The Red Apples (part 117)

Peter was one year old and their parents wanted to celebrate his special day by the Seaside in Tempa, Florida. Disney World was closed for repair and Peter would not have remembered much of that day. The afternoon was hot and the humidity was high. Young folks had gathered at the beach to enjoy the time between two semesters. With lots of water and under the influence of alcohol and cannabis the students pulled out their temper for sex.

While American society was conservative and prudish they only dared to celebrate half-nakedness on such occasions when everyone came out from home and inner moral restrictions. They knew their society had double moral standards and needed a valve to let feelings and dreams come out. What was better for them to show naked breasts or breasts under wet T-shirts with hips moving closer to the sweet long or short big or thin happiness of the men that they carried between their legs? The alcohol and cannabis smoke dusted any doubts to bring out everything that was caged in their spirits for a long time.

Young girls laid intoxicated by the beachside waiting for the ambulances to rescue them and bring them into a nearby tent for medical treatment. Their loud and drunken boyfriends were strictly advised to stay away and wait for the return of their girlfriends after the detoxification. Some needed swift policeman interference to straighten them out and make them stay away from the paramedics.

Victoria and Joshua Odhiambo pushed their son Peter through the narrow streets and tried to avoid the drunken youth. Joshua Odhiambo commented: „They still have not learned their lesson.“

„So it seems,“ said Victoria Odhiambo and saw a drunken teenager nearly bumping into the child’s stroller. To avoid the accident she nearly overturned the stroller but managed at last to get the stroller again under control and avoid an accident. She shouted out of anger: „What fools you are. Still not have learned manners! Foolish people!“

„In the past, the education system compared to us in Africa was for the masses here in the USA already low only an elite of a very few got to know the world and the ideas of the world and the wisdom therein. Our folks who learned under the hard conditions of the dark days of Africa constantly came out with better examination results than their counterparts here in the old developed world…by facts.“

„Only the African character and the African spirit of your ancestors messed you people up,“ said Victoria Odhiambo looking for a cafeteria to sit and enjoy the special day.

„True…and our dead and gone politicians were no help to us rather messed up our future for these folks here to have control over us.“

„You people wasted a few generations for nothing,“ responded Victoria Odhiambo to her husband's comment. She ordered two cups of hot chocolate and two creamy cakes the style of a Black Forest Tarte when what was offered resembled the imagination of the original only yet better than nothing close to it.

„Education with a vision and not education anyhow is the key to success in the world,“ lectured Joshua Odhiambo taking Peter out of the stroller and putting him on his lap. He loved his son to the moon and back. His wife’s pregnancy was not easy and Peter in his mother‘s womb seemed to be very relaxed. He did not give any indication of wanting to get out of the cozy warm and well-protected place. Not to overstretch the mother he was eventually removed by forced cesarean section. When he saw the light of day he cried so loud that the midwife had to remove him from the operating theater.

„Americans never understood the meaning of a vision,“ lectured Victoria Odhiambo on her part,“ rather fled the oppression of Europe, took the land by force and killings, African slaves as cheap labor to boost the American economy to the benefits of the white man, and shot the buffalos close to extinction. They used European values and declared them as American values never inventing any values that originated from American soil of their own. Economic and for that matter political strength never sustain a nation for much longer. To proclaim America should be great again is a sign of moral weakness and a signal to the world a society in pain crying out loud like a beetle lying on its back is about to fall three or four generations down the line of history.“

Victoria Odhiambo asked for Peter to be handed over to her for breastfeeding and said: „As the old wisdom goes no superpower lives forever and implodes before three or four generations later an underdog takes dominion. Yes,“ she paused for a moment to start eating a piece of her cake about to melt in the afternoon heat, “there are always the same clear signs which are indicators…very precise once…that a superpower is about to fall.

This was not only the case with our land here in the USA but also with Russia, China, India, and Europe. I mean it is never a question of whether or not the world will have a different face from time to time as that is the law of history. It is always a subject of debate how the world of tomorrow will look like and the process that leads to the changed tomorrow. Only infant minds want by crying out loud to preserve or gain back their former glory instead of thinking about how to position the nation to face the inevitable and be the first in line to greet the new king of his Kingdom.“

„Only a nation not filled with doctrines that in itself exposes the weakness of a country but a nation with a proclaimed vision can sit on the throne of glory of world history,“ said Joshua Odhiambo and pretended his neck would hurt him. Instead, his eyes laid on the face of a young single blond beauty who had taken a seat across from the little family. His eyes were closed so he could not hear his wife asking him to put Peter back into the stroller. His eyes were wide open his heartbeat on the rise. The unknown lady felt she was watched. She did not want to be seen as an easy target a common prey. She looked the other side.

Victoria Odhiambo put herself in the way and her toddler back into his stroller. She was too busy coordinating motherhood and being herself. The Black Forest Tarte was about to melt after all. More and more half-naked young girls with their drunken boyfriends passed by and her focus was on them. She pushed the stroller out of the way to keep it safe. Victoria Odhiambo was not concerned too much about where her husband put his focus on.

He was in a state of trance not in this world anymore. His feelings were like the wings of an Eagle like clouds in the sky. Any questions about how and if and when and why seemed to be of no importance anymore. Midlife crises? The thought of it touched his spirit but his body ignored it and his mind pushed it aside. He refused to think. He wanted to be in the here and now in the universe that made everything possible with no fence with no limitations. Any idea of right and wrong was lifted out of his memory. No more bad and good. No more alive or dead. Just to be. Just to be himself. While his eyes and heart touched the lips of the unknown lady his right eye caught a glimpse of a black figure standing behind the blond lady. It was a tall figure but shapeless. He could not see whether it was a man or a woman. The figure was not masked. It was only calmly standing behind the blond young girl. The contrast could not have been bigger between the blond vibrant girl and the dark silhouette standing behind her.

He felt like sitting in paradise. No thought of the future and not of any concerns no worries and no wonders. It was completely silent around him. His soul was lifted up. His eyes were directed by upward by a magic power. His spirit was filled with warm words of concern that were telling him he was told what and what not to do. His eyes stayed wide open his heart was waiting for his feelings. The next moment the scenery changed completely another curtain was lifted up. His eyes saw three red shiny apples in the hand of the dark black silhouette standing behind the young blond girl. The silhouette stretched out both hands and offered him the apples. He was tempted to get up and take them.

„Take responsibility for your son and your family,“ hit Victoria Odhiambo her husband on his left shoulder. „This is the real world the real deal!“ She had finished her cake already and was about to leave.

Joshua Odhiambo woke up and paid the bill.