Why I Write by Ishmael Beah

Why do I write? Is it for the monetary compensation? Or is it for the fame I envision? No, when you have seen your family trapped in a smoldering coffin and imagine their faces running off their bones, these matters are downright minuscule. When you have sliced a man's Adam's apple with a bayonet in a competition to see whose prisoner would die the fastest, these are meaningless. When you see your friends with numerous geysers spouting blood into a river of death, these matters are absolutely futile. And when you are awaken from the haze of drugs and butchery into the clarity of sobriety, citizenship, and scholarship, you realize these are devoid of any meaning whatsoever. No I write to make people aware. To make them aware of the children affected by war. Surreal as it may seem, I was an executioner. I am mortified to say this, but if I save one child from the torment I endured by sharing my story, then my writing was not in vain. Today we have wars similar to the conflict I lived in Sierra Leone and the world must know of the atrocities of war and genocide. Oftentimes I awake in the dark of night to see the men I murdered slowly emerging from the bushes with their gaping wounds spewing blood uncontrollably. The sinews of their body are dangling and torn and I wake up in a puddle of my sweat, trembling. I wonder how many of these rebels had families like mine who will forever mourn the uncertain, yet definitive death of their relatives. These dreams from the inferno of Hell and the migraines accompanying them I fear will never subside. It is my sincere goal and wish to educate the world about these conflicts where the sun never rises and the children cling to their guns like childhoods they never had. My writing is also to thank the UNICEF and people who saved me from my irreversible demise: my uncle, relatives, friends, Leslie, and most of all Esther, my first true love. When I contently felt and believed all was lost to my AK, you resuscitated me. You awakened my eyes to the larger world, peace, Freetown, and literature. You led me to life.