Feeding the Borfimah

Slaves!

The van door opened and hot air wafted in, infused with the aromatic smell of marijuana. The scent transported Nouhou back to the Liberian Civil War, when he would smoke weed with his unit. Getting high had offset the coming down from the war amphetamines. A warehouse metal shutter closed behind the van. Peering out, Nouhou observed a vast plantation of marijuana plants, a sea of deep green under bright UV lights.

Some of the LURD soldiers went mad smoking marijuana. The drug had summoned voices in their head, which all spoke at once, reminding the children of all the wrong they'd done, and how there was no future for any of them except death. Nouhou had heard the voices too, but had pushed them from his mind. Those who couldn't sometimes blew their brains out or, weakened on the battlefield, the NPFL shot them.

Nouhou remembered getting stoned in many village huts, usually the guesthouse for travellers, where they would laugh about the locals who'd fled, taking whatever they could carry, only to be stripped of all valuables when they met the government forces. Sometimes an arrangement could be made with the NPFL to tell the villagers it was safe to return home again, where they would discover LURD fighters waiting to take their last items of value. That had just been for fun.

Botship beckoned them to step out of the van. Nouhou manoeuvred himself out onto his prosthetic legs and exited behind everyone else. He had never felt so crushed, not even in the war. Even when hung by his hands in the ATU hut with his amputated legs bound with tourniquets of string, the Spirit had been strong inside him. He could laugh through the pain, charming his captors so they spared him. The Spirit had gone and he felt the same despair of the thousands of civilians he had rounded up in villages, or stopped at checkpoints, or attacked on the road, who'd begged him not to be killed.

Balancing on his walking sticks Nouhou noted the plantation guards each with a semi-automatic slung over a shoulder. One sneered as his disability. More guards would be posted at key points, Nouhou thought, and possibly a sniper lay on the roof. The heads of labourers bobbed in amongst the lines of greenery, seeking out and plucking off the male flower buds. Nouhou knew that pollen arrested the growth of the all-important female flower heads.

From a portacabin to one side of the warehouse, a fat white man emerged with two larger men in tow. "The fuck is this?" the man said, staring at them.

"Dese peeps need security," Botship said.

"This – is a major fucking breach. That's what this is."

"Consider dem more workers."

"I don't need any more workers, Botship. Who the fuck are they?"

"Watch the news tonight an you see. You understand everyting."

"I couldn't give a toss about the news." The man, seeing Nouhou's walking sticks, shook his head. "An what in fuck's name can this freak do?"

Botship grinned from behind his sunglasses. "Strangerlove? Better for you if you don't find out."

"Spit it, Botship. What's your fucking game here?"

"You keep dem safe and they work."

"Work? What the fuck is dat?" Aisha asked.

"We never signed up for any of this shit," said Rachel.

"OK, I take you back to de Farm?" Botship said.

"They've seen everything. They're not going anywhere. And some fucking P better come my way," the boss said.

Botship grimaced.

"Look at dem. Any of you ever looked after a plant before? On your window sill? You worked before?" the bossman addressed Lilah.

"Cleaner," Lilah said.

Nouhou noted she glanced at the ground, a human reflex he had seen too many times.

"You empty the vacuum cleaner over your head?" he said, gesturing at brick dust covering her. "You can show your friends how to clean. Give them some fucking brooms."

"Don't make any trouble. None. You hear?" Botship said to Nouhou, and returned to the van with his entourage.

Rachel and Aisha made as though to get into the van as well, but they were pushed away by the submachine-gun-toting bodyguard.

Nouhou couldn't move. He took a deep breath to stop himself from weeping. The Spirit had died in the borfimah because he hadn't fed it.

The van drove away and the white boss and his guards returned to the office cabin. Nouhou stood on the concrete floor not knowing what would happen next. Lilah swayed in emotional exhaustion, and Nouhou gripped her shoulder. Her dark hair extensions were smudged orange and grey.

"Push a broom?" Aisha said. "Who he tink he is? My mum?"

"It's the deal," Rachel said. "No-one can find us here and we push brooms."

"You weren't listening properly," Lilah said. "When we stop pushing brooms we die."

"An wid no phone!" Aisha said. "'Strangerlove', dat what Botship call you? What de fuck were you climbing on the side of that tower for? And why your mum look like she been in Iraq?"

"Were the snipers shooting at you?" Rachel asked, rubbing her head. "The fucks tore out my hair."

"The bullets went through brick," Lilah said. "I should be dead."

"Do you know why they were shooting at you?" said Rachel.

"I don't know," Lilah said. "Why were they shooting at me?"

"Nouhou stoppin my marriage to someone I don't know in India," Aisha said. "He my protection, yeh."

"They shot people in the crowd too," Rachel said.

"Dat I don understand," Aisha said.

"Maybe they thought you were in the crowd?" Lilah said. "They take out your protection, then shoot you in the crowd."

"If we were in the crowd those peeps would have killed us," Rachel said. "They almost did." She patted her head where her white scalp showed.

The portacabin door opened and one of the bodyguards, a white guy with a shaved head and tattoo sleeves, stepped out with an armload of brooms.

"Floor better be clean by tonight," he said, letting the brooms fall to the ground.

"Or what, big man?" Aisha asked.

The man retrieved a pistol tucked into the back of his jeans.

"Just askin for my own information," Aisha said.

Nouhou recalled how Lilah had said if he could fight with magic, he could do it without magic, but Nouhou couldn't make himself believe it. The Spirit had gone.

"We pushin brooms?" Rachel said. "Do we get paid?"

Nouhou waved a placating hand at the man. "We worh hard. Bess cleaner, you see. No worry." Nouhou tried hard to make his smile blaze and the bodyguard walked away.

In the Second Civil War, in almost every village that LURD overran, people were forced to be carriers or servants. Of these, the better-looking girls became "wives" who cleaned and cooked as well as performed in bed. These slaves worked hard because, if they failed, the punishment was a beating or death or sometimes both.

"Don figh with him. Jus worh." Nouhou had executed grown men who had refused to work.

"We're dope slaves," Rachel said. "Like Đăng Anh was."

"Maybe we get paid in weed," Aisha said. "I never tried eet."

"Dis no joke, bitch," Rachel said. "We fucking slaves."

"Hold up, bitch. You haven't done any work yet!" Aisha said.

Lilah picked up a broom. "Life is a very long journey. We start at the far end and push all the dead leaves and the dust into a big pile here so the big boss sees it. If you have a handkerchief, a scarf – tie it over your nose."

"I just have these fucking jeans and top," Rachel said.

"I seen many people wih less." Nouhou slung one stick over his shoulder on its string loop, and picked up a broom. "We worh an hope."