A Heart In Flames

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The giants left Oma and Mansa under the huge tree, and walked to the other side of the island. The trees still bending for them to pass, and the earth still shaking, Oma and Mansa stood in awe as they watched the giants walk. And, when they finally got out of sight, the earthquake and the storm stopped completely.

Oma's attention shifted from the giants to the huge tree when the giants got out of sight. He looked at the tree from the root to the top, deep in the sky. In despair, he shook his head. “This is a huge task," he said.

As for Mansa, the tree was not what she was looking at. Her attention was on the doors on the hills that were made of bones. She looked critically at the doors and realised that each door was an entrance to a cave in the hills. One of the bone doors was unique. It was large and it was made with many more bones than the others. That baffled her and she couldn’t keep mute over it.

Her eyes fixed on the large bone door, her left hand pointing to it, and her right hand tapping Oma to draw his attention, she said with a panick voice: “This is the abode of the devil.”

Oma got struck by what Mansa said but before he could turn to see what Mansa was drawing his attention to, the large bone door opened and from the cave, a puff of green smoke ascended to the top of the huge tree.

Oma took his sword and his axe when he saw the smoke ascending to the top of the tree. He was ready to fight. “The evil hands want to unleash disaster on us," he said.

“No, this is not disaster,” a voice said behind them. It was the shiny, beautiful fish. It waddled forward and stood beside Mansa, and continued, “when the smoke is green, it means power; when it is grey, it means peace; and when it is blue, it means destruction.”

“You are right,” Mansa said to the fish. She remembered the blue smoke that the tree produces to cause destruction on earth every thousand years.

One after the other, the six remaining bone doors opened and out of each one of them, grey puffs of smoke ascended to the top of the huge tree.

“Tell us what is happening,” Mansa said to the fish.

The fish waddled back and before it went into hiding, it said, “they are coming. From the first to the last, they are all coming. Do not fight them you little ones. Do whatever they tell you.”

Heeding to the advice of the fish, Oma put back his sword and his axe in his sac. He was beginning to trust the fish because whatever it told them seem to be the truth.

Soon, from the top of the huge tree, strange-looking demons, descended rapidly. Some looked like men, others looked like women. They were seventy-seven. They wore no dresses; they were naked. Those who looked like men had no dangly bits and those who looked like women had no breasts and front bottoms. And, apart from the one that looked green, the rest looked grey.

As fast as light, the demons surrounded Oma and Mansa. The one that looked green stood behind the circle, and just like the rest, he looked carefully at Oma and his wife. Then, after he had had a good look at them, he stepped forward from behind the circle and drew closer to Oma and Mansa.

“Why did you come to my island?” the green demon asked, twisting his lips and looking straight into the eyes of Oma. His voice sounded deep and echoed in the trees, deep in the forest.

Oma turned to look at Mansa before he spoke. He was determined to speak the truth and he didn’t know how Mansa was going to take it. “We are here to cut down the evil tree that brings calamity to us every thousand years. This is our mission and we must have it accomplished,” Oma spoke boldly.

The green demon laughed loudly and mockingly, and in so doing he infected the grey ones with the laughter when Oma made their mission known. They laughed and laughed until their throat could no longer produce the sound of laughter.

“I am Lord Green,” he said boastfully when the laughter ceased. “I am the lord of this island. My words cannot be altered and my commands forever remain. I am made of smoke and the leafs of the trees.

“Listen, you little humans. To you, your coming here is to cut the first tree on eartharth. But to us, it is a wish come true. It is foolish to think that you can hew down the first, the biggest, and the tallest tree on earth. You weak humans cannot do that.

“Your coming here is a wish come true for us because, for millenniums, we have been wishing to see a pair of humans on this island. And that is for a reason. And the reason is . . .” lord Green paused and made a sign to four of the grey demons.

The grey demons moved quickly towards Oma and Mansa, and when they had gripped them in their strong hands, they undressed them and left them standing naked before lord Green and the rest of the grey demons.

Oma and Mansa stood silent. They had no idea what the demons were going to do to them. Oma wanted to pick his sword and his axe to fight, but when he looked at Mansa, she made a sign to him to stop. That was not the right time to fight. They first needed to know what the strange beings were up to.

“Mmmm! Sweet looking humans,” lord Green expressed contentment when he saw the nakedness of Oma and Mansa. The grey demons equally became ecstatic and looked curiously at the nakedness of Oma and Mansa. “It is for your dangly bits, your breasts and front bottom,” lord Green continued, pointing to Oma's dangly bits, Mansa's breasts and front bottom, “that we have been wishing for a pair of humans to come to this island, Mookoo island, the land of mighty beings.

“As you can see, we don’t have what you have, so, we cannot reproduce. Millions of years ago, we were millions in number but now only few of us are left. Every thousand years, one of us die, and when that happens, you humans taste a little of our pains.

“So, if you two would sacrifice your dangly bits, your breasts and front bottom to us, calamity will stop befalling you humans. That will help us to reproduce just us you humans do. We will multiple like you humans do so that, when one of us die, we will get thousands for a replacement.”

Lord Green stepped back and waited for Oma to give him a reply after making them an offer.

Mansa and her husband did not agree to the offer. They didn’t want to sacrifice their reproductive organs. They were newly married, and they wanted to have children. Lord Green tried many times to get them to agree to his offer but they did not. That made lord Green furious, and asked that Oma and Mansa be thrown into jail in one of the caves. The next day, they would be brought out for lord Green to try and get them convinced once more.