{UAH} COCKY KOOKI: THE STORY OF THE CROW, THE HAWK AND THE COCK.....RECORKED.

EKITIIBWA KYAFADDA:  THE STORY OF THE CROW, THE HAWK AND THE COCK:

                                     

 

......86, 76, 66, 46, 86, 96, 06, 16.........

 

Once upon a time, there was a crow that loved to sit on her eggs in her nest patched in a barkcloth tree, awaiting their hatching day.  One chilly 1876 morning as the sitting-on-the-eggs ritual went on, a slick, slithery serpent stole its way into the nest. 

The smooth, sleek reptile, itself hatched in 886, when Alfred the Great defeated the Danes, and weaned in 1066 after the Battle of Hastings, punctured the eggs one by one, sucking out the yolk and white expunging their their viability, all without the she crow's notice. 

When the serpent was done, it slid out of the nest as stealthily as it had slunk in; all the while, never barging the mother crow's slumber.  

Like all incubating she-birds are wont to do, one warm 1966 afternoon, the crow left her nest to stretch and fret, and grab a snack of grubs; leaving her 'eggs' to fend for themselves.  Then and surely then, tragedy struck - at least according to her and the rest.  

Alas, the kamunye hawk, with trademark parting in his feathers swooped at the nest.  In a lightning's moment and unrefined ferocity, the hawk snatched all the 'eggs' from the crow's nest.

 

A fierce tussle for the 'eggs' ensued between the two beasts of the air; but long did it take the Kamunye to register disappointedly that it had swooped at empty shells.  And thence the Kamunye jettisoned the clutch into the cluster of undergrowth below; all without the notice of the combative crow. 

Thus the stage was set for an eternal and futile, harebrained and misdirected feud between the hawk and the crow.  

Weeks later, in 1986 another bird, hatched in 1946, an 'enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in mystery', dawned upon the airwaves.  The mystery bird is one time a menacing vulture and another time the dove of peace; then the wise old owl, yet again a cuckoo that lays her eggs in others' nests; then again an agile kingfisher and also a maladroit duck feigner; one time an alluring rooster that heralds the arrival of a new day, and another time the hornbill that obliterates with its deafening melody, the soporific monotone of all ungainly feather wearers, through 1996, 2006, and who knows, 2016. 

 

The Delphic new bird on the block shrewdly extricated the 'eggs' from the undergrowth, delicately replacing them in the now derelict nest, to the utter glee of the crow, which has since zealously and jealously, fiercely and faithfully incubated the shells days on end, as new mating seasons have come and passed.  And she whispers to herself the tragic lullaby ad nauseum: 'Awangale magulucucu', 'Hangiriza Agutamba', 'Rukirabasaija', 'Isebantu', 'Irema', 'Emor………..

 

That was my story.

 

 

 

 

Lance Corporal (Rtd) Patrick Otto 

"THE SAME HEAT THAT MELTS THE BUTTER HARDENS THE EGG"