"The Village Murder" (fictional)

The myriad of people just stood there, in shock, bewildered and distraught. The mothers were contemplating, whether they should mourn or hit themselves onto the ground. I just stood there, with an ill-spirited and divorced look. One of the elders cried out, “Daughter!! What have you done?” I just looked back at her, not a word came out of me. Matombo ran into the house, the commotion and ire, and the ogre in me, grew even stronger. I waited, waited not just for anything but for the furore to come to pass. An eye for an eye, I had been taught. Live by the sword and die by its end, I had learnt!

No one can heartlessly take the lives of those I love and expect me to remain silent they chant and shout that I am a murderer when I am just doing what I know to be right. How could you!! They screamed? How could I not, she was so disrespectful and malicious I had to save the village from this vindictive, seductress of a monster. The definition of evil in flesh and blood, they all feared her for her ways, they shivered when she passed and went silent at her streams of abuse. The village was her playground she ruled the people through fear she had taken the lives of so many I didn’t mind my fate. Justice had been served; my soul could gladly go & meet its ancestors. I was now a hero for I had defended her injustice.

I grew up not knowing anything but the fear she imparted through her ways, she was but the villain I dreamt of whenever I closed my eyes every night. She flaunted the iniquity of the village; she served our love with her devotion to her rogue and acerbic nature. This was my Aunt Mandibaya. Yeah she was my aunt, barbed in nature. I grew up under the same roof were she lay. My Father, then a good servant of the Lord, took her in, after she had been dumped by her Late Husband Chakora. She deceived her way into my Father’s house. We welcomed and embraced her like a daughter of the soil. My Father said he knew her from his Late Mother’s village!! And so we welcomed her. What we didn’t know was that we had welcomed a fiend, a brute who knew not of the values of the land and family.

She consumed my family and half the village, slowly yet consistently she would seduce the village fathers and cause chaos in their homes she wrecked most of the marriages first and shortly after that the estranged wives began to disappear the distraught husbands began to kill for her affections. My father was murdered at her hands she lured him to protect her knowing she had hired an assassin, she thought she had won this village she was celebrating her victory when I came in with my machete in hand. I intended just to hurt her, to remove her limbs and paralyse her, so she would be unable to hurt another innocent soul. In the moment overcome with rage and with justice in mind I became a merciless murderer and she was left no more than carved flesh in a pool of blood. I know I was wrong but I also know I have saved many a lifetime of injustice, I know I will hang in a few days but I will gladly hang for my village and for the vengeance of my father.

And so we just stood there, no one knew what to do. Matombo, the Crawl Head was distraught, “Never in my lifetime has this happened, even in the lifetime of my Fathers” he bleated. The elders grew weary of crying; they lamented yet assured that the village was safe. They knew the devil in their midst was but history. They reminisced about the fearful days they’d seen, “at their age”. But what was going to happen now, they dreaded having to put me to death after this great deed I had done! Yet they had to be loyal to custom murder in such brutality could not go unpunished as I had slain this monster I had to face a fate so similar. My heart froze at the thought of the unfairness of this world in anger and fear I become numb, I had to die too I had vivid flash backs of what I had just done speeding before me and then blackness…………….