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MUSTARD I – Ch. 28 | KT OLLA

ALUKHO was driving at a point, so he didn’t stop talking. He explained what he meant.

‘It is true, sir, that you didn’t ask for anyone to make a ritual – so you didn’t kill for sacrifice.

‘Of course, the decisions were made by your town’s king and his priest. So you must’ve only celebrated their festival.

‘Even so, here are you reaping the evils those men sowed—or was the king or priest captured?’

‘No—’ Moro answered weakly.

‘So if you’ve been good all your life,’ continued Alukho, ‘and still you reap the bad things that others sowed; then don’t you find it rather unfair?’

‘I do,’ replied the man. ‘It’s frustrating, you know!’

Alukho settled back on his seat.

‘Well, things like these are bound to be when we subject ourselves under what is no God...

‘Idols and magic, spirits and demons—things that are no God!’

‘What do you mean?’ Moro flared up. ‘The things we serve are god—they are gods to us!’

‘Oh really? How come they couldn’t rescue you when you were forcefully taken?’

Moro caught the question but couldn’t answer. He just didn’t know what to say.

Alukho went on regardless.

‘You said that what you did, you did for your protection—then how come none of the charms you keep stopped Whitemen from capturing you?’

By this time Moro found no guts left to get angry. So he asked to know, too.

‘Why is this, Alukho? How come they didn’t work against them—those juju and all?’

The younger one smiled at him. ‘They didn’t work because they just could not. They only have power over those who bow to them...

‘And so, when new peoples came, they couldn’t control them!’

There was a thoughtful silence. And in that moment, the older one tried to connect things.

He thought about how those magic powers couldn’t stop other peoples from forcefully capturing them.

He reflected also about the horrific trade in slaves that made Alukho’s ancestors to be carried far away from homeland.

If those powers that we call gods are this limited in our times of trouble, then they are no gods that we call gods!

He spoke up:

‘I must truly be reaping the bad fate of other people’s sin. Because I join them, at least, to serve what is not God!’

‘Exactly!’ quipped Alukho.

‘But what has this to do with the war?’ enquired Moro. ‘Does it influence escaping it?’

‘It has something to do,’ answered Alukho.

‘If this is what brought you here – I mean serving things that are no God, then you can only be sure that it doesn’t end.

‘It will go on, and even on – until death, and even the afterlife!’

Moro dropped a sigh. ‘I know!’

‘Really,’ said Alukho, ‘this fate of having to face a war now, is only small when compared to one hereafter.’

The man was listening, so the young preacher explained.

‘You said you escaped a war when you were younger. Still when I asked how life has treated you, you said it’s been hectic.

‘Yes, you already escaped the war, yet life hasn’t been so great between then and now. D’ you know why that is?’

‘How will I know, my friend?’ asked the elder.

For Moro wanted to know.

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