Chapter 1: https://mike3839.com/2026/08/21/sanitys-edge-1/
{This has been posted before, but I’ve included an additional scene i left off before to save space. Enjoy. }
That first night I couldn’t sleep. I’d taken to the deck because Youssou and I couldn’t get the hang of those bloody hammocks. Despite all the mind tricks I knew to try to sleep, my thoughts couldn’t stop chasing themselves. What was I doing here? Why was I free? I probably should have thought my next action through more but well, it was a habit that had always settled me at home.
Youssou was a rock once sleep overtook him. That wasn’t a problem. I slipped off the ship after dark, once I could sense that everyone in the village was asleep. The forest was new but Mama had found me a new friend. We stared at each other under the shade of a mango tree as the Moon climbed into the sky.
Its tongue flicked the air in the three-meter space that divided us. This wasn’t one of the gen-altered snakes I was accustomed to from my home. This bugger was all wild, possibly the first of its kind that I’d seen since childhood, possibly the first I’d ever seen in my life. Sweet Ngai, was she massive! Her trunk was thicker around than my thighs.
I sensed her full belly, so I had no worries on that score. Her scales had a fresh gloss, as though she had just completed shedding not too long ago. I suppose she wouldn’t object to a warm body to enfold. I closed the distance between us and stepped into her embrace.
I knew this would be a problem as soon as a hundred kilos seemed on my hips, pressing me down. My knees buckled at first, but I kept to my feet as a second curl of muscle wound behind my legs, brushing the skin of my thighs before plopping atop the first coil, in the process pushing up my breasts.
Both were solid rippling muscle. A thrill shuddered through my chest, and perhaps a little excitement. I’d never given myself to such a beast before. A third coil slipped past my shoulders, pressing my breasts into flattened ovals between them. Sweat trickled over them and down the middle of my back; but that was probably just the heat of this place. For now, I was content. As I held out my hand, the last meter of its tail settled in my palm, circling twice before cinching tight. With my eyes shut, we dropped as one bundled mass into the soft grass.
Of coure that wasn’t the end of it. When was it ever so? The sun had barely emerged as a pink fingernail on the horizon when my hand comm chirruped in my waist pouch. This was ten meters away, along with the rest of my clothes.
Brutus, for so I named her, showed no inclination to release such a rich source of warmth, and gods, I didn’t want to leave this body hug just yet, either. Oh well. I stretched forth my free hand, the new new left one.
The hand comm made an oddly hard thump as it whipped through the grass into the false meat of my false hand. I settled back in Brutus’s coils, pillowing my neck on hers as I put the comm to my ear. “Jambo?”
“The correct greeting would be I ni sogoma, young miss, but we will let it pass this time,” a firm male voice replied. “Am I speaking to Miss Jamai Dlamini?”
“Yes,” I said, suddenly a little nervous.
“My name is Magistrate Oumar Hadad, the local prefect for this hamlet. Would it be possible for you to spare me a few minutes?”
“H-have I done something wrong?”
“Not at all. Your Captain Ismalla discovered you missing this morning and got it into his head that you would be in the fields, with a snake. And so you are.”
My body seemed to have frozen, even snug in Brutus’ coils, though my stare darted left and right. “Don’t be alarmed. The local children spotted you sleeping from some trees they were climbing. They almost took you for dead, but for the fact that you were snoring.”
“I snore…?”
“My deputy has been watching you via long-range glasses, to see to your safety. He will escort you to my office, in your own time.”
My own time…I could make them wait another hour…No, best to be done with it. “Whenever he’s done masterbating, I’d like to dress in peace.”
A deliberate pause followed. “Let me speak with him. You can pull yourself together while I’m berating him.” And the comm chirrped off.
The deputy met me at the edge of the forest skirting town, looking properly chastised. The pair of us kept our own counsel as we walked the paved streets. Though they said nothing, I sensed the scrutiny of a thousand eyes on my back. The mood of the people varied from uncertainty to curiosity. Add to that not a little fear, a reflection of which tingled in the pores of my back.
And the children, all watching me, a thousand tiny sparks peeking around corners or from behind purification wells. Any time we dared to glance their way they would duck out of sight, often with giggles. The impressions I gained came too quick to discern any malicious intent from among any of them.
