Image used under Creative Commons from Oxfam International
This picture reminded me of the scene when Paul and Jacob decide that they are going to attack what are supposedly "government soldiers". It turns out that it was a truck with mothers and their children en route to school. Jacob and Paul had gone because they were desperate for food, and would only get it if they became rebels. They would only become rebels if they killed, but when they were faced to the challenge of killing the children and their mother, they simply couldn't do it. Jacob heard his mother's voice singing a song that she did to him when she'd been alive. He immediately saw this as a sign, and almost gave the woman advice, even. He lost his balance, and vomited on the side of the road, he seemed to feel so much pain for these people, yet he had been about to kill them, maybe. He had seemed to be in a trance, however, until he heard what seemed to be his mother's voice calling out to him. He thought this was what had kept him from killing, but he quickly tried to erase this thought with the fact that he was starving and exhausted and was probably just imagining things. This part really got to me, because I could sense the confusion Jacob was feeling, about the leaders having given them the wrong idea of the whole scenario which they'd signed themselves up to. Also, I felt his anguish about having to kill these innocent, previously unsuspecting people--particularly because he knew how they'd be feeling, since he once felt the same. His compassion towards the mother who was having her child taken away from her, as her screams and shouts pierced the rest of the ongoing noise, moments before she was killed by the same people who would eventually make her little daughter suffer so much. Maybe this part was just really well written, but I thought I really connected well with Jacob and what he seemed to be going through at the moment. It was really sad and frustrating to me, how cruel people can be, and how others can do nothing but stand by and watch
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