Man on Trial

By Morapeli Sixishe

The story of a man who goes hunting with his dog. During their hunt, the man shoots and kills a duck. Upon their return from the hunt, they encounter a mysterious cave which the man and his dog are mysteriously sucked into. When he wakes up after being sucked into the cave, he finds himself in a city where the citizens are various kinds of animals. He wakes up in chains and is thrown in jail. To top it all, he is being charged by the animal court for the murder of the duck he killed in the real world. A lion judge, an elephant prosecutor, a pit bull defence lawyer, and a jury of twelve different types of animals. His dog and the ducks duckling are among the witness list. In the centre of it all is the man being accused of murder, purnishable by hanging. This is the new and mysterious reality he has to deal with.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Aug 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466949935

Morapeli Sixishe

Morapeli has always been fascinated by fantasy movies made in America made with CGI (computer-generated imagery) technology. Fantasy movies stimulated his imagination to a point where he got inspired to write a fantasy story himself. Hence this book Man on Trial.

Book preview

Contents

The cave entrance

A strange world

The human’s advocate

Jury selection

The trial begins

The striped witness

The prosecutor’s deal

Jude represents himself

The cave entrance

In the woods, during a beautiful afternoon, a middle aged man walks with his dog. He is wearing khaki hunting gear, hat, shirt, pants and boots all match. A special rifle with an attached lens hangs on his left shoulder and a machete in his right hand that he uses to clear the branches in his way with. While he is busy chopping down the branches in front of him with the machete, his dog walks ahead of him. It has silky light-brown fur and slightly bigger than most pet dogs like pit-bulls or huskies. It walks in front of the master sniffing the ground for trails. Suddenly the dog wags its tail.

What is it boy? he talks to the dog with anticipation and immediately, he notices duck footprints.

Good boy Sam! he remarks with excitement as he stops, bend down and sticks one knee in the ground to take a closer look at the footprints. Sam also looks at his master with excitement, noticing that he did a good job.

Come here boy, you deserve a treat! says the man as he puts the machete down and pats Sam on the head before he takes out a plastic bag with bacon strips.

Here boy! he says with a calm but happy voice as he takes out a piece to give to the dog.

Go get them boy! he orders the dog with excitement.

After getting a treat, Sam heads into the woods burking and hysterical. As he runs deeper into the woods, the master gets up and holds a position that gets him ready to fire. With the machete tucked in the belt on his waist on the right and a sack tucked on the left hand side. He stands very still holding the rifle in an aiming gesture, while he looks through the lens.

KWAK KWAK! the ducks starts making some noise.

Thaaat’s it Sam, get them out! he whispers slowly as he prepares to fire the weapon. BANG BANG! the gun goes as he squeezes the trigger.

Out of the trees and into the sky ducks start flying. At this point in time, his aim is more intense and focused. BANG!!!!! The gun goes again. He throws the gun back on his shoulder and takes out the machete and rushes into the woods. When he approaches, there is Sam burking and terrifying a wounded duck but not yet dead.

We got him boy, good job Sam, Good job boy! He remarks with excitement and hastily grabs the duck by the neck. Before the duck could KWAK again, he breaks its neck and put it to sleep and hastily shaving the dead bird in the sack. Feeling proud of himself and his best friend, ‘mans best friend’, they both turn back and head into the direction they came from.

Lets go home boy he remarks to the dog as they turn and leave.

While they are walking, Sam immediately stops and starts barking loudly as if he senses’ something terrifying in the woods.

What is boy? he asks the dog with a calm voice, noticing there could be something in the woods that they were not aware of before. He gently takes off the rifle from his shoulder and starts aiming ahead. At this point, Sam is completely still with no bark and his tail tucked in behind legs.

Oh man, whatever is in there can’t be good, I have never seen him so scared, in all our years hunting these woods! The man thinks to himself.

Come on boy! he yells with a macho and cocky voice trying to convince himself that he is not scared. As he continues walking and aiming, he notices that there is a cave entrance that he is not familiar with. Behind him, Sam starts moving backwards.

What is this? He talks to himself while aiming at the scary entrance in front of him.

He takes a few steps forward to take a closer look, Sam starts barking hysterically as if he is trying to plead with his master not to get any closer.

A soft wind starts shaking the branches in the trees and lifting off the dry leaves from the ground.

Come on Sam, don’t be silly, is just a cave entrance! He yells with his head turned back at Sam but the gun still aiming in front of him.

As he turns his head back ahead, the cave was even closer. So close it looks like some magical power pulled it towards him.

You have gotta be ki… . Before he could finish, he is sucked in by the darkness of the cave. The wind is now growing intensely, shaking the trees drastically. Small twisters’ starts lifting the ground leaves even more.

SAM, HELP!!! He screams desperately with his belly on the ground as he gets pulled in. All of sudden he cannot reach for his gun that is laying on the ground just a few centimeters away, the sack containing the duck disappears into the cave and both his hat and machete are sucked in too. With both legs being pulled in, he grips the ground with both hands for dear life. To his rescue, Sam approaches him holding a stick in his mouth so that his master can hold the other end of the stick as he tries to pull him out.

PULL SAM, PUUUUUL! He screams holding the other end of the stick as Sam pulls hard on the other side. During the course of their struggle, the wind slowly starts lifting them both into the air, and as they levitate, they both look at each other realizing that this is it.

GOOD BYE SAM! He says with a loud voice that is overwhelmed by the strong winds. In a blink of an eye, they disappear into the darkness and suddenly everything is quite and darkness prevails.

In the quietness and darkness, the man starts having dreams of his family. He recalls one memory where he is relaxing in a public park with his wife, son and his dog