TALES OF PREGNANT MEN

Under the canopy of the silver crescent light, right before the ripe of night, basking in the mushroom embrace of twinkling stars, listening to crickets’ melancholic lullabies, before temporary death beckoned to make acquaintances, we circled around the glowing reddish and yellow flames. Our ears “ajar,” ready to tune to the frequency of riveting wisdom, transmitted through the crisp, serene evening airwaves. The grey-haired oracle would sit on his favourite laid-back chair, ready to unscroll the scripts that would come to be the "cheat code" of life. He was revered, an epitome of admiration and a central figure with instinctual prognosis. He would smell the rains three summers away, a "harbinger" that steered us clear of troubled waters. "Let me tell you about the tale of pregnant men," he began to speak through the silence of our sheer attention. "In a faraway land existed men, heavy-laden with self-gratification and pride. They fed on ego, spiced with self-righteousness. They dined and wined at the expense of those who erected the ladders for their ascension. They spoke with twisted tongues, words that cut deeper than a surgical blade. Words that only those cut from the same cloth praised and fed as daily bread. The ‘sword of command,’ given under the supposition that it would emancipate the chokehold on humanity and poverty, became a weapon that sliced the very strands of morality and voice of reason. But no matter how skillful a bird is at kissing the clouds, landing is inevitable. With time’s relentless march, they gathered at the village square with sugar-coated lips ready to "tea" their way up once more. Bellies full of deceit from yesterday's promises. Wearing humbled faces, as a litmus test, to test the masses' dementia and ignorance. Expecting oranges from the lemon seeds the earth swallowed." "If you were among the gathering, what would you have done?" he queried, soliciting our comprehension from our intrigued faces. "Time is but cyclic in the arena of karma," he concluded, yawning his way to his chambers of dreams.