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The first time he slapped me, I didn’t like it.
As I could hear the gunshots outside our apartment’s building, fear had paralysed my body that night.
He shook me and forced me to get up. We left the place called home in the middle of a future riot, hiding in the darkness while trying to get away from this forsaken place. It was obvious now : the president decided to tame in blood those who resisted his government.
Staying in power at all costs was the status quo my lover and his fellows journalists have been fighting these last months.
The phone battery is low but he is trying to reach any family member. I am holding his hand tight, following his moves from one brick wall to the trash infested bush behind our block. Bullets’ sounds and angry voices seem distant for a moment.
I am begging him to stop for a minute so that I can lace the shoes quickly put on my feet earlier. The expression on his face is one that I have never seen. It looks like a mix of anger and desperation, I cannot tell for sure.
By the time I am done with the first shoe, he urges me to continue tiptoeing between trees.
Some of the corrupted army men are walking towards us. Their shadows are moving in the weak light exposing them. Behind, our beloved past, in front : a faith that never scared me as much as this exact moment.
Seconds of concrete fear for my life and his, solid despair that the happiness was in vain. The one I felt a week ago when my mother broke years of silence to finally tell me “my first son, even if you are in love with a man, you are still my first born”.
I don’t wanna die here, like an animal hiding behind shitty sewer smell. I look for...