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Short Story - Genocide - Give to Caesar what’s Caesar’s

2022-04-20  Staff Reporter

Short Story - Genocide - Give to Caesar what’s Caesar’s

The sun’s yellowish feelers lit the horse-neck shaped hills, as we flatten numerous cow doo-doo shacks. 

“Let’s mark the cow-feces plastered huts with a cross,” I said. 

“Each swinging-door hut needs to pay one steel-coated penny,” said the governor, inspecting the termites-ridden fluttering doors. 

Then, we banged door to door, and wakened the snorting natives. We handed slips with a matching red number of each hut. 

“This is a one-hut-one-man policy,” I said. “The Kaiser had ordered this housing policy,” the governor crooned. 

“My three wives can’t sleep inside one hut,” said Chief Joseph, pit yawning. 

“You’ve to pay three reddish-brown coins for each hut,” I said. 

“In Berlin, we’ve one man one wife policy,” said the commander, pushing me out of his way. 

His remarks triggered handclapping from limping women. 

“I’ve inherited two wives,” Joseph said, pointing to the ring-shaped huts on the edge of the feathered-grass Okamita River. 

“We can’t inherit women,” said the commander, shaking his mop-like hair. 

Soon, bare-chested teens giggled on his remarks. 

“This order comes from Berlin,” the commander said, cocking his gun. 

“Should I abandon my late brother’s wives?” the chief fumed, pointing his patterned cane at the commander.

“All circlet huts must be plastered into four-cornered huts,” said the commander. 

“What?” the chief queried, poker-faced.  

“We’ve to shape our huts accordingly,” said the commander. 

“Square-shaped huts should have front and back doors,” said the governor, waving sketches of red roofed four-cornered houses. “These squares picture the four streams overflowing into the evergreen Rhine River,” said the governor, mopping his hair. 

“There’ll be a penalty on circlet huts,” I said. 

“Two shiny pennies for a circlet hut and one orange-yellow penny for a square hut,” said the commander. 

Instantly, the onlookers babble about the new laws. 

“We shouldn’t build with smelly cow poo,” the commander said, chuckling. 

A troop of women whined about carrying a load of dripping cow poop on their heads every day. 

“The ring-shaped huts block poisonous snakes from slithering inside,” said a historian. 

Soon the governor expelled the hail-haired man from the meeting. First, I handcuffed the pig-headed archivist, and pointed a shoulder gun at his head. 

By 1910, pathways of brick huts in Okahandja looked a lot like blocks of Berlin houses in the hero-worshiping outline of the Rhine River. 

- mungambue@gmail.com

 

* This story is historical fiction.


2022-04-20  Staff Reporter

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