Safe Home

The fog, shape-shifting its way through the evening air, disoriented Joseph as he slid from one kerb to the next. Shop windows all looked the same now. Having retraced his steps several times, he once more cursed his decision to come to this country at all.

His short-term goal was simple. To find his way back home. But this was proving much more difficult than he had imagined. Home. The meaning of the word had degenerated in his mind; stripped back to simply connote the place where he had slept for the past three nights.

The silence was broken as a car drew alongside Joseph. With its headlights dipped, it lit up the mist like stage lights rippling through liquid nitrogen at the start of a rock concert. Joseph gazed into the light, searching for a clue...

The engine turned over quietly, like the comforting swell of a washing machine. A heady scent of diesel discharged from the exhaust as the car idled for a few seconds, then moved off into the night.

In its wake, a tall, silhouetted shape began to move towards him. As the outline approached, a tingling sensation ran down Joseph’s back and arms. Closer and closer the shape came towards him.

"You miss your home?" Joseph’s attention, until now focused straight ahead, was suddenly diverted by a voice which seemed to drop out of the ether into the space behind him.

Joseph immediately twisted round to find that a huge form now blocked his way on the other side. Little flashes of light seemed to glow around the figure's arms and legs.

Joseph had an urge to sit down on the pavement.

Under the man's long blue scarf, Joseph could make out what seemed like a purple and red tunic. It draped the form's long body like a magnificent royal ensign. In the swirling fog, Joseph felt unusually serene. In spite of the fact that he was now surrounded on both sides by complete strangers, he was calm.

"You miss your home," stated the same gravel voice, " and what you have only just begun to recognise in your mind about what home is now, is one way of understanding this fact. But it runs deeper than you will ever be able to understand, Joseph."

"Have we met before?" Joseph could recognise nothing familiar in the face.

"We have never met, but there is a reason why we are now here." The first man’s voice now pierced the night. "You have made a long and difficult journey. It may have seemed meaningless to you at the time, but we want you to know, that your steps have had a purpose."

Joseph could make out that this man wore the same outfit as the second. Squinting more closely, he noticed that the red and purple blended a little into cloudy bubbles. They reminded him in design, if not in colour, of army khaki. Joseph looked down to notice that both men were wearing what seemed like black Doc Martens. He began to search almost instinctively for a weapon of some sort, perhaps hidden in a pocket or belt.

As the first man spoke again light flickered from his eyes to momentarily provide a perfect view of his bearded face and sharply defined cheek-bones. Joseph fell to his knees, unable to withstand the tremor that was overpowering his body. It felt like an electric current was being sent through him. His tongue quivered but he could not speak.

It was the first man who broke the short silence: "You are right to be silent. It was Mark Twain who said that if we were meant to talk more than listen we would have two mouths and one ear." He turned to address the second man: "Sometimes I believe that you have two mouths, Rafa."

Rafa let out an infectious bellow. A wry smile creased the corner of the other’s lips. Joseph couldn’t help but smile too.

The second man became serious again: "Don’t be scared Joseph Elijah Takana. After what you’ve been through, fear is natural, but you should try to let yourself smile once more. Laughter is like a medicine which can heal you, if you will allow it."

With that, the two turned and headed off into the fog, their bodies quickly disappearing from view, but the surge of the light that surrounded them, was clearly visible from where Joseph knelt, immobile and tranquil, on the tarmac pavement.

"You’ll not find home from there!" Rafa’s voice ricocheted through the air and the words seemed to hit Joseph’s ears from various unforeseen angles. He roused himself and began to follow.

As the two men walked on Joseph was never able to catch another glimpse of their faces, but by keeping his eyes looking forward, he was able to discern the two bright shapes. Moth-like, he was propelled through the bitterly cold streets in the right direction.

Finally, the glow died out and Joseph, catching his rasping breath, felt his way across the pavement to the nearest wall. His throat was raw with the taste of the biting winter air. His emotions were raw too.

Reaching the end of the bricked building, he turned into the next street. He immediately recognised it as Sitevale Lane. He had been brought back to within five hundred metres of his flat.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Joseph pulled the thin, silver key from his pocket and opened the security door. A few seconds later he was back inside the flat, crouching by the electric heater. His heart was not here, but for now it was home.




