Sample reads- Behind the Eclipse

Great mountains and cooler climate even in the peak of dry season hinted me that I was in the native paradise. Suddenly, Kumba, Oldman, my mother, my father and my uncle who disappeared in the bush encroached my wandering mind. I knew Old man was gone, but the others, I assumed, were no longer among the living. The fact that I was unable to say goodbye to them properly bothered me a lot. Many times, my father and mother appeared in my dreams and talked to me in a language that I could not understand. They behaved as if they were from a different tribe. They were in different clothes, not in Kissi traditional clothes or white man`s costumes and had some strange marks like scratches or cuts on their faces, but they smiled happily. Whenever I saw those dreams, I thought it should be the language, traditions, and clothing in heaven that the Reverend Maurice taught me about. I felt delighted because they had gone to heaven which looked like a better place even though they were not able to join our ancestors. As we moved further, I noticed clusters of Kissi-huts fragmented in open areas which proved me that my assumptions could be wrong. An irresistible urge to go back and join them struck me. I banged the back glass of the truck as hard as I could, but it looked like no one heard because the roaring sound of the engine and the road noise had made all the other things inaudible. I wanted to jump out of the truck, but when I looked at how the red soil was passing before my very eyes as fast as Lofa was moving away from me, I was fear-struck. It was a rapid journey across my past that triggered my memories in a panorama of incidents, associated with different sorts of human feelings which ranged from simple happiness to profound sadness, from heights of hopefulness to precipices of despair.
‘Past is a blend of memories that enriches the story, and present is the very product of the past with choices left in one`s hand to light up the future.’
That was the most admired and inspiring quote among what Oldman used to say. I loved it until this point probably because of its complicatedness and the ambiguity, but the moment I started seeing my past unfolding before my very eyes, I realised what he had meant.
The eyes that remained dried throughout the time in Monrovia seemed to have felt the healing power of nature. I cried silently hiding behind the roaring noise of the moving truck that was completely insensitive to pains and happiness which this piece of earth had given to my life. I was being taken to another unknown place about where I did not have a clue whether there would be light or darkness in the store of future. But it looked like we were left with no other choice to make.
When the kissi-huts disappeared into the wild, I wiped my tears. This time, it made me realise no separation was permanent. I determined to come back to Kissi village one day again.
When we reached the border, it was almost six in the evening, and the darkness had already started to dominate the bush, and there were thousands of silhouettes moving across the frontier.
Guinea was never a new place to me. My grandmother often used to go with Oldman to visit her relatives in Guinea. I had crossed the border with my father a few times to participate in funerals of our distant relatives who lived in Guinea. But we had never crossed the border as refugees. We used to carry several bags made out of African palm leaves full of bush meat and cassava when we visited the relatives across the border, and we were always welcomed as wealthy Liberian parents. Today, I was crossing the border on a trunk of a truck carrying my clothes gifted by strangers; with my hopes shattered, ambitions vanished and with a partially acquired and partly imposed culture where my true identity was threatened like the other refugees who had just lost everything they had overnight caused by the war.
I could not forget how the mornings in Kissi-village in Lofa started fresh with the symphonies of Pepper bird and the rising sun over the mountains. Life was simple every day but stable as we knew our routine better than ourselves. Each person had a role to play designated by his family; in a larger context, by the community which was recognised and appreciated when it was well executed. Our ambitions did not raise higher than the Lofa mountains which were the territory of Lomas. The depth of our dreams did end at the bottom of Lofa river, and our perception of a paradise was limited to the bush from where we got everything for life. I constantly felt the urge to return to the village: to meet my people, to talk to them, to dine with them and, probably, I might get news about what happened to Kumba. But behind the dust cloud that blinded everyone who got contacts with Guinea-Liberia border had disappeared by several miles.
The journey that made me leave Kissi-village to find medicine for my father who was dying with the Bush-curse had already taken me to several destinations exposing me to diverse cultures and transforming me into a different person who was still struggling to find where he belonged to. Contrarily, I had travelled through diverse cultures and acquired various skills and knowledge; discovering new vistas and horizons, adhered to new disciplines of life of ‘God.’ Consequently, I had some underlaying confidence about my future that was ‘in the hands of God,’ as the Reverend Maurice said. I decided to stick with the only choice which was to follow the Reverend Maurice.
It was almost a few hours after we crossed the border and the truck stopped near a white colour building that I quickly identified as a church. The Reverend Maurice got down the truck first and started to walk towards the huge arch like the door of the church. Before he reached the door, a lantern light came out with a creaky sound. Then a man in a white robe came out followed by two young men in country clothes. The man in white robes looked like a priest. The Reverend Maurice kept on talking with him as if his fury had already been left abundant at the border of Liberia.