Outcast Island

It was that time of year again. The festival of the gods. All the Islands celebrated it. Every year the celebrations and the sacrifices were different. Every 5th year, the ‘outcast gods’ had to be appeased. They required all islands to cast sticks amongst the terminally ill, the mentally unstable, the deformed, and those already outcast by their tribe. Those who lost the draw, were rowed ceremoniously to the farthest and smallest of the islands, abandoned until death by starvation removed them from further misery in the world. She sat and stared. She was in disbelief. She had dreaded this moment since she was a young child. Her life had been a difficult one since the moment she left her mothers womb. Her mother had died in childbirth. Unlike every other child in the village, she had never enjoyed the comfort of suckling at her mothers warm breasts, n***d and new to the world. She had slept in a sand warming basket and fed drops of coconut milk mixed with bacon drippings to sustain her. Her father loved her dearly and would not take the elders' council to throw her into the sea because she was born with only one arm. Later, her father died in battle when she was only 3 years old. She had become the house slave for the chief’s grandmother as payment for her father's debts to the chief. “The gods have chosen! To the canoes!” Screamed the old medicine woman. She was forced to sit at the head of the large sailing canoe. Muscled men rowed ferociously against the currents that strove to keep them within their islands bay. Six ships in total sailed and rowed for three days to the appointed island.