I believe we are all getting the thrill of the world cup. May the best country win!

JULIET...

Light flashed on the canvas, sifting through to tents. Vehicle engines rumbled in the distance and Juliet was wide awake. Light blazed her direction and men stepped in rudely rousing the sleeping girls. Ali was with the men pointing at which girl should be taken away and which should be left behind. He pointed at Lucia, and two hands held her weeping body, chivvying her through the crowd outside.

Juliet followed, and watched from the distance as Lucia as well as many girls was being forced into the truck till they could resist no more. Four men grabbed the cross bar over the columns of steel that made the entrance. The truck rumbled to life again and rolled away.

Lucia was shrieking on the top of her voice, her shrilly voice was evident, but she couldn't come out of the truck despite the spasmodic resistance she offered. Juliet watched as the light diminished into pinpricks in the distance. Her heart sank as she dug her fingers to the sand crying her eyes out once more.

The feeling of loneliness took hold, Lucia was gone, and so it seems for Raliat and Aminat. Her best friends. Gone.

From the darkness behind came a muscular grasp smouldering her, another pointing a gun at her head, she couldn't tell who it was till he jerked her head in such an unnatural angle she could hear her bones protesting. The leering face was familiar. She had seen him in the camp before. Juliet heard a shot and her head exploded, or so it felt...

Juliet woke with a start, her body dripping wet with rivulets of cold sweat, she looked around. Lucia was fast asleep beside her, she sighed. It was a dream after all.

Early the next morning after the night when Raliat was taken away, Juliet was restless, she obeyed the routine because she feared the consequences of refusal,but was absent minded throughout. As soon as she disposed off the last chunk of trash, she attempted to run over to Raliat, wherever she was.

The question of who to ask was settled by Lucia, Few of the girls did know Abubakir's tent, they gave them direction, each also cautioning them not to mention their names should the attempt boomerang.

It was the same long road they'd taken the first day when they were presented to their commander. The same road they took when they were staged for video coverage with the high commander. A video which she heard had made its way to the internet. How humiliating can it get?

They hardly made it out of the tent before a voice called, "You," he said, pointing at Juliet, she looked back, the bottom of Juliet's stomach gave way, Ali was standing with the same man he came with the night before, the man in her dream, "follow me." Ali said.

She looked back at Lucia, who looked just as frightened and confused as she felt, she took a step back, uncertain about what to do next. The second man raised a brow; dread held her in place.

The two men rounded them, one gripped her arm and one the other lifted her on amidst the cheering crowd, Lucia was crumpled on the soil, her hand to her face as she sobbed. Juliet trashed her legs, she were barely touching the ground, the strain made a dull pain arise in her lower abdomen—the stitches—she had no choice than to let them drag her on.

She knew the destination before they got there, having visited the sick bay before. It was still the way it was except for the fact that it had more men waiting before the tent. They shove her through the curious crowd to the room where she was attended to the last time, as a patient. Now what? She asked herself, afraid to even think of an answer.

The coarse white flaps brushed her face as they pushed her through. Awal was busy on his work bench. His gloved hand was immersing the tip of a drop pipette to one of the row of bottled filled with decanted blood with test strips before them.

"Is this the girl?" Ali asked.

"Yes," Awal said without looking up. He pointed to a towel on the floor and a bucket of water; then he pointed at the empty cabinets behind him, "Make them clean," he said, addressing her, then turning to the men, "thank you."

She was left with him, she slowly reached for the bucket of water, the towel, and careful to give the man a wide berth began her work while Awal was absorbed with the blood and the test kits.

It was long hard work and Juliet had to use a stool to reach the topmost cabinet, but she was quite glad, it wasn't what she'd feared afterall.

Awal was done with the last bottle, he closed it up like he had done the rest, brought out a book and began following the rows of kits, He checked the line on the strips and recorded them on the book he held. Juliet wondered if that was not to access the men's HIV status. When he was done, he carefully threw the bottles into the waste basket, then his gloves too. "Funny, you haven't still learnt to mind your business," He muttered, almost speaking through his pointed nose, "How long are you going to stand there staring and how long is it going to take to get your work done?" Awal asked.

Juliet resumed her work as if he was not around, mentally reprimanding herself for making her curiosity about his work so obvious. Awal removed the page he had written on from the book, folded it and sealed it into a brown envelope. He stepped out.

"It's done; you will all meet the commander later for the result of the test."

Juliet could hear the shuffle of feet as the men took their leave. She was done before the last was gone. She quickly wring the towel, poured the water away and returned the bucket to its place in the cabinet.

Awal was taking his lunch of boiled corn, when she announced that she was leaving.

"Who do you think this other plate belongs to?" Awal asked, pointing to the second plate of corn, his face as indifferent as ever, but he sounded kind, yet, she wouldn't be fooled.

She was glad to have a lie coming up, "I'm sorry, I can take lunch when I get_"

"No one serves you lunch, you can't deceive me. Now eat." Awal said, watching Juliet trace her trembling steps to the chair feet away from him.

Juliet slowly sat herself by the table, staring at the food.

Ali came traipsing towards them, in the company of the commander's lapdog, Abubakir. He had his barrel chest puffed out as if to assert his importance, though his face looked hassled, his beard, fizzled; and it did look like he had forgotten to button up the cuff of his sleeves properly. "Excuse us," Awal told Juliet, his brow furrowed and jaw clenched in a tense look.

Juliet was afraid to walk towards him and strangely she felt that the store room would be the better option, at least till the beast of a man that had her friend is gone.

Juliet had disappeared into the store room before the stepped under the elevated eaves of the tent; he could hear their boots stamp on the floor with dull thumps till it came to an abrupt halt.

