A windstorm whooshed and ripped up a lonely acacia tree in the midpoint of the Kalahari wasteland. In return, the soldiers rubbed their eyes before hiding behind the bull-drawn wagon.
That morning, a bug-cloud of grasshoppers flew over their glowing bonfire. The two had a nightmare of a crying baby, but kept their shocking moving-picture dreams from each other. Soon, the chief soldier spotted a
heavily- pregnant woman jaywalking
towards their camp. She was eight months with a child, and her belly had shaped a
heaped wheelbarrow in front of her.
Upon bumping into the trigger-happy soldiers, she sunk to her knees. The lead soldier took out a coinage and flipped the ‘head’ and ‘tail’ in the air. “Girl or boy!” said the badged and buttoned soldier. He waved a knife as the silvery penny touched down on the ‘tail’ side for a girl. “Peel her tummy and let’s answer the riddle,” said he, winking towards a junior rank soldier.
The junior squaddie raised his right eyebrows, and grabbed the switchblade. “Water, water,” the native whined, sticking out her tongue. The badged gunner marched to the bull-cart and brought a pee potty overflowing with fresh pale-yellow water. Thereafter, he pressed the urine-dripping potty against the woman’s cornflake-like lips.
It was 02 October 1904, and a
windblown twig triggered his fully-loaded
gun. The African broke her water and a
curled hair baby dropped between her legs. Afterwards, a cold shiver ran down her spine
and stirred her to flee. Shortly after, the sharpshooters fired shots between her
c-shaped legs.
The two shook their heads up and down,
and then left to right. They pressed their panicky eyes at each other, and then at the reddish pink baby.
“Botswana is over there,” the junior officer yelled, pointing over the reddish sandbanks. First, the mother tickled the she-baby, and plopped a single tear into her yawning mouth. Finally, and like a bush pig, she disappeared behind the humpy sands.
The badged soldier clutched the baby
by the swaying umbilical cord. “It’s she-baby!” said the commander, giggling. Soon he nicknamed the baby Michelle, and bottle-fed her with a mixture of dusty milk. Several months later, he sold the crying-trophy to a sterile German lady at farm Otjosazu.
The cane-walking woman nursed the
jammy baby until 1909.
Footnote: A bonfire historical fiction