Note:
This is the third part of Joseph Takana's story. If you want to read more it begins with
 Unforeseen Arrival and continues in New Start

New Start

Joseph arrived here a little revived: a new start is what most people long for and as his ship came ashore, a burning, alien hope welled up inside him. From Egypt, he had edged gradually towards these shores, having left his Sudanese homeland several weeks earlier.

Each port had been a stepping-stone towards a new continent where abundance caught his eye, like grapes clustering from every branch in a vineyard. Liverpool to Glasgow had been the final leg. For the first time since the blackest day, his life began to have possibilities again.

But walking down Hillend Street on a cold November morning seemed a million miles from the shores of the Red Sea. Reaching his destination, he was swept, abruptly and unexpectedly, by a surge of emotion for his people and his village. The freezing air seemed to punch his face leaving him breathless and numb...

He walked slowly towards the restaurant, checking his gangly stride as he glanced down at a small piece of paper. Recognising the restaurant’s name in the scrawly handwriting in front of him, he edged through the heavy, silver door into a bright red and yellow room.  Joseph asked the man behind the counter, in his best English, about the waiter’s vacancy. As a prerequisite of his claim for refugee status, the job centre had insisted that Joseph apply, even although he had no previous experience of this kind of work.

"So, when can you start? We're in a bit of a fix with winter flu and that..." said the burly owner, appearing suddenly through the set of beaded curtains that hung to the left of the bar. He rubbed his greying beard with one of his huge furry hands, as he waited for a response.

Joseph was taken aback by the speed of his success, having expected a more thorough interview with questions about his background, or at least a mention of his accent. When he revealed his willingness to begin right away, the owner’s bushy, grey eyebrows curved upwards in half-surprise, but he seized the moment nevertheless, throwing Joseph a notepad and half-size pencil. A short while later he was ready for action.

Feeling conspicuous in his checkered apron, he moved slowly towards the window table to take his first order.
"The chicken curry," ordered a sharp-suited man, even before Joseph could utter a word.
"The chilli," spat out his female companion.
"And a Budweiser."
"Me as well."
Finding the accents difficult to understand, Joseph was forced to ask his first customers to repeat themselves. Slowly and grudgingly, with little eye-contact, they did so.

Bewildered by their lack of empathy, Joseph trudged back towards the kitchen, his hands shaking. As he pushed the red swing doors to deliver the order, what he saw made him feel physically sick.

Back home, his drought-prone climate, like a cosmic roulette-wheel, had chosen to curse with a poor harvest for the past three years. Joseph had witnessed many families struggle to survive: many fathers, once strong and proud, becoming shadows lurking in fields, divining rain, scratching around for the slightest sign of enough grain to ward off total despair. When none appeared, the burden of responsibility often became too much....

Now Joseph’s eyes were fixed on a chubby man of medium height wearing an off-white apron, stained and unkempt, with a shaven head and matching stubble. He was repeatedly turning the half-eaten contents of several plates into a large metal bin. The bin was bulging with enough food to feed the children of his village for a full week.
"What will you be doing with that?" Joseph managed to ask.
"Hungry mate?" grinned the cook. "Don’t worry-you’ll get your meals for free. Only the best for the staff of All Weathers!"

Giving him the order, Joseph left the kitchen.

As he walked between his designated tables and the kitchen, during the sluggish hours of his first day, thoughts crept through Joseph’s mind like unwelcome visitors. This is the land to which he had travelled? The inhospitable wind seemed to whisper the character of its inhabitants-an arrogance and lack of recognition of the wealth and well-being that was pouring out of every shop window.

Yet, Joseph sensed despair, in spite of this; in contrast to the joy-filled community that had been his home for these past twenty-five years. He felt an atmosphere of hopelessness in this refuge. With these thoughts came a sense of guilt, as he thought of those who had helped him greatly since his arrival here only three days ago.

Joseph left his new employment at six thirty, having unburdened himself of apron, notebook and pencil. The day had been an eye-opener, and by the end of his shift Joseph felt tired and was functioning on automatic pilot. Walking almost robotically back out into Hillend Street, he silently manoeuvred out into the black night.

