A MARATHON IN THE WOODS

“Ahaaaaaa!”The man whispered softly. He was an anxious man and his anxiety was as hard as a crust of bread. His sweat drops scattered on his brow looking exactly like morning dew drops on a wide-open leaf. As he settled down on a spot behind a huge grey beech, apprehension clawed at his heart like a shambok striking bare skin. He had wandered in the woods for twelve hours without shooting at my animal, and now it was getting late. Gripping the rifle firmly, though his fingers shook nervously in the afternoon heat, he thanked the heavens that now he had a chance to shoot at something, even though the shot might amount to nothing. He cursed quietly as a thorny twig uncoiled itself and started oscillating unexpectedly-it struck him on the face drawing a few drops of blood. He wiped off the itching spot with the back of his hand. That delay increased his tension because any moment his target could scamper away to another place of safety, out of range for his shot. This may account for his haste actions; he took aim and hurriedly squeezed the trigger to shoot, it was a lucky one. The woods exploded from the rifle’s loud boom and the ground shook as if struck by a sizable earth tremor. The impala was swishing its tail at some troublesome fleas while grazing freely, unaware that danger was stalking it barely a whistle away. It heard a little

rasping sound split seconds before a cruel bullet struck it on the chest and flung it backward with its legs thrown upwards. This moment any sound didn’t matter as it's whole body was convulsed into desperate spasms of death. It was dying.

Pwinga quickly dropped the rifle and was already running to the struggling animal before it hit the ground. Unsheathing a sharp panga, he grabbed the animal by

the horns and mercilessly sliced its throat. The gleaming panga suddenly turned crimson red, as if covered with red paint. The roar of blood escaping from the jugular veins at high pressure somehow massaged his soul with a reassurance

that the day was well spent. The animal jerked violently as it took the additional pain, and then dropped its legs in submission as the supply of oxygen was depleted to unacceptable levels.

Then, Pwinga dragged the dead animal to a tree with low branches where he tied one end of the rope around its neck, just below the horns and threw the other end

up a tree branch where he tied a knot. He raised the animal to hang about a meter above the ground. The blood dripping from the wounds turned the ground

into a pool of crimson red fluid where a black swarm of flies gathered in its hushed drones. He left the animal in that condition and walked back to his temporal camp two kilometers away.

An hour later, he came back to collect his animal, he was a very excited man. He wanted to carry his animal on a bicycle taking it back home to his wife Matilda. Today’s success made him so happy that he was even whistling a makeshift tune ‘My Matilda! My Matilda! I bring you good…no best news’. But ten yards to the spot, his singing suddenly dried up from his lips. A terrible roar

of disgusted surprise claimed his lips instead. His eyes popped wide like those of an owl, he couldn’t believe what they were seeing. The rope was still dangling from the branch but its loop was empty. The animal was not there, it was gone. The meat was gone; his source of joy was gone.

“That is the place where I left my animal,” his thoughts crystallized into dejected words. “But who has taken it away?” Feeling very angry, he walked hurriedly towards the spot to investigate.”I can’t let anyone take my meat away, never!”But suddenly….

The angry words were still tumbling out of his mouth when he saw a path through the grass. The grass was mowed down as if a heavy object plowed it over.”Someone

dragged my carcass this way,” Pwinga thought. To confirm his suspicions, he saw a trail of fresh blood on the grass. He followed the trail, but just a few yards, the sound of bones breaking rapidly brought him to a sudden stop. His hunter’s heart leaped in instinctive fear as he turned left to see who the thief could be. Initially, he suspected that a dog was hungrily feasting on his meat. But his instinct for self-preservation swung into action just in time.“Where can a dog come from, here in these woods?” he mused in fearful anger. “Besides, a mongrel can’t drag that impala so quickly. This must be a beast bigger than a worthless mongrel…”

He picked a long stick and moved closer to hit the offending animal and scare it

away. But when he came nearer, the brown coat of a huge beast caught his attention. The sight wiped off all the courage he bragged about at first. He came to a sudden stop. The fur was not of a dog, but some animal far larger than that, and probably more vicious. The beast didn’t hear his coming; its whole soul was

engrossed in eating. He stood for a minute looking at it's bristling mane as it threw its huge head from left to right - it's glittering razor-sharp teeth tearing away morsels of flesh from the carcass were awesome. His carcass was being consumed. The sound of a gurgling throat as it swallowed ripped through Pwinga’s heart like a spear; the lazy beast could tear his flesh as easily as it was now tearing that of his carcass. The thought of being torn to shreds by those horrible looking teeth was intolerable.

