‘Barrelscapes: War, 2006’

I wasn't supposed to be there and I knew it. But his son had recently been killed and he had left the camp and no one was looking after his hut. And I wanted to see whether he had left any candy. Of course, he didn't really seem to be the kind who would have candy around, and, if he did, it would probably be old and sour, like he had always struck me and my friends. But I was alone and bored, and there was the window to his hut standing open, where the snake plant in the kitchen had grown too large and gnarled to close it anymore. Everyone said he had been in the camp for longer than anyone else, and evidently he had brought the snake plant with him when he arrived. Some nights we could hear him curse the plant, angered at what its size meant about the amount of time that he been forced to spend here, homeless and dispossessed.

Actually, he was no more homeless than the rest of us. And, having been among the first to arrive, he had been able to secure a prime spot for his hut, with a clump of bamboo giving him all the privacy he wanted. Taking advantage of just that seclusion, in I crept, through his window and over his snake plant, almost impaling myself on its sharp leaves. And there he was, pale and gaunt. As it turns out, he wasn't gone at all, but merely in a self-imposed state of furious, solitary mourning – a pent-up rage that he quickly unleashed on my abrupt appearance.