By Anna Pietuszek
(Inspired by the Trial of Simon Bikindi)
Once upon a time, my friend and I went to see what had happened in the war. As we were walking to where the battle had been, we saw a single soldier walking slowly toward us from the battlefield.
“What happened?” we asked.
“It was terrible! There was a singing fairy whose voice was so fun, so beautiful, so amazing, that we did whatever she said. We were dancing, we were singing, and then she told us to kill. And we were killing,” the soldier said. I was so shocked.
“What? Killing?” I whispered to my friend. “This man is so weird… but I am interested.”
“My friend answered me, “The fairy told me that she was so lonely before she met my army. She spent time alone because everyone left her,” said the soldier.
“Why did they leave her? That is a little suspect,” I said carefully. The soldier looked at me.
“I don’t know. She never wanted to tell me about that,” he shrugged his shoulders.
I wanted to walk away from him. He seemed so weird to me. I was a little bit scared, but my friend wanted to listen to the whole story. “I can’t leave her alone with this guy,” I thought. So, I stood there and listened.
“I love this fairy. She was the most amazing woman I ever saw,” the soldier looked like he was dreaming about her right then.
“So why did you leave her?” my friend asked.
“No! I did not want to do that. But it was her choice,” the soldier said. I don’t know why my friend was so involved in this soldier’s story.
“Every man and boy in my group liked her voice. When they heard her, they immediately did what she wanted.”
“For sure, he is not normal,” I whispered to my friend again, but I only heard an answer like “Shhh,” and she rolled her eyes.
“That fairy was amazing,” the soldier continued. “Her voice did unbelievable things. I spent every minute of my life with her. And one day, when I met her with my army, she said, ‘So, when you come to me, I will show you my new song. Would you like to hear it?’ We, of course, said yes, but we did not know what the song could be. And she suddenly started singing. This song was so beautiful. But when I heard that song, suddenly I lost my good feelings. I wanted to kill my enemies, all of them. I grabbed my gun, and I, with my people, suddenly went to the battlefield. I wanted to kill everyone who was not on my side. I started to do that.”
When I heard this, I was scared. “What if he suddenly wants to kill us? What do we do when he attacks us?” I thought, and why does my friend still wanted to hear his story? That is not normal. I wanted to run away, but I did not want to leave my best friend there with this man.
“Her voice could make anyone kill? Seriously? That’s so interesting,” my best friend said, and I could not believe her words.
“Killing people is interesting?” I said. I was shocked!
“That story is interesting,” she replied. “Don’t you think so?”
For me, that was scary, not interesting (well, maybe a little bit interesting). The soldier started again, “We killed all of these people. Me and my army did that. We killed them. Her voice was so convincing. Her one song was enough to convince all the people,” the soldier said.
“One song? This is so suspect and weird,” I thought to myself.
“When we came back to the place where the fairy should be, we didn’t see her or hear her. We found a sentence written in the sand, ‘You did what I want, now I can go, goodbye soldier.’ I thought this might be a joke, but it was not.” He became silent for a moment. Then he said, “I really loved this fairy.”
Love her? The fairy? I did not understand that.
Then my friend said, “This was a sad and romantic story… I think people will like it when I write it.” Now, I understood why she was so involved in this story. She thought it was fiction, nothing more than a curious tale. She thanked the soldier for his story, calling it a “folk tale.”
“But this all happened, this was a real story,” the soldier said, and then, with sadness, he walked away, and my best friend and I never saw him again.