“Mama…mmmmmaaaaaa!” Pwinga’s heart started pumping rapidly as anger quickly gave way to ungovernable fear. Trying to challenge the beast with bare hands was as unwise as a dove attempting to control lions squabbling over a carcass. “Why did I leave my rifle back at the camp?” he wailed silently. Dropping his head in a cowardly frustration, he started fleeing back into the woods in resignation.

But fleeing to safety, Pwinga’s foot accidentally stepped on a dry leaf that made a loud, squeaking noise. The sound startled the huge beast into immediate action. Twisting its head angrily it glared at the intruder and abandoned the meal

altogether. Standing to it's imposing height, it violently shook the ground with an angry heart-curdling roar.

The unfamiliar sound of an animal roaring filtered through the pores of Pwinga’s skin and infused him with a terrible dread, a type he had never felt in his whole life. His whole body shook violently like a reed battered by a strong gale especially when he saw the beast take an inevitable charge, a shambling walk towards him. The amber-red eyes glaring at him viciously were glowing like an adjacent pair of stars on a moonless night. The deadly six-inch claws sticking out like Caterpillar spikes completed the picture of a terrible disaster painted on the wall.

“Maweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”Pwinga wailed in reckless abandon as he dropped the stick and broke into a desperate run, escaping the beast, the same beast which filled its belly with his stolen impala.

Tearing through the thick shrubs at a terrific speed, he was actually running towards the security of his camp. But he abandoned the idea upon realizing that, against the present enemy, the camp shelter was useless as a refuge. He hurriedly changed direction, leaping over small shrubs like an Olympic gold medalist enjoying the adrenaline surge from a roar of applause from an enthusiastic audience. The fear increased greatly as he ran, he couldn’t tell where the beast was. After running five hundred yards, he tried to stop to rest thinking that maybe the beast had left him alone.

The ‘whwhwh’ pants of an animal running at high speed told him that it was just a few paces behind and gaining rapidly on him. Alarmed greatly, he resumed the marathon increasing the speed even though by now the chest was blazing hotter than a furnace. But the terrible beast was getting uncomfortably closer behind; its breath blowing a hot gas between his legs, its predator sounds jamming the auditory nerves with electric impulses from the vibrating eardrums. In the brain the terror from the nerves was greatly magnified, jamming the defense mechanism with incalculable fear. The legs bore the brunt of this new calculus by increasing speed. Further on he was forced to change direction as the beast almost ended the race prematurely.

But Pwinga was human, he could not run forever. His legs became so tired that they were now wobbling as they ran like jelly. They barely kept the head above shoulders. The pain in the tired chest and lower abdomen was a cruel indication that all body organs including the lungs were slowly giving up the race. Very soon the razor-sharp teeth he saw tearing the impala would be tearing his tired flesh as well. The uncomfortable thought pushed him to do a bit more, but it became increasingly clear that any minute now should be the last. He was just delaying the inevitable –delaying while running, even a delaying action was better to die with than dying idle. An attempt to cry for help woefully failed; the vocal cords were completely paralyzed with both fear and exhaustion. Only a hoarse “Maweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” “Maweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” sound was issuing from his lips. It could not be heard ten yards away.

His eyes, completely covered with misty tears, joined the list of rebellious organs this time. They couldn’t warn him that he was about to cross a road, far less that a fast-moving vehicle was approaching from the other direction at ninety degrees. Inevitably, disaster would end his race in the middle of the road.

As he crossed the road, the slippery surface tripped him-he staggered in a fall. But he quickly regained stamina to continue running; all the time howling a barely audible “Maweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” “Maweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” in a

hoarse drawl of a drunk. To complicate matters more, his left foot had dropped out of the shoe-it tripped him. He sadly jackknifed to the ground, his legs still stretched like rails in the middle of the road. What irony? He was tripped by his own shoe- with a dangerous beast two yards behind. What treachery, stupid footwear duplicity?

The road was a long inviting stretch that resembled a giant black anaconda passing through the woods. Mr. Cheelo was rushing home where he was told his mother lay critically ill. The call came when he had just finished splitting the second fern tree. Seeing a clear stretch, he ground the accelerators increasing the speed to one hundred and forty kilometers per hour. “I must take my mother to the hospital, I just have to save her from death,” he kept telling himself. He was driving very fast while pleading with the almighty for her recovery. His thoughts were so engrossed on his sick mother that he failed to prepare for the next bend on life’s treacherous journey. His mental concentration on saving his mother was brutally broken up by a sudden change in circumstances.

His shock could not be any worse; a man was emerging from the sleeves of a forest in a drunken attempt at crossing the road to the other side. He was crossing at a point where stopping the heavy car would be impossible. To worsen matters, the stupid man dives to the ground and stretches himself just where the right

wheel was speeding to pass.

