new colony movement

You speak in metaphors around the table. They´re short steps in regaining some sort of normality. You take short steps to get back to that place you were 25 years ago. Very short steps. Speaking in metaphors is the only way to make sense of the inconsistencies, the gaps in time that have become your history. You sit around the table recounting stories of the journey north. You talk about the outbreak of the war in Liberia and your capture by NPFL forces. You remember the long days in the machine room of gunner ships, hostage to a war you never wished to participate in. And as the war crossed the border into Sierra Leone you escaped to the Canaries. The stories tumble out of you, one tripping over the other. The chronology lost in memory. The pekins (children) have lost interest. Only your sisters are listening. Europe is not all that it was made out to be. You recall those first couple of months in the Red-Cross camps. Your sisters remember your departure. But your face they´ve forgotten. The stories compete with each other, yours and theirs. When the matriarch of your family died, so did the family unity. Sisters, brothers, nephews and neices all scattered. But you were so far away you couldn´t have known. Your mende is weak from disuse. Here you´re big man now. But its a lie. In Europe noone calls you sir. 50 thousand Leones are passed out here and there. A month´s salary in Sierra Leone, is not even a days work in Barcelona. You open the gifts bag. Clothing bought and recycled from dumpsters in Europe. T-shirts fly here and shorts fly there. Everyone has a new wardrobe. There are so many things to say. There are so many things to do. 25 years to recall, and rebuild. The light cuts out and all that can be heard is the whir of generators. The reencounter is bittersweet. Emotions that have mixed leave you wondering what it is. What are these short steps?