A baobab tree in northern Ghana.
Brian Fletcher was startled when the lithe, green-eyed Ghanan woman stepped out from behind the baobab tree.
“I wouldn’t pick the flowers. The gods cursed the baobab. Picking even a single white flower is bad luck.”
The hunter defiantly plucked one, then two more flowers, and then held out his arm. She took a step backward, and he laughed. “Stupid superstition.”
“You will meet your fate, Mr. Fletcher as you have sent many elephants to theirs…poacher.”
“How did you…?”
The dark woman dashed back around the tree’s large, twisted trunk.
“Wait a minute.” The muscular, middle-aged man threw the flowers to the ground and ran after, but it wasn’t a woman he found on the other side.
He only had time to notice that the lioness possessed the same green eyes before she tore him apart. The gods had again wrought terrible justice against one who would desecrate their lands.
I wrote this for the What Pegman Saw writing challenge. The idea is to use a Google maps image/location as the prompt for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. My word count is 150.
Today, the Pegman takes us to Bamboi, Northern Region, Ghana. I couldn’t find anything on Bamboi in a casual Google search, since it kept trying to redirect me to “bamboo.” I did look up Northern Region (Ghana), and there I found the Baobab Tree, and more importantly, the legends and myths about it. There are numerous myths, so I chose one, leveraging information about poaching in Ghana.
To read other tales based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.
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Nicely done. I hope she gets the rest of those poachers while she’s out there.
I noticed the Bamboo google glitch too. It took some determination to get to Bamboi!
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The poacher becomes dessert.
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I like the way you combine the legendary with the factual. Looks like we both want justice for elephants!
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For elephants, true, but not just for them. Thanks, Penny.
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I really enjoyed this, James. Fair justice has been served.
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Indeed. Thanks, Dale.
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A different spin on the law of the jungle, maybe. Great imagination and a well-crafted story.
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Thanks.
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Robert Fletcher picked the wrong flower I’d say.
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He did, indeed. Thanks, Rochelle.
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nice justice for the elephants and got me right here:
but it wasn’t a woman he found on the other side…..
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Nope. She changed into a lioness.
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Great fable. That woman shapeshifter had a real presence. Beginning, middle, end and moral. Well done!
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Thank you.
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Well the hunter had to pay for his karma. Little girl was prophetic.
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And she turned into a lioness and ate him. 😉
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Looks like the hunter became dinner 😉
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Baobab, Adansonia digitata, is a resilient tree that does well in the dry arid parts of West Africa. Students of Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School-Legon call their old students odadee(meaning Baobab) because they are considered dynamic and robust, capable of tolerating the harshest climate. The tree isn’t as many in Ghana as it is in the savannah, Mali and Burkina Faso.
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Thanks for the update. From halfway around the world, I have to rely on Google for my information.
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