Mr.Cheelo cursed vehemently as he swerved the vehicle to the left side in a battle to avoid running over the hapless man. The maneuver helped, he narrowly missed the outstretched legs of the man lying down. As the vehicle veered to the left, Mr. Cheelo kept his eyes on the legs of the man to ensure the wheels had cleared them without injury. A sigh of relief escaped from Mr.Cheelo’s lips; happy that he had not killed another human being. He was about to start the fight of bringing the speeding Peugeot 504 back into the lane when a loud bang drew his attention to a new emergency. The car bumper had collided with a large object, an airborne one. The vehicle came to a stop with screeching tires. And imagine of all places, it stops in these dangerous woods which were infested with both wild animals and human savages-what a terror? 

The lion was hunting in the woods when it heard the rifle shot. “No man wastes bullets unless there is an animal to shoot at,’ it told itself as its paw scratched the belly hungrily. “I have not eaten for a whole week. This could be the meal I have been waiting for.” He immediately started galloping towards the spot where the shot had sounded. He found a delicious impala hanging on a rope. There was no point in asking where the killer was-he pulled it down and dragged it ten yards away to start enjoying the free dinner. He had just finished tearing the last shred of meat when his peace was disturbed by the noise of a man running away.

”Ahaaaaaa! There is more food for me today,” it rejoiced as it rose to give chase. It started the race poorly because it was still chewing the remaining morsels and

licking its lips. However, it quickly got into the rhythm after a sluggish two hundred yards. Running faster than the man, it started closing the distances at an astonishing speed. To its surprise and disgust, the man was still accelerating even after the normal three hundred yards dash. This forced the lion to change gears, a task that saw it panting like a tired dog. However, when it got closer to the man, it stuck out six-inch claws in preparation for a last-ditch spring. It accelerated to within five yards –then three yards -within range. Nothing can disturb, after all, there was a clearing coming up as well. Desperate greediness prevented it from seeing the vehicle zooming at high speed from the other side. When it was two yards behind it closed its eyes as the front legs leaped into a spring.

Flying like a missile, it shot the sharp six-inch claws outwards and threw the mouth wide open-it was aiming at breaking the man’s neck in one gulp. however, the plan dissolved into a pall of darkness.

 The collision galled Mr. Cheelo very much. He needed to rush his dying mother to the hospital; please can’t this stupid mishap wait? He could not drive on because the beast completely blocked the road. He took his hunting rifle, slowly opened the door with his eyes surveying the whole area with the alertness of a commando behind enemy lines. He then dropped down to the road surface with the boot clattering on the tarmac, walked around the vehicle to the passenger door to see if he could negotiate around the obstacle. Upon passing the passenger door his alarmed eyes locked onto a huge beast lying on its sides, it's front legs folded up while the hind legs were outstretched looking like a dead dog. It was blocking the road leaving no space for motorists to pass.

“What kind of a dog can be this huge?”

On closer examination, he came to discover that he had collided with a huge lion, which might have been chasing the man. It was now lying on its sides, blood oozing from its nostrils, probably a result of the collision.“What about the stupid man who caused this? “Mr. Cheelo was wondering. “I should just have bashed him, by now I would be gone to save my mother.”He left the lion alone and went to check on the man who by now was struggling to stand up. He was even uttering gratitude-total nonsense.

“Thank you very much, Endless,” Pwinga was so thankful. “God bless you. I was dead and finished. I thank you very much, you have saved my life.”

“You must be very stupid Pwinga!” Mr. Cheelo shouted. “Why bring a lion to the road where people are passing?”

“But…,” Pwinga was cut short by an irate Mr. Cheelo.

“Don’t but anything, Pwinga,” Mr. Cheelo shouted and raised his rifle to point at Pwinga’s belly.

“Take that stupid thing away from the road or I will shoot you

right now, idiot!”

Pwinga was surprised by the violence coming from his friend. But looking into the muzzle of the rifle gave him few options; he walked to the lion and grabbed a leg. He gritted his teeth as he struggled to pull the dead lion away from the road. He winced in pain as Mr. Cheelo slammed the butt of the gun on his back mercilessly.

“Pull the thing, you idiot!” he shouted while aiming the rifle for a second blow.

Urged on by the beating from Mr. Cheelo, Pwinga managed to drag one side of the huge body a few meters, just enough space for Mr. Cheelo’s huge Peugeot to squeeze through.

Seeing a clearing, Mr. Cheelo spat heavy phlegm in anger before entering the vehicle. He quickly slammed the gears and ground the accelerators to speed away leaving a surprised Pwinga with a gaping mouth.

Pwinga walked towards his camp. It was getting dark. As he walked he didn’t realize that he had lost the way. He searched for the camp until twenty-three hours when he gave up hope. He climbed a tree with low branches and spent the night there dreaming of what food Matilda had eaten that night.