When Memory Burns

A haunting account of survival and loss amid violence in Plateau State, Nigeria.

When Memory Burns
They say the world burns only when the fire licks your doorstep. Till then, it's just a plume on the horizon, a sound you can sleep through, a violence neatly folded in the news. They say it's fine, so long as the ash does not settle on our roofs, so long as the blood isn't ours.
But fire forgets its lane. It always does. When it came to Hurti, it found us farming: my mother, father, five siblings, and I dig into the stubborn soil with the hope of potatoes and maize and survival.
We had danced just days before: the Ron and the Kulere, bodies rising like prayer, feet pounding the earth as if to remind it: We are still here. We are not finished. We will not be erased by silence.
But Wednesday came with the sound of death on metal steeds, motorbikes buzzing like wasps, guns cracking like thunderclouds. We heard them before we saw the black smoke curling, before we saw homes spitfire before the screams shattered the dawn.
We ran. No, we didn’t. We froze. The land is flat; it betrays. There is nowhere to hide when the sky is black and the soil won't open to swallow you.
My mother’s lips trembled. “Home,” she whispered, but my father stopped her. The children were there: two sisters, one sick and one watching, left behind because we thought the morning would be kind.
She urinated on herself out of fear. The ground was wet with more than morning dew. And then he pointed: a hole, a mined scar in the earth. We didn’t ask what lay inside. We just entered.
Inside, it smelled of dampness and death. My parents stayed outside; no room for everyone in a world this small. From a slit in the ground, I watched them come: five men, knives in hand, their rifles slung like tools of trade, praying to a god they had unburdened of compassion.
They cut. They cut. They cut.
Blood sprayed like truth. My father begged, his voice, a broken glass. My brother dropped like corn struck from its stalk. My mother screamed, then cradled his body as if the womb could take him back.
And the men laughed. Their chants echoed in Hausa: “Shegu, zamu kakashe dukan ku!” which means - Fools, would kill all of you. Their god is great, they said. Their god watched, silent. Their god did not stop them.
When silence returned, my father’s eyes had seen somewhere beyond. He did not last the night. My sisters were slaughtered. The ones at home never even had a chance to run.
We know their faces. We know their tongues. We know who they are and where they now live: in the homes they burned, among the ghosts they made.
They say people pushed to the wall will push back. We are there now: our backs pressed flat, our memories soaked in blood.
But this is not a call to arms. This is a cry from a boy named Uren, who wanted to love the land, who wanted to farm potatoes, who believed in rain and growth and hands in the soil.
But now the soil is red. The air hums with what was stolen. And memory, memory does not forget. Especially not when it bleeds.