Good Use
Salim sat sharpening his dagger. Just last night, the blade had been put to good use. His good use.
Nothing had changed. The day was born on the mundane wheel of ordinariness. The birds traversed the blue expanse of the sky with the noiseless, flapping of their wings. The dewdrops cozily nestled on leaf ribs watched this flight in delight. Beneath the canopy, the earth was tinged red. Finally, the sun broke the shackles of lassitude and occupied the throne of supremacy.
She winced in a little discomfort as the sharp rays pinched her pinkish eyes. All was quiet. The warm air in the barn was filled with snoring grunts and bleats of her brethren. First with the forelegs and then gradually on the hind, she pushed herself to rise above the blanket of hay that had enveloped her.
THUD!
The first fall came, the inevitable one. The damp earth that had few minutes earlier comforted her now hurt.
How quickly things changed? She mused.
Not dampened by the fall, she began again. This time with hind first, followed by fore. Wiser with experience this time the fall came after a second of standing tall. Yet, in that second she grasped, glanced and gaped at all she could in her immaculate ecosystem. To her it was new, even though an animal was less, nothing had changed.
The rise and fall activity was tiring. More tedious was the ebb and flow of hunger pangs surfacing her appetite. Her growling stomach searched for an udder. Her cries had no answer, only now there was a chorus echoing the same hungry need.
“Shut up the litter with leaves! The slaughtered goat’s kids are creating a havoc.”
She heard Salim’s sonorous voice break through the barn.
What that meant? Maybe, food was here. The language was new to her so was its expression.
Wired into being born as someone’s food, Laila the kid relished the meal that was served in place of her mother’s milk. Her mother who was killed to satiate a monster called man’s hunger.
Laila pranced around Salim who brought more tender leaves to the barn. She nuzzled his calloused, murderous palms. She blessed him profusely for being human to her needs. He took no notice of her love while pushing her aside.
He chopped the twigs with the same knife that had sliced her mother’s jugular.
Wow, that is some tool, the fool thought.
She kept coming back to him for little leaves and more love. The greedy heart wanted more. Only a novice like her could not identify her mother’s murderer and in future, her own.
The dewdrops now dry under the scorching sun wept on the irony of life. The leaves fell to shroud the dead goat’s dried blood, the red tinged earth now again brown. Nature was ashamed of the massacre. Yet, nothing had changed in Salim’s attitude. He went about checking each animal to put his dagger to good use. His good use.
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