Once a Great Man Always a Great Man

Chapter two- Bombs

Chapter Two

"So, what happened after that and why were you held the elder of the house?" I asked after we prayed.

"I was the one who even took care of his children and wife. He was the first one to get married in our family and in a really young age. Well, I took care of him too. I told you, being responsible is a good behavior but if you are the only one in charge, it hurts. Enough of that, let's get back to our topic. I talked to my father, telling him that I wanted to get back to the city. I told him we should get back to work but my father refused. But I guess I had inherited his behavior and I refused too. After we went through many conversations, we couldn't come to an agreement. One morning I got up and took a bus to the city without telling anyone. And that's when my life began. After getting back to the city, I started to work in various places. Seeing that I had refused to do as he said, my father gave me one thousand of the profit I had made saying I had deserved it. I put that money with my uncle and I continued my search for a shop and I found one.

I planned to take away half of the burden my father had by working at another place other than my father's shop. I started selling goods there and everything started to go well. I even sole things from other shops. I bought a good from a shop nearby and I sole it with a greater price. I had brought my sister Medina and my brother Bilal to the city so that they could help my father and me too. I delivered the goods to them before I went to my own. Everything was going fine until..."

"What happened dad?" I asked confused.

"I had to work harder. I had to deal with some illegal jobs. The EFDRE regime also started to move into the city. We could hear bombs here and there and also gun shots but it was nothing to us at that time. Not because we didn't know anything but because we got used to it after sometime. I started to sell guns. And not just these big guns but rather the ones that were new factorized. There was a pilot I knew who went to Eritrea during the jet fights and he would bring those guns to me. I was the one to go and receive the guns from him. You might be asking how he got into the country with the guns and without being noticed. Other members of the flying team used to pass through security to enter the country but he didn't. They owed him that much. His name was jemil meaning beautiful in Arabic and he was the true definition of it. He wore nice clothes. He had a good height and a perfect color. He looked like an Arabian. I used to receive the guns from him from the airport and we used to put them in fluorescent light packages because they were long enough for the guns to fit. Then I used to put them at the top of the goods I took to my shop. You might say I'm a fool for putting them at the top of the objects but that was not what fools do against fool soldiers.

Fool soldiers don't check the whole truck. They always think you hide them below all of the goods. That was why we hid them on top. After some time my friend got killed in a fight. I heard he crashed to a mountain and he was dead. I stopped the business but I had some which I hadn't sold. I did sell a lot and these were just left over.

One day I had Bilal and Medina in the shop helping me. There were a lot of people buying and the bombs hadn't stopped nor did the gun shots. I was selling so much and I had many hundreds in the cash register. I hadn't liked the situation so I told Bilal and Medina to take all the hundreds and fifties to the back of the shop and they did. I then told them to take the tens too and all I had were ones and cents. After selling much, someone appeared in front me holding something in his hands. I got surprised seeing it was a bomb. "Give me money or you'll be dead," requested the man. I stood in front of him so that the two of them could go and hide but they just stood there watching me. I was in trouble and in a really big one. After I waited for a while for them to go inside and they didn't seem to move, I put my hands in the register and took out the cents handing them to him. "More!" he gestured. I gave him more cents and I put my hand under the table checking if I had a gun there. "More!" he said again and I took out the gun pointing it at him. Anger flushed through me as I put the bullets in place and the man ran away. I guess having a gun in your shop isn't that interesting after all. He wouldn't have bombed anyways. He was scared for his life because that bomb he was holding could destroy him together with me. Trust me, I know. We used to study, eat and do the job at the same time.

AN: I promise it will be getting more interesting. Please vote and comment. Please!