The Youth of God by Hassan Ghedi Santur

Author:Hassan Ghedi Santur
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mawenzi House Publishers
Published: 2019-05-07T18:39:21+00:00

13

“WHY YOU GOTTA BE SUCH a bitch about this?” Kamar Antoine was saying to his friend and sometime foe, Khasim, when Mr Ilmi walked by. Kamar was the shooting guard of Thistletown Collegiate’s basketball team, while Khasim played centre. It was Mr Ilmi’s day to monitor the hallways during lunch break, a duty he resented. As Mr Ilmi saw it, his job was to teach these kids science, not wander around the hallways of the school, breaking up fights.

“Fuck you, man!” Khasim said, responding to Kamar.

“Hey, Khasim. Language please!” Mr Ilmi said with a little extra effort to sound authoritative.

“Sorry, Mr Ilmi,” Khasim said and busied himself with opening his locker. It always amazed Mr Ilmi how these boys, for all their threatening postures, bulging muscles under their hoodies, testosterone surging through their veins, could so easily be mollified by a few carefully chosen words. As Mr Ilmi continued meandering in the hallways, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for these boys. Everywhere he went, he heard people complain about them: their contempt for rules, their proclivity for violence, and that they’re destined for failure. But to Mr Ilmi, they seemed like little children, desperate to be noticed, to be seen, as if being seen were akin to being loved.

As he was heading outside, behind the school, where the more hard-core boys and their girlfriends hung out smoking cigarettes, the more daring smoking joints, Mr Ilmi changed direction and went down the long hallway that led to the cafeteria. It was eerily quiet. Normally this part of the school was the noisiest during lunch break. As Mr Ilmi continued at his casual pace towards the cafeteria, he heard voices chanting in unison, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Mr Ilmi quickened his pace and was soon sprinting on the slippery hallway, his loafers practically gliding on the recently waxed tiles. The chant got louder the closer he got to the source of the commotion.

By the time Mr Ilmi reached the cafeteria, a sudden hush had fallen on the room. A large circle of students had gathered, and at its centre, some ghastly thing was going on that had silenced the forty or so students. Some of them held their hands to their mouths in shock. In the seconds it took Mr Ilmi to breach the wall of the circle, his imagination managed to construct a number of frightening scenarios: a stabbed student holding his belly, the stabber clutching a knife in his bloodied hand; a student shot in the head, his or her eyes wide open. As Mr Ilmi pushed through, there it was—a sight he could never comprehend.

James Calhoun was lying on the floor, his body contorted, a pool of blood surrounding his head. A few feet away from him, two male teachers were holding Nuur on the floor, hands behind his back, face pressed against the cold floor. He was not struggling. He seemed to Mr Ilmi to have given up.

Mr Ilmi could hear the pounding of his own heart and he had the dizzying sense of walking underwater.

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