Wednesday, May 18, 2011

A Long Way Gone, reading log

This section opens with Ishmael once again fighting a dream. This time, it isn’t something his mind imagines, but an actual memory mixed up with his imagination. He is pushing a wheelbarrow with a dead body in it, and there are other bodies bleeding and dying all around him. He doesn’t know why he is taking this particular body to the cemetery, but he pushes on, oblivious to the cries of the dying. The body is wrapped in a white bed sheet and after Ishmael pulls it to the ground, he begins to unwrap it, noting that there are bullets all the way from his feet to his neck. He lifts the cloth and sees his own face. When he forces himself awake, he realizes he is in New York City where he is starting his new life. However, he can’t keep his waking mind from drifting back to Sierra Leone where he remembers carrying an AK-47 and walking with a squad of many boys and a few adults. They were on their way to attack a small town that had ammunition and food. They engage an enemy squad in a firefight and kill them all. This squad had consisted of young boys like them, but they didn’t care. They gave each other high fives and took the ammunition from the bodies. Then, they sat down on the bodies and ate their food while fresh blood leaked out all around them.

No comments:

Post a Comment