A Long Way Gone

by Ishmael Beah

When I was a child, my grandmother told me that the sky speaks to those who look and listen to it. She said, “In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy, and confusion.” That night I wanted the sky to talk to me.

I concluded to myself that if I were the hunter, I would shoot the monkey so that it would no longer have the chance to put other hunters in the same predicament.