My Flash Fiction, “Djibouti.”

 

Copyright Glo Lewis 10/1/2023

 

Dear Readers of My Blog, 💚

 

I have decided to share my Flash fiction, “Djibouti” with you. Here is the story below (As usual, God bless, and I'll be in touch soon):

 

 

Djibouti 

Copyright Glo Lewis 10/01/2023

 

 

    It is June 27, 1977. The temperature, wet with mugginess, soars

 to over 100 degrees. Yet, the crowd, used to these conditions, is

undaunted. In a sea of waving banners and balloons, smiling men

hold tight to their spears, and graceful women flash their daggers.

It is Independence Day to the French Territory of the Afars and the

Issas. A red star on the flag of this new African nation symbolizes

the birth of the Republic of Djibouti.

   Maxwell Kaplan sips iced tea and munches on English biscuits as he watches the celebration from high above Djibouti town in his fifth floor room in the Bab el Mandeb, or Gate of Sorrow Hotel. A small fan on the corner of the bureau rattles out a cool breeze. Kaplan is an American journalist on assignment on Africa’s Horn. He has been covering the story for almost a year. Wiping beads of sweat from his forehead with a damp hankie, he speaks into a tape recorder in his classic confident timbre: “Rioting still rages in Ethiopia’s province of three million Muslims and Christians. Many Arab states aid the rebels. Thousands of Cuban troops and massive Soviet military supplies have bolstered Ethiopia’s Marxist regime. Last March, the nation expelled Somali troops from the Ogaden, but skirmishes continue. Amid continuing political unrest, Djibouti remains a neutral harbor on the Red Sea. The recent Somali-Ethiopian war interrupted Ethiopia’s trade via the Port of Djibouti. Two weeks ago, I entered Ethiopia through the Port of Djibouti and Addis Ababa with a French journalist and a British photographer. By jeep, we observed that rioting continued in the countryside and partially along the perimeter of Ogaden, near Somalia. We witnessed the slaughter of hundreds of women and children, whole families.”  He grits his teeth, choking up, and turns off the tape recorder.

   He has a decision to make. His editor wired this morning that he would like him to return to the rioting in Ethiopia, now in Eritrea, near the Red Sea. Sometimes I hate this bloody life, this job, he thinks. He cups his face in his hands. If the going gets too rough, he knows, he might not be able to evacuate out. He wonders if he is getting too old for this young man’s game. Maybe he should ride a desk back in the states. He thinks of his wife, Holly, of her long legs in black stockings as she sat on his lap last holiday season when he flew home. He remembers his two sons, who have not seen him in months. He sits down with a tiny bottle of Scotch from the room’s wet bar. He sips the Scotch slowly. It puckers the kisser, he thinks.

   In a moment, he packs his bag for Eritrea. 

 

The End