Read Online Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah - Free Book Online Page A

friend, who emerged from the river in different forms and sat on the banks with her. Sometimes she came as a beautiful woman, as half fish, half human; other times she came as a muscular, handsome man. All these forms were what the human chief had committed to her mind and thought about before their meeting. They talked about their worlds and the need to maintain the purity of the river, which was the source of life for both their peoples.
    “In those days, no one drowned in rivers, as the water spirits aided everyone who swam in them. The humans were required to stay away from the river only at midnight for a few hours so that the water spirits could perform their bathing ceremonies uninterrupted. The relationship went on for centuries until one night a callous young man, who had arrived very late on the other side of the river, decided he must cross into town immediately even though he’d been warned to wait just a few hours. As he rowed the canoe across, he frightened the water spirits; some of them hid and others transformed into strong currents because of the shock. He struggled to row against the currents, and one of the water spirits, in the form of a beautiful girl, decided to aid him. She made herself visible and guided his canoe to shore. The young human and water spirit fell in love and started meeting each other to swim when no one else was around.
    “One night while they were playing together in the river, the young man, not listening to the girl, went to a deep, turbulent area of the river and drowned. This brought about distrust between the humans and the water spirits. Before the chiefs on either side could speak about what had happened, the man’s father, a hunter with too much temper, had already killed one of the water spirits with his arrow.”
    “Did the hunter have guns or just arrows? He could do more with guns and grenades that he could just shoot or throw in the water and kill all the water spirits,” a young man interrupted, with eyes redder than the flames and memories of the recent past in his imagination. He called himself Miller. Colonel had not noticed this young man before and made a mental note to find him the next day. Mama Kadie walked over and sat next to him and told the rest of the story as if only for him.
    She told of how in those days there were no guns or grenades, of how a small misunderstanding had changed the relationship between the humans and the water spirits, and how the act of one person whose heart had been quickly consumed by negative fire had caused the water spirits to hide from humans forever. So every now and then when a human laid eyes on any water spirit, it would try to protect itself by drowning that human, especially adults whose minds would conjure only the worst image of the water spirits. It was only children whom they did not attack, except in rare circumstances, for the water spirits still saw them as the only pure humans.
    It was an important point that needed to be made about the nature of distrust and how it can spiral into violence. It was also a story to reassure some of the younger ones that their innocence was not to be feared any longer, as it had come to be during the time of the war. Sometimes a story does not make immediate sense—one has to listen and keep it in one’s heart, in one’s blood, until the day it will become useful.
    The sighs of relief from the children filled the night when they heard that they were exempted from harm. The muscles of the night shook with a slight wind, rejoicing as they received these innocent sighs once again.
    The last story, told by Pa Kainesi, brought about tremendous laughter in the crowd, something none had done in a while. He began:
    “There was a man who always complained about his condition and was unhappy with every aspect of his life, especially about his only pair of trousers, which had holes in them everywhere. Parts of his flesh could be seen through the trousers, so it looked from afar as