Mo as an Ostrich
by Albert Russo
We all know how stupid
ostriches are, apart from the fact that ostrich
steaks are the best in the world. I had a taste
of it in South Africa, not only is it as lekker
delicious as roast beef, but it is sans all the
bad cholesterol of red meat.
Now that I think of it,
maybe the ostriches aren’t that dumb. They
hide their heads so they can’t see or hear
the booming volley of bullets shot at them
through their behinds. It’s like them poor
prisoners of war who are blindfolded so that they
won’t know who their executioners are. If,
Goddess forbid, something like that should happen
to me and I fail to escape my pursuers, I’d
always have a headband with me so that I could
tie it around both my eyes and my ears. In any
case, the sight of blood makes me swoon, even
though I don’t perform the way my uncle does,
who, as soon as he has a tiny lil scratch on his
knee, starts howling like a cry-baby, or worse,
like them hijab-clad mourners following the
coffin of a terrorist relative who has failed to
blow up the innocent people he wanted to kill,
and instead died alone on account that his bomb
exploded too early. When my uncle does that - cry
in the highest pitched voice, only an opera singeress
can match, after having downed a full bottle of
vodka - not kill, you nerd, he couldn’t harm
a mosquito even if that lil bugger pricks him
from head to toe, it happens to him in summer or
when we visited Senegal and South Africa - in the
middle of a crowd, like that time we were
strolling in the Jardin des Tuileries, I’m
the one then who wants to hide my head in the
sand. He’s so quiet otherwise that you ask
yourself if suddenly he isn’t possessed by
the devil voodoowise.
Oh so, I’m tiring you
with my digressions! What? It gives you
indigestions, hey. Next time bring a tube of Alka
Seltzer, so you’ll be prepared. Good reading
is a most intelletchual exercise, and
yeah I’m an interesting and imaginative
writer, my prestigious pears and apples
have repeatedly said so, and to hell with the
critics who don’t like my work. You’ve
been warned.
Still hiding his face,
Moses heard Goddess’ injunction piercing his
poor ears:
“Go back to Egypt,
deliver my suffering people from Pharaoh’s
clutches and bring them to the new land I’ve
chosen for them. It’s a place flowing with
milk and honey”.
In them olden days, they
were the healthiest food you could have. I can’t
stand milk, specially the type with thick cream
forming on the surface when it is piping hot. The
first time a nun forced me to drink it at
kindergarten, I threw it up on her white robe,
and loo and bee bee hold, she slapped me
on both cheeks, can you believe it?
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