STOKE OF NOON

Sande was on his farm at the stroke of noon. He is always still working on his crops past noon. For a man of low intelligence over almost everything, he sure knew how to take care of his farm.

'He'll be stuck there all day! ' His wife Nana would spit.

But she was glad deep down .

'Father loves his farm more than his family. ' His eldest son Biko would lament.

He didn't care for the love.

'He didn't go to school, all he could do is farm. ' His only younger pompous brother would say whenever he came back to the village with the lightest skinned woman clung on him.

'He works hard that I give him, but he doesn't make much from it seeing as how the brokers swindle him. ' His jealous neighbour would throw in.

He was one of those brokers.

'He'll one day drop dead in that farm my son! ' His mother and remaining parent would complain.

Her concern was getting free food so she showed she cared.

'He farms very hard but others reap the benefits. That man is so strong. He is very hardworking. He would have made it in life if it wasn't for the wife. That woman is wicked. All she cares for is eating meat and buying wigs. Thunder will strike her one day! ' The village gossip who is also his secret admirer would rumble.

Poor Sande. And to think having a name that sounded close to Sundae or Sunday was magical and everything flowed with sugary goodness or majestic serenity.

Part of the reason he started staying at his farm all day for six days a week was that, people talk a lot and they judge a lot more and they are very harsh in their judgement.

Being busy and producing quality farm produce gave him that escape window. And he's never looked back. Couldn't ever look back.

He had his chance to do what he loved whenever he wanted . Such a blessing. Love you give is to love you. His farm loved him right back. He grew cabbages, pumpkins, carrots, plantains, potatoes, onions, capsicum, Napier grass and Lucerne . All these crops did very well under his care. In his village Sande needed no introduction.

First it's his name then his legacy of being the farmer of the year every year. He's had quite the prominent persons come around to check out his farm. He is that good a farmer.

So this particular stroke of noon, something is different. He was weeding his cabbages fragment ,then suddenly he was hit by a wave of something he couldn't explain. It felt kind of painful but there was no pain, it was weird and felt cold as much as hot.

Then he couldn't remember what day it was and why he was at the farm. He questioned his own name. He felt dizzy and so he abandoned his farming tools and also apart of his dressing. And not just his straw hat or gumboots not even just his checkered shirt. He abandoned his long trousers too.

He left screaming and covering his ears as if blocking noises from angry mob after him. He could swear he had the cabbages talking. This made him run madly to his home. He thought if he was loosing his mind he'd rather it be at the comfort of his humble abode.

As he reached his door he realized nothing is how it is. The place is unusually quiet but his head is filled with voices. There is arguments, one particular about Potassium levels . There is flirting. There is a Capella singing from very high pitched voices. There is mischievous laughter and then humming from quite a number of people.

He didn't know who's voices they were. But he knew he had never heard them before. And they never stopped talking. He didn't stop screaming. He was panicking. He thought his working in the farm all day had gotten to him and now he has gone mad and all alone.

He wished his family was right there with him. He wished to see their faces one more time. So he looked for them all over but didn't find anyone. He panicked.

"Please stop! Please !" He cried and begged for his head to calm down.

He felt a force pulling him towards the ground. Gravity does that but it uses a force of roughly ten Newtons. People are always standing and it's like that force is not even there.

He felt a force of like a hundred bulls pulling him to the ground. He tried grabbing on to the couch in his living room but his resistance was met with a stronger pull.

He ended up on his knees then he collapsed on the floor feeling completely drained. It felt like working on the farm all week without a break. His last thoughts were on a certain cabbage that ate all the others. He didn't know why he thought like that.

A few minutes after he's passed out , his main door opens slowly and in steps a form dressed like a person playing laser tag. Deep green shiny suit that hugged their body tight. At the back, eight tentacles hid behind the form. The head was in a big helmet that looked like the form came from the moon.

In their hands which had three fat fingers, the form held what looked like a pair of headphones. Black in color. The form turned it's head to the side presumably looking at the wall. There was no shadow. It's like light pass right through it.

It stepped more into the room and of course saw the almost naked man laying on the floor. The form walked around him and inspected the whole house. it was a very big house. Took it just a minute.

It walked back to the man and used it's tentacles to lift him up. Using the six fingers it then felt on his jugular, his wrist and chest just to be sure he's alive.

The man was alive. So it carried him with the tentacles still. From how huge and irregular shaped the form looked, the man seemed like an almost life size rug doll. And with his being out of it and not resisting gravity working on his body, it sure did actually look like he was a doll.

The form walked in an unstable manner as if it's legs were the size of a needle tip and it had to support hundreds of kilograms. But the legs were so huge. Once outside, the form uses it's fingers to press buttons on the headphones looking thing. The center of it turns blue with what looked like non luminous flames dancing around.

Suddenly, there is a bigger circle of the same manner a few feet from where they are standing which is connected to the smaller one by a thin blue beam.

The bigger one then starts flicking in and out of another place which wasn't clear at first. But after a few seconds it stabilizes and the other side is clear. There walks by another form that looks like the one carrying Sande with its on victim.

Further from there there is these many cages that look like all glass elevator on the side of a building but with many tubes inside that people are in connected to. Each person in their own. Looks like Sande is going to have his own too. And isn't that Nana over there too. Those people look frozen.

The form starts walking towards the portal. That funny walk which would be a good laugh if people weren't being kidnapped. A little trip looks like all it would take to bring the invader down to be acquainted with the ground.

Before the form could reach the portal though, it closes abruptly but not without a few twitches and of course the little flecks like those of a fire works before it bursts into flames.

The form is confused but doesn't get the time to recollect it's thoughts because a rain of vegetables comes down on it!