The Dragon With a Fake Smile
Am I sane or insane?
Am I in my mind or has my mind ceased to function?
Is this real?
I don’t know what to make of this
My body shivering with fear
My body crippled by what’s just happened
My body soiled by an unknown substance
Oh! No!…
I am sane but rendered insane
I am in my mind, but my mind malfunctioned
Yes, this is real, alright!
I am not dreaming, everything just unfolded in my presence
Without my consent
I know what this is
It is a violation in the cruellest manner
My body soiled by my warm blood
Heartbeat slowly escaping my body
I found myself in deep sleep
Awaiting to be awakened
My body wrapped up
And away I went
Into the crust of the earth
Everyone asking where I was
Everyone asking what happened to me
For years and years
There was no trace of me
Until…
There was peace and tranquillity. Children were their normal selves and there was happiness everywhere. Everyone was going about their daily duties. Night came. Nothing was amiss.
Everyone was getting ready for bed and grandmothers as usual gathered the children around the fire to narrate bedtime stories. The children’s eyes were beaming with excitement as they were looking forward to the story of that evening. Oh, these stories were taking them to a world of imagination. A world they could only dream of. “What a nice place to be”, the children would say.
In the African villages, there was nothing such as having your own bedroom and owning your private space. There were different huts in the same yard. A hut for the parents, for the children, for the aunts, for the uncles, for cooking, for the tools…. And ironically, no hut was reserved for visitors. If visitors came to spend the night or travelers passed by and asked for accommodation, the children would make room and make space for the visitors.
This particular night, a traveler was passing by and asked for accommodation. He was in the company of a certain man from the village. Apparently, as the traveler was stranded, and contemplating his next move, he came across this man from the village that roamed the streets often and asked for help with accommodation. The villager told the traveler about a family that has enough huts to cater for a passerby and they both headed to their house.
They knocked and were well received. The traveler relayed his story that he was traveling as far as Botswana in search of his long-lost relatives who were said to be located in the eastern part of South Africa, Lydenburg. The family was mixed and spoke a deep Setswana dialect, the traveler said. Both men were welcomed with tea and traditionally made grain bread called “matebelekwane”. They were offered accommodation for the night.
The villager and traveler rested well and the traveler woke up in the early hours of the morning to continue with his journey. The villager went back to his home a few streets away. As the village man roamed the streets well enough, he was the most trusted man around. Villagers trusted him with a lot of things such as the whereabouts of their livestock, notification of bereavement in the village and anything that was happening in the village. He would always be the first person to know.
This man was a good man, respected and trusted by all. The smile he would flash was welcoming and you would swear you were in good hands. But deep down this man’s heart was……..To be continued…