Wednesday's Words on a Friday

On Wednesdays, Delores, from Under The Porch Light, has a meme which she calls

“Words for Wednesday”.

She puts up a selection of six words which we then use in a short story, or a poem.

I’m hopeless at poetry so I always do a story.

It’s a fun challenge…why not join in?

This week's words are:

1. mayhem

2. levee

3. blessing

4. archbishop

5. frank

6. blunt

we also have this phrase: "the stars are cold tonight, there is no warmth in their diamond light."

Here is my story:

Last month's visit by Archbishop Frank Blunt had caused a lot of unrest amongst the elders. 

They feared with the  blessing of the newly built schoolhouse the young people of the tribe were turning ever further away from the old teachings, the old ways. 

The elderly shaman in particular was angry and scared. 

Too many of the younger women now were taking themselves and their children to the next village where a medical clinic had been set up by the missionaries, to help them with sicknesses and minor injuries.  

Things that he would have once treated them for, and been well paid in chickens and grains, new mats and a new hut every year. It didn't matter to him that more children were now surviving infancy, he feared for his livelihood, knowing that already he carried only a tenth of the power a shaman had just a couple of generations ago.

He waited patiently however, he knew an opportunity would soon come, the rumbling gods high in the mountain had spoken to him. Now more storm clouds were gathering and much rain had been falling for more than a week. The river was rising....

The Shaman called for a meeting and warned the gods were getting angry because the old ways were no longer being followed. Children were attending the schoolhouse instead of helping their mothers with the animals and the cooking fires. 

Look at the water growing wider and higher, he raved. The gods will sweep away your crops...he shook his fist at the heavens and as if on cue a lightning bolt shot to the ground.

Overnight a minor earthquake shook the ground, cracking the hard packed riverbank, a veritable deluge fell from the skies and in the morning there was mayhem in the tiny village as the levee crumbled under the onslaught and floodwaters rushed through the lower field washing away the chickens and the goat pens, before encroaching upon the huts of the people.

The village people ran around in fear, gathering their children and belongings, rushing to higher ground as the shaman danced around cackling with glee. This would prove to them the gods were angry enough, surely now they would listen to him...