The Curse of the Hnf

By Colin B. Hyde

At fifty-three, Doctor Robus the health-nut-freak, Hnf for short, was the best testament to the powers of his own medicines, his almost one hundred percent vegetarian diet, and his rigorous exercise regimen. An impressive man, at first glance he looked like one born to carry sacks and sacks of corn and beans on his broad shoulders. But don’t judge this book by its cover. Robus the Hnf was not a laborer. He was a highly respected medicine man who reputedly could diagnose at a glance, or over the phone.
The Hnf was very much into the financial side of his craft. Unfortunately there were just too many quacks in the medicine business about at the time. So, while waiting for his ship to come in, he supplemented by selling turkey, which he promoted as the white meat. It was a compromise, but it knocked nothing to hell, for this white meat was what kept him a meal or two ahead of empty belly...At the time we meet him he was working a little town north of Oink called Payo Bispo, with the usual limited success. He was moseying about, cursing his fortunes, when his eyes alighted upon a sign plastered on a lamppost: Medical Specialist Needed to Save Queen in Oink. It might have read, Just About Everything You Have Been Waiting For, Doctor Robus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Colin B. Hyde
• Release date: Jun 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311570901

Colin B. Hyde

About the author -Colin B. Hyde writes stories for the young-at-heart. Find them at Smashwords.com - The author wasn’t a very studious boy. An ‘incentive’ made me into a scholarship winner in primary school, and an ‘incentive’ made me pass the five O’ levels I sat in high school - English Language, English Literature, History, Mathematics, and Biology. I almost failed Standard Five (the seventh grade in some countries). My dad, who knows a good gamble, knew he couldn’t lose when he offered me a bike if I aced the scholarship exam in Standard Six. If I miraculously won a scholarship he would have to buy me a bike. But he wouldn’t have to pay my school fees. I drifted through high school. Thanks to my mom, who threatened to throw me out of her house if I didn’t sit my O’ levels, I signed up for five of them. But I was set to fail them all, until the school’s principal, Sister Mary Sarita Vasquez, found my key—and turned it. The best thing about school was sports. I was the leader of the sports program at my high school - Belmopan Comprehensive School. Football is my favourite sport but I didn’t play it that much in high school because we didn’t have enough serious players to make a team. Our best players came from the villages – Roaring Creek, Camalote, Teakettle, and Ontario. They had to take the bus, or ride bicycles, to get home after school, so it wasn’t often they could stay after school to practice. Our football team didn’t have much success. We lost twice to Sacred Heart College (Cayo), and drew with them once. We lost in overtime to the Belize City Champions, St. Michael’s College. The boys in Belmopan preferred basketball. That game was completely new to me. I remember the first time I went out to play. I couldn’t reach the rim (with the ball) from the free-throw line. I got a little ‘fundamentals’ in my game when I was in Third Form. I noticed the younger boys at school hanging around a gentleman named Larry Scott, a Peace Corp, and I asked to join in. Through Larry Scott I learned to ‘pick-and-roll’, run a ‘two on one’ and a ‘three on two’ fast break, and to lead a one-two-two zone defense. I learned to shoot a basketball during my fourth year at high school. One day we took down the backboard to repair it. That was the first time I saw a basketball rim up close. I couldn’t believe how easily the basketball fit inside it. We played four games and won them all. We vanquished Sacred Heart twice. We defeated St. Michael’s College. And we blew out Nets, the second place team in the Belize City Junior Competition. Somebody didn’t like how I was using her school—just to play ball. One afternoon I was lounging about the school building we called Block B, when the principal came up beside me, pinned one of my ears, backed me against a wall, and said very sternly: Hyde, if you fail your exams not another boy will play ball in my school. I loved being the ‘lead dog’ but I wasn’t a greedy player. Basketball and football are team sports. If you don’t love team you’re in the wrong games. After our annual intra-school competition ended in February, I quit playing ball and set about doing right for the younger heroes at our school. When I walked away from sports in high school, I thought that was the end of my basketball career. But I did play again, briefly, after one of my brothers died. I thought maybe I could find some joy on the court so I tried out for a team in the senior basketball league in Belize City. It didn’t work out. My body was a little rusty, after not playing basketball for almost two years, and there was no ‘competition’ in my heart. I handed in my gears after just a couple of games. My five O’ levels were sufficient to get me into junior college on a scholarship, but I went to sea instead - to fish, to dive conchs, and to trap lobsters. After two years at sea, I took a year off to study at the newly formed Belize School of Agriculture, my intent being to work on both land and sea after I graduated from school. I performed well at the school, earning the prestigious student of the year award, the very first. My plan to work both land and sea didn’t pan out. I became a full-fledged landlubber; I didn’t go back to sea for over twenty years. My work on the land took me to every district, city, town and village in my country. I worked as a supervisor on a farm that produced citrus (Belize Food Products Ltd.), and on a farm that produced cacao and plantains (Hummingbird Hershey Ltd.). I worked as a research technician in the production of rice and soybeans (Cardi-Caricom Farms Ltd.). I worked as a private farmer (vegetable production). And I worked as an educator of farmers (Belize Pesticides Control Board). It was during my stint as an educator, while producing training manuals and pamphlets, that I discovered that I enjoyed writing. In 2003 I got the opportunity to write for Belize’s leading newspaper, the Amandala. I produced a weekly essay for a little over ten years. During this period I also wrote a number of small books (novels, plays, and poetry), some of them published here at Smashwords. com Colin Hyde the novelist is very different from Colin Hyde the sportsman. I was a fierce competitor in the sports arena. I didn’t sleep well when my team lost a game. If I met a boy who had a better game than I had, I ‘went all out’ to make sure that when we met again, I was boss. I love my stories and want people to appreciate them. But I don’t sweat about my place in the world of writers. Maybe that’s because I discovered my passion for writing when I was well past my childhood. Colin B. Hyde was born in Belize City, British Honduras (Belize), in 1957. He is married and the father of two children. His published pieces include: Unbridled (poetry), They Stole Whopper’s Snapper (prose), First Encounter (prose), The Curse of the Hnf (prose), Borly and the Slick Jaymz Gang (prose), Invasion of the Mangrove Goons (prose), Growing up in Old Belize (childhood autobiography), Possession Woes (prose), and You Must Take Naomi (play).

