Jokes for the Gunmen

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I DREAMED THAT MY FATHER HAD A GLASS EYE. When I woke up my heart was pounding like the heart of a frightened cow, but I was smiling and happy. For a moment I thought my dream had finally come true and my father really did have a glass eye.

When I was young, my father gave me a pepper plant for my birthday. It was a strange present. I didn’t understand what it meant at the time. We could hear gunfire from time to time, but we grew used to it, as one grows used to the honking of passing cars. Just as I didn’t understand what was happening in the neighbourhood, I didn’t understand why my father had chosen a pepper plant or why the plant stayed with us. But the plant had two tiny peppers just forming, and I felt intuitively that they represented me and my twin brother. The gunmen fought around our street for months, because of its location between the sea and the city centre. But my mother still sent us to school – me and my twin brother, who was deaf, and on the way he would get frightened and stick close to me for protection.

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