I killed her son in battle.

She lived in the village next to mine. She was a small and mousy woman, almost frail, yet still driven by some unseen, perhaps nonexistent, impetus. Her hair was startlingly white, swirling around the sun-accentuated black of her skin in a clash of dark and light. She was kind.

I was eight years old. It was midday around the eve of summer, and I was dashing home, my loosely slung knapsack dancing wildly on my shoulder. My teacher had been foul-tempered the entire day, muttering, "Those damn soldiers, acting like they own the place." His words had saturated the small room, thickening the brown air and enclosing us even further within those charred wooden walls. His tone frightened me--for once, the danger had taken form, had become a vivid reality, not a moving picture outside a window. I suddenly became aware of the things that had once been invisible to me-blood was beginning to seep in through the ceiling and the foul odor of strung intestines, pulled from a warm core, was starting to permeate through the hole in the wall and cling perseveringly to my clothes. It was his gaze that alarmed me even more. Condescending, pitying, and gloomy all at once, it bore down on every single boy in my class, as though there was no hope for us. As though we might as well pick up a knife that very day and begin slashing the throats of villagers, along with the rest of the local soldiers. As soon as the teacher uttered the perfunctory phrase of dismissal, though this time supplemented with a quiet warning, I immediately began running down the long dirt path that led to my village. I was about ten minutes from home when I was shot in the foot.

I remember landing heavily on my knees and hands as I tumbled to the ground. The pack of soldiers that had attacked me was nowhere in sight, but I knew they were somewhere within those rustling leaves, sweaty hands firmly clutching machine guns, as though the weapons were their sole source of life. There was an angry gash on my left knee; an acidic concoction of blood and pebbles flowed down my skin. I could feel pieces of myself dripping onto the dirt with each heartbeat—drip, drip, drip. The tears bulging behind my eyelids were tantalizingly close to freedom, about to become one with reality. At that moment I realized how easy it would be to cry tears of pain and self-pity. It was then that I decided to be a soldier. I was a wounded soldier stranded on the battlefield. I would not cry.

And then she came. What is your name? Where do you live? It looks like you tripped on that big rock over there and scraped your knee. It is only a minor cut. Come, let me help you. I do not remember if I even spoke once during the encounter. She gripped my arm with her gnarled hands and led me to her hut, where she plopped me down on a table. She rubbed the raw flesh on my knee with a white powder and coated it in a thick green paste that smelled of grass. You must be careful next time and watch where you are stepping. You could have fallen on your face. There was a picture of a boy on the table; he had a slightly lopsided smile and an almost unnoticeable gap between his two front teeth. His black skin swam with swirling splashes of sunlight. That is my son. That picture was taken four years ago. He is a few years older than you. He rarely comes home now. Perhaps it was her downcast gaze or her soft tone that alerted me to some unspeakable sadness that cried within her beaten body. I did not inquire or comment.

I returned home proud and relieved. I was a soldier who could boldly showcase his battle wound. I had survived a bloody skirmish. I had conquered five hundred enemy tribes. It was only for a fleeting second that I thought of the woman. She was a kind woman.

She was a kind woman, and five years later, I would kill her son in battle.