His temporary accommodation was a ground floor flat on the other side of the town. At a steady pace he had made the journey to the town centre that morning in around fifteen minutes. Now, however, as fog began to fall, Joseph realised, for the first time, that he was unsure of the direction in which he should go.

Following the written instructions had seemed so easy during the hours of sunlight, but as he wandered methodically through the waterfall glow of lampposts, he struggled to find any clue which would tell him where he was going. He walked on, feeling more and more uneasy. Darkness had come quickly, chasing away any signs of life from the streets he walked on. Like a restless ghost treading the same ground over and over, unable to rest in peace, Joseph merged with the mist. He was lost.





You may wish to read more about Joseph. Here is where his story begins:　
http://nd-mitchell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/unforseen-arrival.html　
　
　Posted for Theme Thursday: Rebirth 　
　
　

Unforeseen Arrival

When he arrived here, he was unexpected and uninvited. He understood nothing. And he was not unbroken.

Communication was a problem. Not just the dialect, but how to get to what really mattered. Gradually I got to know him. After several months, he began to recount his former way of life. I understood, at last, that the choice he had taken to come here, was no choice at all. He was merely trying to survive.

It has taken time to convince him that he is welcome here, so if, by chance, you meet Joseph, perhaps you too can remind him that he is not alone.

                                     ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ

Gunfire rang out across the bone dry desert. The sun had just fallen off the edge of the world and Joseph Takana was worried about the increasing sound of the wind. Whistling through the open wasteland, it might be a sandstorm brewing. 

Joseph had nothing to protect him. He gripped his blue American rucksack. Filled with all the earthly belongings that he now possessed, it would provide no cover from the swirling sand. Sand that could overpower his breathing and cause immense irritation to his eyes. Sand that was the least of his worries…

Fourteen hours earlier Joseph’s life had been tranquil. His small border farmstead was bathing in early morning sunlight. His flock of some two dozen sheep were crowded in the corner of their makeshift bamboo pen, near to the brick building which Joseph called home.

Joseph could just make out, from his bedroom window, the brilliant reflected glint of the Blue Nile shining as though a shimmering, mirrored ribbon had been stretched across the horizon. Looking back into the room, he glimpsed his beautiful wife Nadia, asleep on their wicker bed, and their son, Elias, his tiny arms clasped around her slender neck. Pulling the white linen sheet up over the boy’s tiny body, Joseph fastened his sandals and headed down the spiralling wooden staircase. He quickly passed the small living area that connected, via a makeshift patio, to the yard.

Since inheriting the farm, four years earlier, at the death of his father, Joseph had risen every day at five fifteen to perform the same half hour ritual.

The walk to the standing tap that served all the local farmsteads took him only minutes. First of all, Joseph would fetch water and return with a large pitcher-full that would provide for his family for that day. Joseph would then push an old tin bath on some disused wheels and wait as the grey, rusting, vessel slowly filled up. Gradually, enough water would trickle its way in. Soon, the early morning thirst of his flock would be quenched.

On this morning, having left the pitcher for his family in a shaded part of the downstairs living area, Joseph pushed the tin bath back towards the community’s water supply. Even direct sunlight failed to produce a hint of a reflection on the old bath, which had been passed on through three generations of the Takana family.

As the wheels trundled haphazardly across the red gravel path, Joseph’s was beginning to feel alive. He was truly thankful as he considered his family sleeping peacefully at home. Whistling cheerfully, he made his way up the final few yards, taking the slight incline in his considerable stride.

"Good morning. God’s blessing to you, Shepherd Joseph!" said Sidira, suddenly joining him on the path. Her sing-song tones seemed to mimic the warmth of the day.
"God’s blessing to you, too Sidira. It’s such a fine day isn’t it?" said Joseph.

In Sidira’s presence, it was hard not to respond with a smile. A mother of two teenage boys, she had managed, with their help, and in spite of drought, to keep her small piece of land producing just enough food to keep them going. The death of her husband, a victim of the civil war, had left her a widow at the age of twenty-eight. Her devilish grin and a perfect array of bright white teeth, revealed the fact that somehow, she had managed to remain positive. Her reaction in the face of loss, had inspired many other widowed Ilyuan to keep hoping too.

