"October 11" by Mohammad Faruque

It was almost dark. I can still remember the date. It was the 11th of October, 1959. I was out of ammo. On the other hand, I had lost all my teammates in the war. I alone escaped. I ran into a jungle. If anyone came upon me I couldn’t do anything except die. I could hear the blasts and the shootings. It increased my fear to the utmost. I had only a shovel to dig a hole and hide in it. I was waiting for midnight. Then I would go back to my camp.

I was not a professional military person; I was an undertaker. I had dug almost 50 graves. Every time when I bury a dead man, I always try to imagine the death scene of that person. It was not necessarily the right one but I imagine the interesting one. It was one of my hobbies. It was not bounded only in my imagination. I also wrote a book about that. I gave a name to it, that is “death of the dead.”

One day some army men came and they forced me to join the war. I had no other option. I could remember whom I killed first in the war. His face was pale. I saw his eyes. They were full of innocence. He held his gun as if he held a flower to give. I did not want to kill him. I just target him; I am not sure when I pulled the trigger. I observe his death until he died. For the first time it was a true story of a death that I wrote in my book. That day I did not shoot another bullet.

It was midnight when my sleep broke. I could hear a sound. Something was moving towards me. I put my hand on the knife and observed every movement. Suddenly it started to run toward me. I took my knife. that sound came very close. All on a sudden, I slaughtered the person who was making the sound. I could not see him. I could go, but I was waiting to see his face. When I woke up for second time, It was approximately 6 o’clock in the morning. I was stunned to see that a sweet little boy was lying on the ground holding my knife in his chest. I could not say anymore about the guilt that I felt.

After some moment, our army had arrived to rescue me. I when I left with them, I took the binocular from the boy. On the binocular there were a sticker with writing on it, saying “happy birthday, your mother; 11th of October”