The Swirl

Ep. 1

Disclaimer: This book is completely a fictitious piece that does not represent how any of the mentioned races and cultures truly conduct themselves. None of the events in the book are real. Enjoy.

The gutter water and sewage were running through the village in torrents as the heavy rains caused them to over flow from their furrows and trenches. Mabea tried to shield herself from the rain with her broken umbrella that had its metals either poking out with the cloth torn or bent in various places. The damn thing was soaked and was even draining on her as she skipped over the trenches installed by the government, that carried flood waters and sewage from the village into the river which had been rendered useless now that the denim factory had emptied its dye into the river, polluting it. The vegetation here was blue and so was everything else within a 500m radius of the river.

"Mabea!" a little boy yelled from an open window of one corrugated iron shack.

Mabea looked at him and grinned, waving at him. "Close the window before the rain carries your house away!" she yelled.

He nodded, waved goodbye and then close the window before disappearing behind the torn lace curtain. Mabea smiled-she was back home, back to her people and most importantly, back to her family.

As she turned the corner of one shack, she saw the beat path that would eventually lead her to her home, in one of the most poverty stricken areas but less poor than the village which she had just passed through. They at least had concrete brick houses with rusted iron roofs with holes in them that sometimes let the rains in.

She grinned and began to walk faster, her school bag and 2 Big sports bags held tightly to her sides because the path between the two villages was flanked by tall brown summer grasses that hid a lot of bad things and bad people. The path was an hour's walk from the village she had just left to hers and in the late evening, that hour was the line between life and death. Many had been mugged, raped and even murdered in this area so she had to keep an eye out.

She had been walking for less than twenty minutes when she was suddenly ambushed by four young men and one young girl who didn't even bother to cover their faces as the blades of their Okapi knives glinted in the fading light.

The young girl grinned at her, a straw of grass half leaning out of the corner of her mouth, one arm behind her back as she walked around Mabea, smelling and poking and prodding her. The girl looked no older than 16 with her very old backlines looking like cobwebs.

"Eitha daar, my sister," the girl said as the young men stood watching, clicking open and shut their Okapis in a playful manner as if they had no care in the world.

Mabea kept her mouth shut, watching the girl's movements and the young men out of the corner of her eyes. She fingered the pepper spray that was clutched tightly in her right hand, ready to use at any sign of danger. At this moment she was glad that her roommate at the university had forced her to buy the damn thing.

"Kesfe, sestere (what's up, sister) ?" one young man said. "What do you have in the bags?"

"Just a couple of things. Mostly old clothes."

"Letha, sestere (give them here, sister)." The girl smiled at her. "We won't hurt you, sister. Just give us the bags and we won't-"

"Sis Mabea?!" one of the young men suddenly exclaimed as he moved closer. She still couldn't see him in the near darkness.

"Ye we monna, (hey you!). Do you know her?" the girl called.

Mabea squinted trying to see the person better but it was to no avail.