"Mr. Ostrich was a sober minded, serious husband who was always willing to assist his wife in her family duties. 'My dear,' he said to her one evening when their large clutch of eggs seemed almost ready to hatch, 'my black feathers cannot be seen in the dark, so I will guard the eggs by night, and at the same time keep them warm for you. That will leave you to relax and enjoy yourself until daybreak each morning'". I cooed soothingly to the kids. They were terrified and I had to resort to Mama's stories.
Speaking of, I hadn't seen my parents for days as I was taken in thewagon with the rest of the children whereas they, along with the other elders,were hauled in chains like resilient animals being taken to graze. My eyesprickled with fresh tears ready to fall down my already tear streaked face as Iforced the images of my mother's torn, bloody clothes to the back of my mindand refocused on the children before me; they were about thirteen of them, forall I knew,
"'That would be glamorous,' lady ostrich had said. Her husband settled down clumsily to his unaccustomed task, while his flighty wife was more than thankful to be relieved of a duty which she already found to be a trial. Do you know what it means for a woman to be flighty children?" I engaged them and a series of harmonious 'no's' resounded in the small space. This was much better than the endless wails for their mothers. I moved to clean the nose of one of the children that had been crying just before. "A flighty woman," I began as I rubbed the back of a child that had hiccups, "is one who cannot be relied on to because she is always changing activities or ideas or even partners without treating them seriously, and so lady ostrich fluffed up her feathers and to show how pleased she was, she set off in a joyful high-stepping dance among the low termite mounds that surrounded their nest.
All in all, they were a happy pair; although from time to time, the husband had disapproved of his wife's high spirited ways. At said particular time, she should have been behaving more sensibly as she had her eggs to look after. He wriggled his massive thighs like he had seen his wife do, to shift the position of the eggs so that they lay more comfortably in their bed, and settled down to his long night's wait."
The child whose back I was rubbing looked up at me and asked, "Just like mama does?" I exhaled shakily, "Yes Orion, just like your mama does before you sleep." I really wanted to soothe them in a way, only God knew when the next time they'd see their parents would be, most of the children in the wagon were not beyond nine or ten years of age. This was a regrettable occurrence really, but my mother would've wanted me to keep faith and so I would. "Back to our story, it was a full moon that night and the silvery light cast ghostly shadows in far corners of the husband ostrich's eyes. He felt his head nod with exhaustion and his large eyes ached to closed but then," I paused dramatically, "He heard the hiss of his wife's laugh," I paused again, a hand on my mouth, gasping, "'She was supposed to be relaxing, was she not?' the ostrich thought to himself. 'I should go check on her.'
He stood up to do so and sat back down immediately. No, he would not leave the precious eggs for any reason. He heard her laugh again, followed by the shrill laugh of an obvious male so he stretched his neck to see what his wife was up to but he still couldn't see. He heard her laugh again, only closer, so he stretched his neck even more in hopes of seeing her but all in vain, he was unsuccessful. Once more, he heard her feminine laugh and he stretched and stretched and stretched so high and so hard to look over the highest of termite mounds and he finally saw her, going about the grasslands with a young male ostrich, dancing and laughing like younglings playing in the rain. He'd give his disgraceful wife a piece of his mind when she returned, the ostrich thought.
He tried to push back closer to the ground with great effort only to realize that he had stretched beyond return. He no longer had a short neck like that of a guinea fowl, he had one so long with a head so high that he could see all the way to the horizon. And that is why the ostrich has a long neck, a long lasting memory of a flighty wife." I concluded my story. "Children? Orion? Neema?" I called out to be certain that the children were fast asleep, they were.
I sighed deeply and looked up to the star-lit sky as a tear slipped out of my eye and onto my cheek. I quickly moved my free hand to cover my mouth as the sobs I'd been holding back rocked my body. This was it. The beginning of a new life. A life of misery and torture. The beginning of my life as a slave.
YOU ARE READING
Enslaved To Conjugal Bonds
Historical Fiction"Slavery is theft -- theft of a life, theft of a life, theft of any property or produce, theft even of the children a slave might have borne."...
