At least one person died, seven were wounded and 14 others abducted in an attack on a passenger bus in South Sudan on Tuesday night (The East African, Garang Malak, 25, Sept. 2024)
at the bus station, i stand at the queue’s tail, a nagging premonition
heavy on my heart’s lap. every now & then, eloquent images, greased
with raw blood, beaming on the screen of my yeasty mind. this premonition,
finger-traced, flowers not only from the distressing fact, along highways,
these days, death waylays wayfarers with gritted teeth & anxious appetite.
this premonition, finger-traced, flowers from the heart-tearing reality
that not once, not twice, not even thrice but times beyond the count of my fingers,
this road has rinsed her mouth with blood of faces i was familiar with.
last night, i had bad-dreamed. but what do i now remember of the dream?
that the road shapeshifted into a giant Kalashnikov & retched bullets
into my lungs? that a purple-eyed ghost had charged toward me &
suck my bones dry of blood with its glassed lips? that i was trampled upon
until my mushed body spilled on the road’s face? i came face to face
with the man holding the manifest. between breaths & heartbeats,
a hushed hunch, that this might be my last journey, lurks as i absent-mindedly
render to the manifest-man my particulars. the manifest-man hands me back
a receipt with my names & nimule, my destination, misspelt nimuli, scrawled atop.
i make way for the next in queue, a middle-aged man eaten out of shape
that the shapes of his bones clearly marked out in his loosely hanging skin.
half an hour later, after taking our seats, the bus gasps, lurches forward
toward a road seducing it to its warm arms. & i, like everyone else aboard,
align with the star of death. a man to my left, with a weary sigh, mutters
something about how bus-fares today could buy at least two buses two years ago.
everyone mutters something in agreement but a pale-faced woman―with eyes still
& stagnant like a dead tilapia’s―upfront, bee-busily tucking herself into the pockets
of her own prayers for reasons best known to her. thereafter, a stout silence swilled
every sound but tyres’ screech & groan engine’s. a fragment off what i once read,
that silence is to death what flash is to thunder―a harbinger, surfaced on the waters
of my silence. i try to speak to dispel that dreadful spell. but my breath-burnt voice―
sucked of its life―unhooks from its groove, its indigo ashes salting my mouth
with the raw taste of self-pity. & in an eye-blink, i find myself, gripped, between
the teeth of last night’s bad dream. the road shape-shift into a giant Kalashnikov & retch
bullets into my lungs. a purple-eyed ghost charges toward me & suck my bones dry
of blood with its glassed lips. & fleeing feet trample upon me until my mushed body spills
on the road’s face. i try to pray to atem, my mother’s god, to appease Kalashnikov’s rage
& morph bullets into smooth breezes upon kissing my skin. but it was too late. the rage
had long, long recast my body into a red-river caressing the road’s asphalt-pimpled face.
MK Kuol is a poet who is South Sudanese, now residing in Juba. His publishing credits include two chapbooks of poetry, Twice the Size of Sun (Poemify Publishers, 2024) and Song Her Thighs Sing (INKspired NG, 2024). His literary awards include the African Authors Honoree Award, Pengician Poetry Chapbook Prize (runner up), Arting Arena chapbook competition (longlist), among others. His work has appeared in Beach Chair Press, Spillwords.com, Ikike Arts, Arting Arena, Pulp Lit, and Port Harcourt Literary Review.
BACK TO ISSUE