Chatting all the way, they soon reached the standing tap.  Joseph stood aside to allow Sidira to fill her large plastic bucket. The pedestrian flow of the water was, for Sidira, the perfect opportunity to chat to her neighbour. Her eyes gleamed as Joseph recounted a tale of Elias’s early attempts to walk. At first, his near refusal to let go of his firm grip on Nadia’s fingers. His uncertain footing. Being coaxed into a few tiny steps. The joy of collapsing into his father’s arms. Finally, the endless repetition of success as he continually launched himself, with the wobbly uncertainty of a newborn lamb, from the outstretched arms of one parent into the arms of the other.

"These are precious moments Joseph. Hold on to them forever," said Sidira, as the bucket wrestled her right arm slowly towards the ground. "It only seems like yesterday when my boys were that age. Now they just tower over me! I don’t know why they still do what I tell them! But, they are a real blessing! I could not do without them."

Joseph smiled when, as Sidira wound her way back down the gravel track towards her home, she sent a final message booming over her shoulder: "Thank you for your kindness! Take care of your beautiful family, Shepherd!"

Then, moving the bath into position, Joseph returned to his task. He turned the tap anti-clockwise and the dribble of water steadily increased until, ten minutes later, the bath was ready to be wheeled back towards the Takana farmstead...

It was the timing, rather than the arrival of the vehicle, that had caused the stabbing fear that rose within Joseph’s body. As he started to push the makeshift trolley, Joseph heard, somewhere in the distance, the unmistakable sound of an engine. Although cars passed sporadically on the country road nearby, it was usually too early in the morning for anyone to be using such a backwater route.

Joseph’s stride quickened slightly as he strained his six-foot frame upwards to catch a glimpse of the vehicle over the huge fence of hedgerows that hemmed in the gravel path on both sides. His heart hammering inside his body, he began to look down the pathway towards the entrance to Sidira’s home. Suddenly he heard the slamming of her door.

Seconds later, the peaceful air was shattered by the appalling crack of a machine gun, as silver bullet casings burst into the sky, accompanied by the squalid, unmistakable hollering of Ethiopian militia…

Cross border raids had happened rarely in recent times, but part of Ilyuan folklore was to pass on tales of raiders who arrived without warning. Some members of Joseph’s community had lost family members, taken into slavery or worse, by the brutal olive-skinned soldiers of doom. Joseph’s first reaction, flight, was based on these accounts.

He faced his fear and sprinted down the path towards home.

With his feet pounding the hard ground, and fear welling up inside him, Joseph thought of Elias-his birth had been traumatic and the tears of joy which the father had shed on his eventual arrival had been also tears of sheer relief. Relief too that his wife was still alive. Nadia. He ran faster and momentarily glimpsed a pair of withered eyes peering through the window, as he surged past Sidira’s cottage.

Joseph thrust his body on and on. His toes stabbed through his dusty sandals as he ran. Reaching the end of the hedgerow he was given the first glimpse of his future. To his horror, Joseph saw a dirty white Toyota pick-up truck with huge 4x4 wheels parked in the yard of his smallholding. On the back stood two gunmen, their belts of bullets worn around their vested bodies like sashes of honour.

Suddenly noticing Joseph in the distance, the smaller of the two men spat out instructions and the sound of gunfire ripped through the air. Joseph fell to the ground. His stiff body lay there, as if dead, but a second wave of gunfire forced him to turn his eyes furtively towards his home. Two more men swaggered from the farmhouse. With their red bandanas pulled down over their mouths, and their machine guns resting on their bare shoulders, they slid silently into the truck.

The engine fired up and, with another random round of violence against the sky, they turned their vehicle towards Joseph. His body tightened, with every muscle screaming at him to stand and fight, but he lay there, just above the ground, a man whose life had been ripped from him. When the pickup screeched past him, barely ten metres away, Joseph resembled nothing but a corpse.

