We were told he longed for what wasn’t his. For unapologetically undressing the Queen with his eyes, he would be sacrificed to cleanse the evil that perverted the kingdom. No mortal man could lust after the Queen no matter the undoing of his manhood. The Queen whose beauty was likened to the goddess Aphrodite stabbed the king to death one silent night. She had envisioned a world where she could rule only her kind. Male born were murdered at birth. Men who lived before her reign were marked and killed if found wanton of lusting after her.

The throng of people walked the procession to the sacrificial ground: the road boulevard by the old and young. More tears flowed than before because the men were now like cactus in the desert. On the boulevard path walked an elephant adorned in bright colorful regalia. Bangles jingled at his fore and hind legs like a stripper’s waist adorned with waist accessories. The howling of the people did nothing to halt the graceful walk of the mercenary elephant.

Tied and laid beneath the gigantic animal was a helpless man. Just before the elephant raised its fore legs and threw up its trunk towards the open sky, the notch of misery was amplified by the people – they wept more. The hooves descended hard like the fallen wars of Jericho and the bloody corpse of the young man said it all.

 

 

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© 2015/Debbie Iorliam