Somewhere, in a fearful thick forest, a voice of a child erupted in a sharp and loud tone, and then died out at once.
The country-side beautiful hills with their singing green trees hummed a cool wave – so cool that it slowly spread to the rest of Mapipa village in a simultaneous sweet chorus.
Natives at the left ridge could think the cool breeze that came with the wave was the harbinger of a wizard they had known for long to do errands in Mapipa during the evenings.
The dream of a little matador he had seen at a cultural ceremony came to Boy’s head quickly, so quickly that it gave a sharp pain that spread like hot larva from his ears, to the rest of his head. The little matador was Boy’s hero — and on this day the hero was not there to save him.
He remembered and cried.
His heart thumped with fear for what could be its last time — and he felt a sharp knife enter his heart. He kicked his tied legs strongly — and he cried again.
The stories of child sacrifice were the last Boy wanted to hear his teacher untie Mega talk about in class. He loved writing prose for his teacher, talk to friends, and sing ‘we are God’s doves, so innocent and happy in Jesus…’
The two men who wanted him to sing this song for them had told him that he could get nicer things if he sang it at a place they did not want to disclose to him — until he stopped resisting them and shouting out of a car window for people to help him– help him to beat up strangers holding him captive.
A horrifying small grass thatched shrine at the side of Bikoco forest was not known by many people in Mapipa.
Boy could have been the third person to know it — or even see it, before the two men who brought him had pierced his heart and drew his blood in a small gourd as boy cried out in pain.
Ritual murder.
The two men looked at each other briefly when Boy breathed his last. Ritual murderers in Mapipa village, the brave ones — a story is told that they drink a little of the blood of their victim so that no ghost ever followed them. A stupid ghost of a useless little child — they thought — could only be appeased with a sip of blood.
One of the two brave men used a sharp machete to cut off what was Boy’s head, now soaked in blood — but not cleared of its handsome eyes and a nicely curved chin like that of his mother who stayed awake for two nights looking for his son.
The other man concentrated on Boy’s naked body to cut off a little penis which a traditional healer ordered that it should reach him together with the head.
A few yards away, doves cooed and Boy’s spirit began to wander through thickets and rough vegetation crying — do not kill me soon… do not kill me soon.

Frank WALUSIMBI