Book preview

The Curse of the Hnf

By

Colin B. Hyde

Cover drawing by Charlie Chavannes

This book first published (paperback) under the pen name, Cypher. This version condensed. Cover design by Felene M. Cayetano.

Copyright ©2005, 2016 by Colin B. Hyde

Published by Colin B. Hyde of Camalote, Cayo District, Belize C.A.

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1

Pig heaven

Duhende’s deception

Jrake’s story

Chapter 2

Oink City

The Land of Oink

The Business of Oink

Nyam Foo and his household

A letter to the king

Chapter 3

For the good of the kingdom

Enter the Hnf

The curse

Rubbing salt in an open wound

Media blitz

Consolidated Oink

A rebellion quelled

Chapter 4

Battle lines

A sneaky plot goes poof!

A governess for Wytan

Marriage plans

Husband wanted

Wytan thrower

A whiff of smoke

Titanic

Chapter 5

Boozy meets Woo

Chapter 6

Guess it’s over, Wytan

Titanic speared

Larceny in the making

The bride or the groom

The hour of decision

Glory days are here again!

The return of the Hnf

Foreword

(by Dr. Silvaana Udz)

The Curse of the Hnf! It’s a must read for the sheer pleasure of reading. Colin oinks his way into our hearts, in a lighthearted tale that will leave you squealing with protest at the sheer faysinis of the Hnf. Greed and gullibility, manipulated so enticingly by the Hnf, are no strangers to most of us. But Colin’s magic with words captures these universal themes in an entertaining story that has the Hnf giving con artists a whole new name.

