Father Abraham
By Ng'ang'a Mbugua
Having supped with his guests
Abraham invited them to stay on for tea
Unbeknown to him
One was the Angel of the Lord
Who'd taken on flesh and blood.
Idle talk slowly veered to succession
And, as though in passing
The Angel in loin clothes said"
'You are a good man, Abraham
The Lord will make you a father of nations.'
Abraham smiled,
He was, after all, a father figure to many
Who looked up to him for guidance
Whether men servants or their masters.
Sitting in the great outdoors that night
Abraham's guests cast their eyes above
And saw the nigh sky aglow with fancy stars
'Your clan will outnumber those,'
one guest said in jest, taking his cue from the Angel.
That night, as she lay by his side
Sarah, still troubled, said to Abraham
'I will put my maid-servant at your service
And you can have an inheritor.'
Abraham was deep in thought, pondering
Sarah's maid servant was not too bad-looking
She was as supple as a fruit in harvest season
Ripe, ready to yield, inviting
And she glowed in the morning light.
In their first rendezvous
Abraham recalled the days of his youth
When he was not Old Father Abraham
When the world knew him as Abram
A man who rode on the backs of buffalo.
He pressed her right fruit
She let out a muffled sigh
He reached for the left one
Her sigh morphed into a soft groan
The blood in his veins was growing warmer
Seeing that not one bit of the maid servant sagged
'Easy My Lord, easy My Lord,' she wept
But her plaintive cries egged on the ageing man
'My Lord, oh My Lord,' she moaned
But Old Father Abraham was consumed in his own groans
Sarah, passing by, felt a blob well up in her throat.
The next day Abraham ordered his man servants
To bring down Sarah's maid servant's hammock
And erect it close to his tent.
Each night the winds in the plains howled viciously
Rocking Sarah's forlorn tent like a dhow in high sees
Her insomniac nights were punctuated
By her maid servants ecstatic cries
'My Lord you kill me, My Lord you kill me!'
When Ishmael came knocking on the gates of life
It was with a shriek that paled his own mother's
And he found a throne in Old Father Abraham's knees.
'I have been with this man a hundred years,'
Sarah said to herself, her pain growing
'Now a toddler has stolen his heart from me.'
To her maid servant she said:
'You and your colic child must depart at once.'
Abraham's loins had grown used
To the unfettered heat of passion
And with the vengeance of his loss
He turned his rogue passion on Sarah
'You made thy bed woman,' he said with each movement
'Now you must lie in it.'
The hapless Sarah, shocked by his uncommon zeal
Drowned the howling of the night wind
With her own cries from the torture.
'I am pregnant,' she cried to him early one morning
Just as he was reaching out to turn her over
His laughter shocked the beasts of the wild into silence
'Sarah, my Sarah,' he said to her
'Have you ambitions in stand-up comedy?'
Offended, Sarah stormed away from his grasp
Tears welling up in her eyes
'Do you know the difference, Abraham
Between you and Yahweh?'
Abraham was lost in his silence
'You have forsaken me,' she said
Answering her own question.
'Still, I will give you an inheritor.'
That dusk, lost in his own thoughts
Abraham lay in his hammock
Staring at the skies above
'Two stars,' he said to himself with a chuckle
His world was filling up with possibilities
His cattle, his camels, lay like humps in the savannah,
All chewing cud placidly, waiting for the night
He smiled knowing that they, like his man servants
Would get a new master
Flesh of his very flesh.
'His name shall be Isaac,' he said to himself.
@NgangaMbugua
