#BulletsForSupper: End SARS Story -By Gloria Ogo

Out in the open that Tuesday evening, my legs trembled, threatening to collapse beneath me. I swallowed, not saliva but fear. The military Toyota Hilux trucks and armed soldiers racing towards us made my heart pound. Beside me, my fiancé Iheme clutched the green-white flag to his chest, just like the other protesters on the expressway. Sensing my weakening courage, Iheme looked down at me, the twilight picking out the determined glint in his eyes. The gun-slinging men blocking the tollgate from both ends did not scare him. As long as we waved this piece of cloth, our nation’s symbol, we were safe. I exhaled.

Face expressionless, one of the soldiers marched forward, breaking away from the rest of his men. He stood still for a while, his gaze fixed on the crowd, watching us. I shivered. He seemed to stare past everyone and straight at me, as if he could see my soul. His stiff posture and frozen stare spread the trembling to my upper torso. Standing before us was not a man following orders, he was death.

Something felt off, a wrongness in the way he studied us, with an almost animal alertness. His grip on the rifle tightened as he waited, tense, needing an excuse to pull the trigger. I squeezed Iheme’s hand, fighting the cowardly urge to turn and run. I crushed his fingers in my sweaty palm. The chill that gripped my insides had nothing to do with the mild breeze of dusk. A storm was coming, and I was not ready.

I pressed the flag against my stomach. Hot tears burned my cheeks as my future with Iheme flashed in my mind: the dream we painted with words every night until it became a mantra, the child I carried inside me. Iheme’s pledge to me this morning echoed in my head.

“I prefer peace, Zi. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so my children may live in peace.”

The words belonged to the British writer Thomas Paine, yet Iheme’s flame breathed them. Still, he had hesitated. A split second of uncertainty, so brief I almost missed it. That was my moment to strike, to clutch his shirt and plead with him to stay home, to remain neutral, and just let life happen. The street had enough people protesting against the brutality of the Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS). I wanted our perfect little world undisrupted, to begin a family, sheltered from the catastrophe our country was becoming. My thoughts were selfish, but I was not asking for too much.

It was my turn to hesitate.

I did not want Iheme to think me weak. I could not live with his disappointment.

“We will see this fight to its end,” I had said, our gaze locked.
The relief in his smile assured me that I had said the right thing. He would buckle without the reassurance of my presence. “Thank you.”

I wanted to ask him for what, but I knew the answer. If I’d pushed, Iheme would have stayed back. He only joined the protest because I agreed to come.

I straightened my shoulders at this reminder of the reason I was out here tonight. I needed to do this. More than anything else, I must protect this tiny life growing in me, the seed of the passion we both shared.

Snapping out of his stillness, the soldier raised his gun, barrel pointed skyward, and fired. Not a warning, but an assurance, a sample of what would come. Echoes of the blast resonated with the slamming of my heart as the crowd shoved, and bodies collided, sending Iheme and me stumbling forward. Blood pounded in my head, bringing blackness to the edges of my vision.

I shook badly now; panic had won. On every face around me, disbelief turned to anger. Enraged voices howled at the soldier. That shot shattered the one thing that the street had held onto for the past twenty days since the nationwide protest had begun — hope. It tore to shreds our expectation of a dialogue, a public address. Deadly force was the bargaining chip, bullets the meal brought to the negotiating table.

Our anger amused the soldier, yet no warmth touched his eyes — the coldest, cruelest pair I’d ever seen. When he went down on one knee, a killer stance, my flag slipped through my fingers. I made no attempt to catch it. A nightmare was unfolding, and I dared not blink.

My chest heaved. Tonight was my first of joining a protest. Hot breaths pushed past my lips, and I mumbled what could be my last prayer. Behind me, a candlelight rosary chant called on the Virgin’s protection. A prayer is supposed to bring comfort, but it did not.

Run! hysteria screamed inside my head and an invisible clock-hand ticked. Time was running out. The longer we stayed in the open, the lesser our chances of making it alive through the night.
The soldier cocked his gun, his gaze never leaving us, our resilience a dare. This time, he pointed his weapon at the crowd, and then a chilling thought registered in my mind: he had set the tempo for his comrades. Direct fire. Our death was non-negotiable.

. . . coming this August