Restitution
A short-story fiction
At first, we all thought it rumors. The men who came at night to take young men. Vicious, filthy men who raided tents and burned livestock for the pleasure.
Before long, in our province, seven villages over, a man claimed that his son was taken by hooded men in camouflage gear and combat boots. So, the villagers went looking for the boy, because he was as sweet as their own and his future was bright. Then soon doubt ensued. The man claimed that the hooded men were brandishing the insignia of General Moulu. So, the villagers turned against him because in their hearts, the general was a good man, the redeemer, and in their memories, aided by the general, this village man never had a son. Even his neighbors’ children turned against him because they no longer recalled ever playing with this boy.
The man walked from village to village pleading his case, asking for help to locate his boy, his only child. He held his wallet high, showing the only picture he had of his child. Still, no one believed him, so he became the village clown. By the time he came to our village for help, to warn the villagers of the men in camouflage, his story had become folklore. Another fable that we recount to children.
Villagers made a mockery of his story, damned him, condemned him for his lies, because if a boy, his boy, were to have ever existed, and to have been taken, it was because he was up to no good. The hooded man in their fables only came for miscreants, enemies of the general.
Then it happened again.
Another boy, younger, went missing, and like the other fables, this story quickly became one of lore. Our town children are innocent, the villagers would say. They knew nothing of the past. Our villages are loyal to the general. Who in their right mind would ever want to take them? Surely not the general. For him, we owe our lives. Then it happened again, to a two-year-old girl, and the villagers held their tongues. Then the camps became less crowded, adults and small families went missing, and the murmurs began to buzz. But how could the general? For to him, they owe their livestock, their small fortune, and their lives.
If it were not for my mother, I would have also believed these words. You see, my mother never fell for his charm because she remembered something the villagers did not. At the beginning of the conflict, it was our town, our villages that bewailed him. For at the time, he was not our general but a tyrant with a lazy stride and candied lips. He grumbled lies; she would tell us. My father dismissed her words because at home she was our fool, and only Father was right. He is the general to whom we owe our lives. So, we remained quiet, taking her words in good stride and light mockery, but when the fourth child went missing, we could not deny her any longer.
Get Mac Ellis’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
I rallied a secret troop, a little army of do-gooders. My mother rejoiced. We knocked on crooked doors, climbed down old, unkempt chimneys, and lifted tattered rain flies. We pleaded with our neighbors to check on fellow villagers, to make note of the missing. It was the only way; they had to see it; how else would they believe it? It was because of us that the villagers broke their silence, and their lips began to buzz.
But by the time they were angry enough to act, it was already too late.
They raised their fists in anger, in betrayal, because during the conflict, they pledged themselves as supporters. They turned on old allies, buried their values. How could they ever believe him?
We asked for his mercy, and in return, he struck his right arm down on our town. This was our atonement, that was what the general called it.
He sent them; the masked men came in droves. They tore apart our facilities and ravaged our crops. They beat my father, the general’s loyal believers, and then turned to my mother, for her eyes could not withhold her disdain. They grabbed her and held her down in front of us. Look at me, she said to my father.
I turned my eyes in fear and disgust.
I cried for them, and I shed a tear for them still. This memory, forever imprinted on my heart, jolts me up at night. This memory that lingers longer than the others to come.
It stays with me as I hear the children scream, cry out for their own mothers. I go from door to door to hear them plead, beg for the general’s mercy.
If only the villagers had acted, believed that clown, maybe I wouldn’t have to become a hooded man of the night.
If only the villagers had acted, believed that clown, maybe I wouldn’t have to become a hooded man of the night.