Then, as a parting shot, the taller of the gunmen, perched imperiously on the back, suddenly fired a volley of bullets through Sidira’s front window, before the white Toyota sped off, leaving an eerie silence. It was six forty-three. They did not take the trouble to check that they had killed the widow and her two sons, but the massive spray of bullets into the tiny room had left the family with little chance of survival.

Joseph's body morphed into rock, but the pain in his chest was a constant reminder that there was still life in him. Even before he managed to twitch the left leg into motion and navigate the shattered frame onto feet of lead, he knew. He knew, and knowledge burned his insides like a forest fire, spreading quickly through every part of his tall, gaunt remains. There seemed no rush, but Joseph had to move, magnetized by the small brick building that had been his home since birth.

 [Twenty-five years earlier his mother, set against travelling to the newly built hospital some 50 kilometres away, and without any reliable transportation method, had taken the only real option available and asked her neighbour to help deliver him.]

Another stab of pain; this time in his right leg. Only a cut. Joseph felt the shame of relief and lumbered on, pleading inside to be wakened from his nightmare. As he approached, he saw a flow of muddy brown-red water trickling down the irrigation ditch adjacent to the side of the house.

Like a death row criminal, Joseph stumbled on towards his fate. The door had been left ajar and stepping inside, he gripped the handle as if it was his final connection to the life he used to know. The metal warmed him, having been in direct sunlight for almost an hour, but even in that moment, Joseph recognized that the sensation was only transitory. The mechanics of movement seemed alien to him as he negotiated the wooden floor towards the spiral staircase. Every creak of the boards reminded him of his grim task.

At the top, from the open doorway, Joseph received his sentence. Crimson seeping through linen. Tiny hands clamped around the neck. And the primitive look of horror that crushed Joseph to his knees. Disbelieving, life had been torn from them. Approaching the bed, his tears were instant and became merged with blood as Joseph clung to his family, until finally, he broke free and became silent, staring only at the palms of his shaking hands.

Then he heard the engine once again. The sickening taste in his throat and the bitter wrenching of his stomach caused him to awaken from his paralysis. The putrid smell mingled with the early morning heat and Joseph moved quickly to pull the blood-soaked covers over his loss, lingering only to kiss their heads.

Two stars had disappeared from his sky. A sky that was now crashing down on him. Punch-drunk, he grabbed for his backpack and thrust clothes randomly into it from a pile on the floor, as the unmistakable wrench of gears, tyres and throttle merged into his consciousness. Joseph dashed through the open doorway. The spiral staircase; the downstairs room; the patio; the yard. In an instant, he was past the little bamboo fence. He glanced at the slaughtered flock propped beside the wall and ran. The vehicle was coming closer and would soon appear past the hedgerows. Joseph headed in the opposite direction.

Soon, the lorry drew alongside him and passed onto the connecting dirt track leading towards its eventual destination of Kasala. It was carrying cattle, heavily packed and tightly caged in behind a dusty black rig. The driver had taken a wrong turn some way back. Joseph’s sprint faded to a jog. As the lorry passed on its way, it sent spirals of dust back into his face. Joseph fell once more to his knees.

Returning to the farm, his body took full control of his numb spirit, and he laid Nadia and Elias to rest as best as he could, side by side in a makeshift grave near the irrigation ditch. He waited just long enough to mark the spot with a spindly cross, made of two fallen branches, fused with twine. And then, suddenly and pragmatically, Joseph Takana simply left his old life and the Ilyuan way of existence behind forever.

Forlorn silence was his companion as he walked to the valley that night. A black hole in his mind was swirling around pictures of Nadia and Elias with every step. Putting one foot in front of the other as best as he could remember, he slowly switched his thoughts to survival. Moving along tracks that he knew well, Joseph covered twenty kilometres by the time night swiftly moved in to mimic and mock his tattered heart.

And as gunfire, the persistent ticking of the clock of war started once more in the distance, he knew that this night would not be a restful one.

Finally, making out a small, barren tree-trunk at the far side of the valley, Joseph shifted wearily on and collapsed against it. His body grasped the rucksack tightly in the vicious wind. There were many miles ahead. He closed his eyes and hoped to dream that he was dead.