Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

Short Story – The Breathing Skull (1904)

Home Youth Corner Short Story – The Breathing Skull (1904)
Short Story – The Breathing Skull (1904)

I stumbled upon skin-and-bone natives galloping into the wasteland at Otjihaenena.

“Don’t spare any fleeing Herero,” yelled the whiskery-bearded commander.

Soon, I sprayed deadly bullets skywards to scare the straw-like children. I spotted reedy children squeezing vinegary water out of green and white-striped melons. The skinny children coughed after the gunpowder-bluish smoke had choked their lungs.

“I don’t want to waste bullets on breathing skeletons,” I said. Instantly, the hairy-faced commander punched me below the ribcage, before booting my tummy.

Therefore, I begged the natives to duck into the sandy hills. A scattered-hair woman nosedived in front of me. “What does the Genocide Code say about mutilated natives?” I asked, poking a handgun at the woman.

“Slowly squeeze life out of her,” the hirsute commander said, winking.

I shifted closer to the ballooned-tummy woman. However, she couldn’t wheelbarrow herself out of the firing squad’s deadly path.

“The African is pregnant?” I shouted, twisting towards the heartless captain. Instantaneously, the captain mined a cook’s knife from his pocket. “Skin her and deliver the baby,” the commander said, chortling.

First, I drenched my khakis with urine, and hugged the carving knife. “I’m sorry,” I whispered into the woman’s sand-soaked ears. Shockingly, she wiped the swamping tears streaming down my cheeks.

“There’re no emotions in war.” That was the roaring voice of my commander. The spiderlike-legged man knocked my head with the metal tube of the gun.

“Help me to die,” the woman pleaded, rubbing her tummy clockwise.

Afterward, the cold-hearted commander clocked his gun and poked it at my sticking forehead. “I’m sorry,” I hissed towards the native lady. Then I slashed open her swelled tummy and scooped out the blubbing baby. Later, I enveloped the baby in a military green shirt.

Afterward, I nursed the baby with pounded milk which I diluted in warm water. Subsequently, I kept an eye on the bawling baby until we arrived at Okandjira. After months in the wilderness, I pocketed the baby and tiptoed to Swakopmund. I hid the baby in a box written ‘The Breathing Skull’.

That summer, I boarded a floating house and disembarked in Berlin. I delivered the baby as a Christmas gift to King Wilhelm II. However, by 1922, I smuggled the child back into her ancestral South West Africa and wedded her at Otjimbingwe.    

* This is historical fiction.