NewStats: 3,263,959 , 8,182,087 topics. Date: Monday, 09 June 2025 at 04:02 AM 1q4j

skillet: So, tell me folks; what do you think so far? Chapter two is on its way. please be candid.

ditto.

k9! my old rival. nice to hear from you. lol over the thunder thingy. i thought i could get off easy on that one. i should have known better. with you wicked critics around. lol. but like you said, its all about the style. wink.

thank you anonymous for the comment. i like the phrase grand/ epic. i never saw it that way. more suprising is the fact you know about the rock band. i only just heard about them. lol. by the way, the story is already finished. just dishing it out in piecemeal. thanks bro.

So, tell me folks; what do you think so far? Chapter two is on its way. please be candid.

When the first crow heard the first crack of lightening and its attendant thunder, it panicked. It mustered all its strength and flapped its wings to lift off. The first crow wanted to get to some cover fast. Lightening and thunder are a bird’s worst enemies. Just like the navigation system of airplanes, a bird’s senses would be put off by the artificial pressure changes caused by lightening and thunder. That’s why they were called bio metrics. Today was going to be a bad day for birds. Many of them would die today. All because of this tuareg. This tuareg who refused to die. There was more lightening and thunder. Like the cocking of a pump action gun and subsequent fire.

The trick was to fly above the clouds. There, the elements would not have such effects. And if it could get there fast; it was safe. So, the crow gunned for the sun. Powerful wings carried it swiftly. The crow was a beautiful flier. Always flew as straight as an arrow. Hence the phrase- as the crow flies. But today, the observant crow realized that it wasn’t the only one with that idea. With its bird eye view, it saw hundreds of other birds trying to beat the wrath of the gods. They were all gunning for the sun. Like fallen angels being called back to heaven urgently. He shot past the lazy, overfed third general of a vulture. That one was laboriously trying to keep up. What an irony.

Our crow had hardly cleared the biggest cloud when its worst fear came to bear.

They say it rains in the desert like only once in a hundred years; but whenever it does, it never stops. Torrential rains. That was the phrase geologists would use centuries later, to describe the desert rains. So, today our crow saw that; rain in the desert was not a myth. Big buckets of water were unleashed from the clouds. These were no rain drops. These were rain torrents, and they were accompanied by hail stones. Big chunks of ice, the size of glaciers also fell from heaven to earth, and caused havoc.

Unlucky birds were stoned back to the ground and it was painful for our crow to watch. It had never experienced fear like this before. Birds generally are fearful animals and a little noise from a dying bird is enough to send the others scampering for safety. This time, the noise was not that little. Hundred of birds, being pelted with large rocks of ice and buckets of water, screeching to their deaths and hitting the earth with unearthly thuds, gave off such a sound as no man’s ear was meant to hear.

Like shooting birds in a barrel. Only a million times worse. What a sight to behold. Birds cried everywhere. Figuratively, it was raining cats and dogs but literarily, it was raining birds. Even for miles and miles, birds rained down from the sky. In hundreds and thousands. So did water. Water and ice. Not snow. But hail. Above the clouds, our crow flew to safety, with one last look at the man.

And the rain washed our prince clean; while he slept under the darkened sun. Now that he wasn’t going to die, his life flashed before his eyes…

The third bird general shook its head. The gods must be crazy. Humans must be mad. How could fate just snatch food from its talons and in turn give its companions over as food for this man? And now this man was laughing at them. In defiance, to the natural order of things, in the wild. It shook its head again. This time it was perched a very safe distance away; on a big stone. It didn’t want to take chances. So, what next?

No sooner had the thought ed in the birds mind, than the question was answered. He had felt the air turn humid before. That was rare in the desert. But that was expected. Every now and then, the mineral salts in the desert soil used their hydro-affinity properties to draw moisture from the atmosphere. It usually ed like a cloud after a few hours. It was what happened next that was never expected.

The man had started to laugh again. He was more hysterical than before. Now he swore at the gods. He swore at heaven and he swore at the earth. The bird listened to the man. The animal seemed to understand the man. The man cursed the gods, cursed the heavens and cursed the earth. Much like a spoilt last born. Meaningless curses, which were just emotional vents against extraterrestrial powers. The animal seemed to understand but in reality, it was focused on another voice it heard rumbling in the distance.

Something terrible was about to happen. Something, that had never happened, in its father’s lifetime. It wished the man would shut up. His curses were going to kill all of them. It felt the air become cool and then cold and it saw the breeze become slight wind and then grow stronger. Something terrible was going to happen here. The gods were going to speak. He foresaw danger. What the elders see sitting, the chicks don’t see standing. The cowardly general started flying….

