Border

Something crawls over my foot. I am half asleep. I open my eyes and try to look down without lifting my neck. I hear a small creature moving near my leg. If it’s a snake, I must keep completely still.

A small pair of ears pokes above the side of my leg. It’s a mouse. Perhaps it can smell the bread. I slap my hand on the ground and it darts away with a squeak. I am grateful to the mouse. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep, but hopefully no more than an hour or two. The moon is still low.

Although I no longer feel hungry, I eat two squares of bread and take two sips of water. It feels wrong to eat and drink.

Slowly, I stand up; the muscles in my legs and arms are stiff and aching.

I start to walk east. I am a robot, putting one foot in front of the other. The human Shif is hiding somewhere inside. I don’t know if he will ever reappear.

I walk and walk. I don’t care about leaving footprints. The sun becomes a long thin glow on the horizon. I occupy myself by thinking about how long I ran for, and for how long I have walked. If my math is right, then I must have covered at least eighteen miles. Tesfay said the border was about six miles from the camp.

Either I am heading completely in the wrong direction, or his information about the border fence was wrong. Maybe there is a fence somewhere, but it doesn’t reach here. There are no watchtowers, either. I must be so far from any towns or cities that the military decided no person could get this far without being caught. I guess it’s easy to underestimate what desperate people are capable of. Perhaps I have passed silently from one country to another, and my only witnesses were the small creatures that live in the sand and rocks.