The story is set in the fictional land of Oink, which could be just about any small community in Belize or the region. Colin begins by tantalizing the reader with the folktale aura of Oinkland’s past, where the pig is a national symbol – revered, celebrated and…eaten; pork is the driving force of the economy.

Enter the Hnf, a charlatan bush doctor who takes advantage of a desperate leader, depressed beyond depth by the inexplicable illness slowly killing his wife. As the Hnf sets about to change the land’s staple diet and culture for his own mercenary ends, the entire country’s identity is in danger of collapsing, saved at the ultimate hour by a girl.

Spend an afternoon with the Hnf, and you’ll find yourself shaking your head and smiling as you recognize something of yourself or someone you know. Colin skillfully draws us into the day-to-day plotting of the Hnf, masterfully interweaving modern day references into the mystique of Oinkland, even as his use of language tickles the tongue and whets the appetite for the next page.

The Curse of the Hnf is an entertaining and classic contribution to Belizean literature, joining Colin’s two other short novels They Stole Whopper’s Snapper and First Encounter.

Chapter 1

Pig heaven

A long time ago, in a land called Oink, there lived a bright and benevolent king who looked after the needs of his people with the affection of a mother hen.

It was the desire of this king, King Nyam Foo, that his subjects have everything they needed, and if not all, much of what they wanted. To facilitate the transportation of people, merchandize, and supplies, he designed and supervised the construction of all-weather roads and bridges. He provided loans at favorable rates, so all the farms had the necessary infrastructure, including irrigation systems, proper drainage, implements, and store buildings.

Nyam Foo spared no expense to educate his subjects about how things worked, why you did it this way, and not that, why assignments were awarded on merit, and not on favor, and why one should never present shoddy jobs or fritter away precious time haggling over frivolous matters. He also taught them about the importance of fiscal and personal discipline, and how to recognize a good thing when they saw one.

When Nyam Foo called fajina, which is what they called a day’s labor gratis for the community, they reported early, before the sun rose gloriously from the sea, and left late, after it settled quietly behind the hills. When Nyam Foo sold raffles to buy books for the school, the tickets sold like hot Johnnycakes. When Nyam Foo needed funds to provide for the old home, and to do repairs on public buildings, they turned their pockets out – gave and gave until the treasury was flush.

When the people weren’t busy giving, or working, they occupied themselves with the little things that make life worth living – jousting and playing sports, practicing elocution, composing songs, and attending theater.

Best of all they loved merry making, especially on payday quincena, when the old, the not so young, and the ‘tweeners, gathered at sunset for fun and games, and parties until daylight. For these occasions there was plenty of music, many stages and kinds of drinks, and delicious foods – sweets, puddings, corn, tortilla, coleslaw, beans, chicken, beef, mutton, game meat – and pork, which they loved best of all, especially the chops.

This favoritism for pork made a lot of sense, for their economy revolved around the domestic pig. They tended pigs in the morning, bartered pigs at noon, played greasy pig in the evening, and feasted on pigs at suppertime.

Everyone who entered Oink knew that in that land pigs had high standing, for at the entrances to the kingdom there were giant billboards celebrating the virtues of pigs, and on all days set aside for special purposes, or reverence, it was pigs that had the place of honor.

It was near all clear sailing in Oink. An inconsequential cult, one which espoused new ideas about the proper reverencing of pigs, had sprung up to challenge the traditional Pig-ions Originals, or PGees as they were called for short. This new cult, the Pig Heads, its raison d’ëtre was that it was a form of contradiction to both revere pigs, and eat them. But of course the latter group was taking a good thing too far, for their economy depended on pork, and as this was before tourism, the era when people paid hard cash for sightseeing, pig’s advantage lay in the fact that it was, and is, the sweetest meat.

Duhende’s deception

The sweetness of pig’s pork has never been a matter for contention. Everyone knows that when it