He sucked hard from the neck of the fleshy bottle. He sucked so hard at the fighting bird and he felt himself growing stronger. He had never felt this kind of fire before. Much hotter than the spicy chilli pepper soup his people were familiar with. This was raw blood. This was real metal fire. The blood tasted of iron nails but was smooth at the same time. Like stout beer brewed from copper wheat. Extra smooth metal stout beer. Name it Silky Rust.

The man drank hard from the first bottle of Silky Rust. He drank so hard that bits of the birds flesh, ligaments and tendons were sucked up into his mouth and hung from his teeth. He chewed on those and focused on the other bottle in his left arm. That one was smaller and weaker. Though not much smaller, this bird was also massive. The man's grasp on the birds neck had never waned since he caught it, so the bird had suffered considerably.

The man shook it some more, like a bottle of mist mag. Then, he chewed at the birds neck. He was in a frenzy. This time pulling on the birds flesh with his molars. He took heavy swigs of the Silky Rust beer. This one tasted so good too; so filling. He drank the bird till she was empty. He turned back to the first one, still grasped in his hand. He sucked again to make sure it was truly empty. He meted the same treatment to the second bird.

Then, he tossed both birds to the ground and let out a loud yell. Just like his grunt of a prayer, his yell was a primal representation of all he wanted to tell the gods who had listened to his heartfelt grunts. His yell said "thank you, bless you, I love you, I hate you and fucck you. Bleep you for doing this to me in the first place. Now, see? I have survived". He yelled all these and more. He yelled because he knew that the gods were alive and that they were listening to him.

After he had yelled his heart out, he fell backwards and lay sprawled on his back, on the floor. His face was raised up to the sun, though his eyes were closed. He felt the heat on his face and in contrast, he felt that his arms were cool. He raised them and without opening his eyes he understood why. Blood was dripping down both arms and cooling them as it flowed. He rubbed his palms all over his face; smearing it with soothing blood. Then he laughed hysterically, because he knew he wasn’t going to die anymore. He laughed and laughed and laughed...

Thirty minutes later, he was still in that same position.

The human body is a well constructed mass of limbs and connections and the tuareg’s was no exception. Without a will, the bones of his legs and spine connived with gravity and held up the tuareg as if he were alive. But the birds were not fooled. They knew a dead man when they saw one. They had seen countless. Lost nomads, dispossessed traders, and banished criminals; the birds had eaten all sorts in their lives. They knew a dead man when they saw one. And this one; the tuareg or prince or whatever he chose to call himself, was definitely a dead man.

Three of the biggest birds flew down to inspect the kill. Three big vultures. They scared the first crow away. Others stayed far away. These three, were the generals of the pack. Scientists tell us that birds do not hunt in packs, but that only applied to birds docile enough to be examined in the first place. In the wild, animals spoke a different language therefore, these birds hunted like wolves. The three generals always had the right of first with food. That ensured that they had the best pickings. It was survival of the fittest.

Two of them flew to perch on either side of him, while the third perched behind him. Carefully, they approached him. Yes, he was dead. They could tell he wasn’t breathing any more. They could tell, as only they knew how, that the rise and fall of a beating heart was absent here and the air, before dry, was now humid.

Carefully, they entered the space created by the tuaregs head, shoulders and arms; and started to peck at his face, tearing strips of flesh. The one behind had reached his knees and was thinking to bring down the by feasting on the calves. Instead, he pecked at the knee t. He enjoyed the feel of bone. And he did it again.

It was a knee jerk reaction. The sort that happens, when, a doctor hits your knees with a rubber hammer. That kind of jerk that fires up every t in your body. With a shout, the tuareg woke up. Pain, fear, hope and anger all caused adrenaline to pump and the calabari prince, with a yell secured the necks of the two largest birds on either sides. The third winged general, a coward in the face of opposition, beat the hastiest retreat of its life.

The captured birds flapped their massive wings and tried to escape. They clawed at the prince; scratching at his arms, neck, chest and face but all to no avail. Instead, their painful efforts only served to strengthen the prince. The adrenaline carousing through the man’s veins brought him strength and clarity of mind. Right now, he was just a man. Not a tuareg and not a prince. He was just a man. Both primal and instinctive. Like a common animal.

The man needed a weapon and fast too. He knew there was only one thing he could do. And he did it. With his teeth, he bit off the first bird’s head. It didn’t take one clean bite. In fact, it took over fifty heavy bites. He literally chewed the bird’s head off. He chewed beak, brains, bones and all. And he drank the blood…