The Tussle

*random thoughts 1*

The afternoon rays were hot and fiery — so was the fight. It was a fight to the death. The two men fought each other like enraged bulls. Their ebony backs glistened with sweat in the scorching sun. They leapt at each others throats, one trying to overwhelm the other.

Under a large shed stood a crowd of different kinds of people: gamblers, drunkards, rogues, market women… Most of them had bet on whom the winner of the fight would be. The fight had begun in the late hours of the morning and it grew ferocious as time went by.

The two fighters were burly and strong. Their upper torsos were in the shape of giant trapeziums, their heads like balloons on thick logs of wood. Their chest muscles bulged with the strain of the tussle. The one called Topee had swollen lips, terrible black eye, a smashed nose and dislocated hip. Odoh, the other, was dressed in bruises while his innards bled. A concussion topped his suffering.

Hours passed. The sun started basing goodbye. The fading sun sent calm, orange-coloured rays down unto the earth. The fight would soon end. The crowd knew it and there was a tense atmosphere under the shed. Each fighter was getting weary.

Odoh went down. Topee prevailed.

The formerly quiet and tense crowd burst into an euphoria of excitement. Some rejoiced with their hero. Others went to pick up the slain. Topee was carried on heaving shoulders, amidst rejoicing, back home.

The fight has ended. Darkness has arrived. The sun has gone home.