, trying to tune in to this life. Trying to understand, trying to do whatever they told me to do. Principal McGill gave me time to catch up. He gave me a year off with a place to stay and food to eat. The language wasn’t a big problem for me because English was my first language. However, I still felt invisible, deaf, mute and disabled in every way possible. A year later I was back to the educational center. As years passed, I learned more about Somalia, my desire and my ambition grew. Luckily enough, I aged faster than others. In my fifth year, I caught up to other people. There I was, a 19- years old American, standing proudly as I graduated from the Landry’s Musical High School with bliss and pursuit for happiness.
Just another 5 minute walk.
There isn’t much to say about my five years of American life. If I were to summarize it, everything was new for the first two years, and then the next two years were spent fitting in. The past year, I was thankful for everything, and since last week I realized the unfortunate fate of people who were like me. I couldn’t reconcile with a simple fact for 19 years. I was blind, deaf and disabled in every way possible. Before this surreal life, I was too busy and cornered with my own survival. Now when I was able to breathe in reality, I choked and everything I knew or thought I owned shattered into pieces forbidden to find. I thought God ruled the Supreme Court and served everyone with rightful justice. But then, during my five year-stays in America, I have come to realize that a trial can always be rigged. These 5 years of my life I was too traumatized. I was numb and tranquilized by injection of surreal life, and even when reality approached and struck me, I didn’t even budge. Just Last week, I got news informing my brother is now in a war with the Ethiopians and my sister ran away from her foster family. My format of identification was disfigured and now unrecognizable. My head kept on rambling meaningless words “But… They… I… differ…” I was missing, even when I walked, I walked hollow, even when I ate, and I ate for survival. It was back to the Somalia life again. Perhaps this is what they call an epiphany, or a failure. So I went through my Lost and Found bin, and evoked my life for the last time. Underneath the memories of the bloody town hall, my first flight and yesterday’s dinner, I finally found my lost shreds of vacancy life. Like a year old balloon, it was all shriveled, a balloon that once hung high up in the air celebrating a boy’s birthday.
I didn’t know if I should take it out of the Lost and Found bin and wear it. Wear myself again to redefine myself? What I found was devoured by the saw dust of cut scenes of reality.
Here I am, 465 Broadway Ave West.
I chose the one on the top right shelf because the clerk said it will get the job done precisely and quick. I gave him my savings and walked out.
I pressed the cold steel against my tempo; the steel had no human temperature on it, just steel. I could feel my tempo tense as I clench my teeth. I felt the pumping beat through my tempo, another music beat I suppose? Ta lala Ta lala on the third verse, I did my solo. With my muscle tightening and my music blaring through the street of Thomas Ave, my finger wrapped around the trigger as if a child was holding dearly onto their lifeless parents. When the child cried, I cried, but they remained silent.
Dongsoo Eum U2
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