Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: BEACH (09/01/22)
-
TITLE: The Dangerous Peninsular Shoreline | Previous Challenge Entry
By Robert Rutaagi
09/06/22 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
Thomson’s cow, named Beauty at birth, was special. It was black with a white patch on both sides of her stomach and beautiful curved horns. An oracle was pronounced and clumped upon Beauty, to the effect that, under no circumstances she should neither be sold nor eaten dead or alive! The family was warned that if this oracle was not strictly observed, calamity would befall them.
Time came, when Thomson travelled to a distant country to visit his bosom friend for a whole month. While he was away his errant sons, killed the cow and feasted on it. On his return, Thomson was informed of what happened. Two weeks later, his elder son was struck by lightning while grazing the cows in the hills. As they buried him, it rained so heavily and in the process, the second son was also struck by lightning.
Disaster experts advised Thomson’s family not to live on hills and mountains and not to own cows again. Following this advice, the family emigrated to a distant low-land country, very sparsely populated. They found a beautiful peninsular, surrounded a fresh water lake, and settled there. The lake had a beautiful lakeshore with good sand, verdant bushes, tall trees and was richly endowed with all types of fish.
The younger sons and their father turned into fishermen. They found market for the fish and fish mash in the capital city and soon the family prospered from the business. Since they no longer kept cattle, they soon forgot about the oracle.
For several years, life on the peninsular with plenty of water, lot of fish and earnings from the trade was so prosperous that new projects were started along the shoreline. At the height of their prosperity, when their guards were at the lowest ebb, a rainy season they had never experienced before in their entire life, started. It would rain continuously or intermittently for days. Soon, the shoreline started changing. As water levels raised, water flowed on areas which, for years, were dry land of sand. The shorerline gradually but surely receded until after a week, almost half it was water.
On the day of reckoning, it rained the whole night till morning. It continued the whole day and night. Deep in the night, suddenly, Thomson woke up from deep slumber only to hear rain showers pouring, not like a normal rain but like Niagara falls or Zambezi falls he had read about in books of seen in films. He cocked his ears only to hear trees falling and objects falling in water. Unprecedented fear descended upon.
‘’My wife, wake up! the oracle again!’’ he moaned. ‘’Wake up the children,’’ advised as he jumped out of the bed.
‘’Oh God, we are in water already!’’ the wife cried out, desperately. ‘’Hold me, husband! I am sinking, hold me, please…ho-ho-hold me!!!’’
Unlike, the mockers of Noah, who were able to see the Ark as it buoyed up over water as they perished, for Thomson family, they had nothing to see, pitch darkness of the night notwithstanding. From that moment on the calamity played out rapidly with no one sober enough to observe and report what was happening. For Thomson, the moment he stepped into the invading and raising water, heard rain falling like waterfalls and heard objects falling into water, the old oracle raced back into his mind and instantly made him totally deaf, dumb and blind, nocturnal darkness notwithstanding. He could no longer hear his wife’s cries or know what was happening to his family in other rooms and houses.
Within minutes a couple in the same bed could not trace each other! How much more it was impossible for those in different rooms in same house and worse still those in outside houses? By morning, the following day, the world woke up to see a well cut out lake with new geographical boundaries with the missing peninsular and Thomson’s family.
FICTION.
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
Accept Jesus as Your Lord and Savior Right Now - CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
