Forgive and Forget Part I

“I won’t forgive him”, he spoke.

“You have to”, she said. Her hands cupped his face and bought it close. They kissed for a moment and broke off.

“I can’t”, Hack repeated.

“If you don’t... it will consume you.”

They kissed again. He was on top of her.

“I’ll try”, he started to thrust.

“Hack, there is no try. Let go. There is no point of hating... forgive and forget”

**

How many years had passed since they had that conversation, Hack wondered. His baby girl ran with the little dog. The mud was soft from the last night’s rain. His wife came out from the hut. Her hand held swollen belly. “He’s kicking”, a big smile stretched across her face. “We thought it would be a ‘he’ last time”, Hack pointed out with a grin. “Well, we can’t call it an ‘it’”, she pointed it.

“Maybe we give it a name?” suggested Hack.

“No, no, we are not doing that even before we meet him”. There was no way he was going to argue against her.

In this village Hack was no ordinary man. He was the Chieftain, the village head, their leader.

**

Of all the times, of all the days, today he thought of a memory he rarely ever thought off. He was in the village field. His shoulder arched back and the machete launched forward and hacked into the thick sugarcane cleanly slicing it off. It was back-breaking work, but years at it caused his muscles to grow. Over an hour, he spent arching back and forward with the machete.

He was not the only one working in the fields. All around him, there were women and men working on the village fields. Some were cane crop, others were cotton , another was grain.

It was at the end of an hour that the boy came running. He sprinted across the field and Hack looked at him curiously wondering what the hurry was. Then he stopped in front of Hack. “He’s... back”, spoke the boy between breaths. He couldn’t have been older than eighteen.

Hack’s movement stopped and asked him, “Who’s back?”

“You know who” the boy spoke, “It’s him. It’s Josef”.

Instantly, the expression changed on Hack’s face. A deep furrow appeared on it and a grim look took over. “Where is he?”

“At temple, offering incense”, the boy replied.  Without letting go off his machete, Hack marched across fields and entered the village path.

News of Josef’s arrival soon enough filtered through the small village.

As Hack walked through the narrow streets between huts and arriving at the edge of the village, he felt strangely calm. That name did not evoke the emotions that it did a decade ago. It was as if he didn’t care. Then, he stopped walking and decided not to even go to the temple.

Hack turned around and headed back to the fields.

**

“I knew you stopped hating him a long time ago, why do you think we stayed together?” his wife commented.

The sun had set and Hack was back in his own home.

“I thought so too, but today... it was the final test.”, he noted.

“I told you before. Forgive and forget”. Hack nodded his head as the banana leaf in front of him was loaded with grain.

Go ahead and complete Part II of the story - Forgive and Forget II

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