Short Stories

Short Stories
The Village Holiday
By R.B.

I can’t say I was happy about it when Mum said we would visit our village. I imagined it was a nowhere land. We set off at 6am and the car was not the most comfortable either. I decided to make the most of the trip and see it as an adventure.

It was hot and the heat on my skin and the sweat was nothing to laugh about. It is all part of the adventure, I told myself, so make good of the differences along the way. I looked at the trees and the land passing by and I relaxed. In a few minutes, I was asleep.

When I woke up, two hours had gone by. Outside looked like another world; everything was different. We stopped at a town to have a break. We ordered food but everything tasted unlike anything we ate in Nairobi. I could smell the soil everywhere; not bad but just different. People stared at us. They obviously found us out of place, maybe it was our clothes. They spoke only mother-tongue too, so we seemed like foreigners to them.

After our stop, we continued our journey, going deeper into the rural areas of my country that I had never seen. It was like the Amazon forest in one place and I thought we had lost our way. I had never seen a forest like it before. Did people live there I wondered? Was there even electricity? I couldn’t imagine people could live without power.

We finally reached our destination after dark. Our ancient grandmother met us and greeted us warmly. She was over 100-years old but still strong. She sent us out to look for firewood in the dark. I had heard stories of snakes and insects from my parent’s childhood in the village. I didn’t want to move an inch from Grandmother’s house. However, I didn’t want to seem like a city kid either, and as I went into the darkness, I reminded myself it was an adventure, and what is a good adventure without a bit of danger?

A River Scene
By LMS

Sizwe is a very huge boy, dark in his complexion. He is the owner of a big nose, swollen like an aubergine. His lips are large and big teeth burst from his gums too. Sizwe is an old-fashioned crazy boy who will never tire from his habits of swimming in the river which he sees as his own private swimming pool.

One day, as he swam, the river became possessed like a demon and turned against him. Sizwe found himself drowning. He opened his mouth to shout, 'Help, help!' But the water flowed in through his mouth and filled his belly like a balloon.

Nearby, a dozing hippopotamus heard Sizwe's screams. The hippo thought, 'This is too noisy, too frustrating and downright ridiculous. Shit!' 

The hippo decided to chase the noisy intruder away. The hippo got closer to Sizwe and opened its mouth ready to tear him to pieces and silence him. As the hippo approached the shouting Sizwe, it eyed the noisy one up looking for the best place to land a bite. Just as the hippo was about to charge, she stopped. 'Oh gosh! I almost ate my baby!'

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