Kofi was building a wall as he had been told. It was approximately thirty yards from where he was told to bury his mother two years ago. As he smoothed mortar over a layer of brick, the sound of gunfire erupted from the direction of the main gate. Kofi looked up.

One of the nearby guards taunted him. “Do you see something, little boy?”

Kofi quickly lowered his head. As he prepared another brick for the wall, the guard approached and proceeded to kick in the last three hours of Kofi’s progress. More gunfire and shouting echoed throughout the camp.

“Looks like you have to rebuild,” the guard sneered. “You want to be a brick mason when you grow up, little boy?” Kofi shook his head.

Another kick, and another hour of wall crumbled to the dirt foundation. “You want to be big and strong like me when you grow up?”

Kofi raised his head. In the distance, other guards ran from the red uniforms now spilling into the camp. Kofi smiled for the first time in two years.

“Not like you,” he said. “Bigger.”