Soon enough we arrived at a plain white building. The deputy held the door and ushered me inside. We crossed behind a reception desk, where he led me to the prefect’s office.
Once I was seated I felt like a truant chid. Indeed, apart from the red dust that was everywhere, this was much like our school headmaster’s office with its plain whitewashed walls, the worn carpet and one solid stool facing the prefect’s desk. The surface was crowded with a lamp, report slabs and least three drive units, whirring as though in the throes of pain.
A young girl offered me a glass of water which I kept in my lap, hardly daring to move until the prefect finished perusing his reports. He had stern features and, I suspect, had them even when in a good mood, which he seemed to be in now.
He was dressed in an immaculate white uniform, even discounting the sweat stains in the pits. He was broad in shoulder with a not too imposing height. Though his limbs didn’t seem all that muscular, he emanated a vibrant energy force that uplifted me just being in his presence.
Any further speculations were rattled out of me when he slapped his last report slab on the desktop. “Well! This may be a good opportunity to introduce ourselves, Miss Dlamini. Welcome to the Mali Quarter. I think perhaps there are things you should be made aware of, so that we have no such misundertandings in future.
“You will find we have good people here with moderate opinions. But we also have some imams with a strict moral compass, one might say the type that forces one into a straitjacket. There are fetichers, people of traditional beliefs. They will be understandably…confused, about where you would fit into their world view. Are you an animist, Miss Dlamini?”
“What? No, I’m uncommitted,” I said, staring down at my feet. “I was never forced to choose a belief system.”
“Nor will you have to here.” The Prefect took this moment to rise, pacing lion-like around his desk. “We’ve had a difficult history, periods of great scholarship punctuated by radical fanaticism. The last such period was the worst, with young terrorists seizing Timbuktu, trying to impose their version of the Faith. Ha! You know we’d had a thousand years of Islam in Timbuktu, and these children would dare to come in and tell our elders their faith is lacking?
“We’d had to deal with such fools for decades. Add to that the hordes of displaced peoples fleeing the oceans, dying because their wells suffered from saline infiltration…it’s a wonder we didn’t start killing each other sooner.”
He faced away from me now, hands crossed over his bum as he stood behind his desk. “Entire river systems, like the Gambia, washed away. Four million souls were crowded into smaller and smaller refugee centers, congregating with fanatics who considered them all squatters and sinners.”
Now he pivoted back to me, and though he smiled I still thought he might rip my head off. “I tell you this because we’ve maintained an uneasy peace for many generations. Whenever a new unit enters our ranks, there are many who feel reason to be apprehensive.”
I kept staring at the hands fidgeting in my lap. “I assume you know about my criminal history.”
“Yes. But I’ve examined it closely. I believe you acted in your own defense. Coupled with the glowing review given you by Captain Cobalt of the Kivulu Division–“
“’Glowing’? He was nice…?”
“As much as one can expect from a captain of the Rangers. What plans do you have for yourself?”
“I hadn’t thought about it. The elders rushed us out the door, they were so eager to be rid of us. The rail-ride was all a blur. Honestly, I tried to sleep through most of it. I never thought I’d have a future.”
“Your past will not be an issue here. If you wish I will speak with the Eldresses about career opportunities you could explore.”
“You have…Eldresses?”
The prefect smiled. “Things have changed. Tradition is the foundation of civilization, but it is no longer an impediment to cultural innovation. The Eldresses help their fellow sisters, hold social events. Look them up when you have the time.
“Now then, there is one more item. If you really want to fit in, Miss Dlamini, you will need a Malian name.”
“Is there anything wrong with the name I have?”
“Not at all, its simply customary for strangers to adopt a Muslim name when they come to our country. It’s been done with white aid workers for centuries. Fatumata for example is a common one–“
“I’d prefer Fatima.” I raised my head for the first time and smiled at him. “That was my mother’s name.”
“That’s a fine idea. I will register that in our records. You may explain this obsession with snakes as a harmless pastime to our community representatives at a later date.”
Captain Ismalla smiled glumly as I left the prefect’s office. Youssou on the other hand glanced up once from his seat, then looked away.
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