Benkum Art
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Always Left Open

A wooden gate stands ajar between two walled family compounds under a fiery dusk sky, an iron slide-bolt freshly thrown shut across a pale, unweathered strip of wood where it has always rested open before; through the gap, a man walks away with his back turned, past a small lit, barred window, into the darkening courtyard beyond.

The wood under the bolt has never seen the sun. Tonight it does.

I’ve never thrown this bolt before. The gate between our yard and the neighbors’ has always stood open. Tonight I drag it shut, and it leaves a paler stripe of wood where it always rested.

On September 23, 2026, the ICC delivers its judgment on Mahamat Said Abdel Kani, who ran Bangui’s OCRB in 2013 — a bureau prosecutors say was used to detain people suspected of loyalty to whoever had just lost power. It ran a few streets from here, thirteen years ago.

Nobody asks why the gate is shut. It stays bolted past the hour I’d usually open it.