South Sudan’s Minister for Finance issued a statement on Wednesday evening, reporting an incident where what he termed as “a group of self-proclaimed wounded heroes” invaded the ministry premises, disrupting work and government activities (Radio Tamazuj, Feb. 15, 2024)
grief is a philosophy preceptor. i know not how i came to this conclusion but how else
would you personalise what leaves you with more questions than answers?
in a montage on tiktok, a miracle-performing televangelist healed, of his blindness,
a man. & the first thing the man discards is his walking stick―his companion of years: an exemplar of how loyalty is frowned upon the minute benefits cease. that man
is a blood-and-breath analogy for this country & her veterans; the man’s story, a real-life
symbolism for the veterans’ tear-jerking, bone-freezing stories. stories of how men who gave up more than 21 years of their lives go for more than 21 months without pay; stories of how men who fought for more than 21 years to bring about change
have watched things change for the worst for close to 21 years now. a few months
ago, one of them mouthed a rifle & pulled the trigger. & who could blame him? how long
does one live when all left to live on is the bruised air of despondency chaliced in the tray of betrayal? isn’t hopelessness the shortest route to death? the other month, another―who has nothing to show for his sacrifices of years but scars, military demeanour, a faded khaki, a rusted rifle & a heart full of unmet expectations―took up cobbling to cobble up his life shredded at the seams by this demeaning economy.
or how else would you describe an economy where 99% of the population go to bed every night unsure of what to eat the next day? like a hunting dog, he has given up the fatty bulk of his exploits to his ungrateful masters & settled for the lean crumbs. towards march this year, veterans (drenched in the ageless adage that a hungry man
is an angry man) marched into the mouth of death―armed only with grievances & crutches. what more could they lose in death? isn’t death [instead] a pathway
to the truest freedom, a freedom from the wears & worries of this world? a bullet yanked off one a left limb, the only limb he had left after losing his right limb 21 years ago. another morphed into a nile of blood after a bullet lodged in his neck, dislodging him. once, one of them was, with a ceremony befitting his surpassing stature interred
in a grand grave. it was all―but a bed-like stretch of land for a final rest―this country he gave up his all for, all his life, ever offered him.
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