300 Words Of How by O.b.i

The octogenarian adjusted his frail frame and turned away from the young boy who he had earlier described as a ‘walking question mark’ .He faced the sky and gazed at it for a long time as if he was trying detect a contour in the perfect curves of the brilliant moon, just when the boy was wondering if his father’s father will give him an answer to his millionth question since the rooster went to roost, his thoughts was obstructed by a slow and crooked voice “I will not only tell you how ‘they’ were able to do it” said the old man “but I will also tell you how you can forever own the mind of a whole clan”…”go into a man’s land, tell him he is evil, tell him his ways are evil and your ways are pure, he will not believe you, he will laugh at you and sometimes if you are unlucky, he will attack you. Persist, introduce him to your way of life and tell him it is ‘civilization’ tell him that his ways are evil and ‘uncivilized’ tell him he has to agree that his ways and the ways of his fathers and their fathers before them are evil and he must accept your ways to be saved. Part of him might still not agree, keep telling him this for days, drum it into his ears for years and for decades. Now, watch him tell his kind that the ways of their fathers are evil, watch him repeat your tales to his kind with even greater enthusiasm, watch him fight any of his kinsmen who do not agree to your tales, watch him distance himself from the ‘evil’ ways of his ancestors, he will bear your names and love you more than he loves himself.”