Men also cry

[zilla_likes]

When Baraka heard the window in his living room shatter, his buttocks tightened and he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He opened his eyes wide in the dark, trying to see any shadows through curtained-off his window. His heart was pounding its way out of his chest cavity. He sat up slowly, not to awaken his sleeping wife, and listened.

He heard the lock on his the metal door clinking and knew there was a trespasser.

Thud. Thud. Thud. His heart went.

He thought about her daughter in the next room and her hideous yet enchanting drawings of their family. He had to protect them: her daughter and the drawings. He had to protect his wife. His dear lovely wife that held his small family together.

They were all he had in this ominous world we live in.

He wanted to call the police but remembered they were over half an hour away, and with their reputation, it wasn’t even a guarantee they would come. He would have done what his neighbour did two years ago: scream and wail for help, but that was too risky – especially for his lone daughter in the next room.

And then he remembered the rungu he had placed underneath his bed a decade ago when they moved into that house. It was his only solution, his only hope. He grabbed it and cautiously rolled out of bed. Immediately his feet touched the ground, the door flew open and a silhouette figure shone a bright white light onto his face rendering him blind.

Like a deranged man, he swung the rungu up and down, side to side, hoping to hit his target and save the drawings.

Blop! The sound of his weapon hitting against the trespasser petrified him.

The trespasser fell and blood flowed freely from his head, obviously dead.

The lights came on and his now awake wife screamed in horror. The body of a young eleven year old boy lay before them. It was the homeless boy from the other street they fed for the better part of that year.

Baraka cried in agony.