"Alaikun salam_" Awal replied Abubakir's hurried regard, but he went quiet as if abruptly stopped short. Juliet located a tear on the wall of heavy fabric that separated the two compartments, she peeped through.

Abubakir could pass for a soldier anytime in his military camouflage, though it had no badge or trim. His cloth though, looked like it hadn't been laundered for weeks of extensive usage. His hand was held cutting Awal off. "Ali, go away," he commanded. Ali ran off.

"Do you care to sit?" Awal asked.

"No." He snapped looking round as if to confirm that no one was around. "I saw the report you sent me, and between you and me, you should know that you can't tell my men that. It will lessen their morale." He said. Then paused, his brow raised as if to question Awal's compliance, the young man only nodded. "Good, so the commander had ordered you to change those results, leave few of them positive for trust's sake. But that would be those which I consider dispensable. Is that understood?" Awal nodded again, his brow still knit together in a pondering look.

"You don't think it's a good idea, do you?" Abubakir asked levelling his voice so casual one would think that he was discussing the weather. He smiled, then slurping a drink from a cup of water; he swiped his bushy beard with the back of his hand.

Awal was silent under his gaze, "I don't doubt you judgment." He said in a slow measured tone that bordered neither in opposition nor full compliance.

"Then why the long face?" he asked, taking a seat opposite Awal.

"The strength of the army is quite dependent on the health of the soldiers. If they don't know now, they will know in time when they become sick and can't find a cure, and the women," he reluctantly added, his disgust clear in his new found voice, "their lives and that of their children would be ruined."

"I'll be the judge of that," Abubakir briskly replied.

"If you insist," Awal said, he took a breath as if he wanted to talk, but exhaled.

"Good, I'll get back to you," Abubakir said, after sizing his reaction from beneath the dense vegetation of his brow. He was on his feet in seconds, "you may advertise the latex sheaths and all those travesties to them, but they must be in the dark about their HIV status. Are we crystal?" He asked, extending his hand as a smile curl up his scotched negroid lips.

He turned abruptly and was staring right at Juliet through the flap hole, she jumped back, but regretted it almost immediately, the movement disturbed the canvas and they billowed such that was slightly noticeable. Juliet was trying to re-orientate from the sharp displacement when she heard, "and whatever you would do with that eavesdropping wife of yours, make her know that I'll have her tongue if this ever gets out." He said, she heard him mumble obscenities and snorted before he sauntered off.

Awal was in the room before she could get up, he gave her a hand. She crawled back, staring wide eyed, her lips were trembling. But the knowing look on Awal's face told the story. She had been married off to him.

"No, please." She mumbled.

Awal turned and moved away after giving the clean cabined an approving nod. He pointed at the cartons in a corner, "Reshelf those." He ordered.

Juliet felt so weak, she could hardly stand up, her current predicament working round her brain in a riotous spell. She was speechless and could only cry.

What if Abdulbakir was also infected, that would mean, NO. She didn't want to think about it, but that crazy inner voice that held her from telling Mallama that she understood Fulfulde was nagging at her, muttering hideous probability that she hope would never materialize in actual life. But here was her own grim possibility—a meek house wife to a member of the insurgence? No, she told herself as madness took hold, she jumped on the soles of her feet and ran as fast as she could under the shades then out under the burning sun. She just kept running, her eyes blurred with profuse tears.

********

The girl was caught and flogged back to the sick bay.

Juliet will never know how Awal turned up in a terrorist camp as an attending nurse, nor will she know that how Awal felt about his late brother Ridwan who had ruined his career and a chance at decent life.

The night sky was alive in hues of indigo and blue dotted with bright twinkling constellations that seem to shine derisively unconcerned about the gloom that shrouded his soul as he took another breathful of the rollup that flame hot-red at the tip yielding coils of smoke to the sky—a sharp contrast to the chocking in his lung. He held the breath nevertheless, till he released a swirling fog from his lips.

His hand reached for within the open flap of his shirt, pressing past his bare chest to a hardened scar few inches from his collarbone. The memory of the chase that cold night when a ghastly mob ran for their house because his late brother was found to have been behind a bomb detonation at a busstop not too far from the border.

He knew he was done, for when a shot rang and resonated in a searing pain that announced itself in company of spurts of crimson from his chest. Ridwan had helped him escape, and he bled all the way. Somehow he survived, and had been condemned to live here for the rest of his life. He was wanted by the Cameroonian authorities for abetting his brother in a crime he knew nothing of and was quiet uncertain if the court would grant him a fair hearing despite the huge animosity against anyone associated by the weakest link to any member of the insurgence.

His house was razed to the ground, and he would certainly be running to his death if he went back to Cameroon.

Juliet would never know that he himself was a prisoner, held not by arms or force but by exile, an exile that would last for God knows when. He would be hunted down, if for nothing, for the information he might give about the activities of the group, and for that reason he just couldn't waltz out of the camp that was surrounded by armed scouts along the roads that thrummed with predatory mines awaiting the straying feet. Without walls, he was castled in.

What the little girl—for a girl he saw her as—that sobbed in her room at this moment would never know is how he hope to secure her future by keeping her with him just for the fact that she reminded him of his late sister who was lynched by the mob—and for that reason, he would ensure her safety. Maybe the guilt he had about the girl he left behind would be assuaged, he was either paying his penance or someday going to pay in full for his cowardice. Whichever way, there'd someday be an end, an end he feared and hoped for all at once, a dream that may never come true.

But tonight, he allowed his mind to gain wings from narcotics and soar underneath the starry sky, creating a world where he had not surrender his work ethic to Abubakir who was also afraid that his HIV status would come to public light and had bribed him with marriage to the girl Awal now swears to keep from the plague but never touch. A world where he was the man he wanted to be, a world where he never knew Ridwan.

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