Killing Substance

By Jennifer Armstrong

This poetic refrain explores the psychology of submissiveness: the rule of the father. There are echoes of Freudian psychoanalysis and Christian ideology, as the events underway as part of an African exploration pound their way to conclusiveness.

I had some fun with this, because I wanted to show what it is like to realize you are surrounded on every side, after you have been set up for sacrifice by others' whims.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9781326078157

Jennifer Armstrong

Jennifer Armstrong is the author of numerous award-winning picture books and novels. Her works include Hugh Can Do, Chin Yu Min and the Ginger Cat, The Dreams of Mairhe Mehan (a BCCB Blue Ribbon Book), and Black-Eyed Susan. Her first novel, Steal Away, was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, an ALA Notable book, and a Golden Kite Honor book. Other titles include Pockets, Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World, Magnus at the Fire, Photo by Brady, and Once Upon a Banana. She lives in New York state.

Book preview

Killing Substance

Killing Substance

Jennifer Armstrong

Copyright 2014 Jennifer Armstrong

ISBN:   978-1-326-07815-7

1

By the entrance of the kraal was a fallen, sugared yellow fence. Torrential rain had killed its

substance, and the straw and grass that made it were now shattered into fragments. Cutting

through dreams as a knife cuts through cheese --softly, steady, and silkily -- the boy could do

with some cheese right now, for He was hungry -- Tom felt the momentary twitch of pain as if a

horrible instrument of death had just this minute sliced this, he realized he was entirely Alone.

In this state of torpor, Tom mechanically propped his bike up hard against the fence, and thought

for just a while. Right there, a stray black cockerel pecked, mindlessly, against the spindled turf,

and there proceeded to mash it with its feet. But, apart from the cow and the bell, there was no

sign of any human life there, or anywhere to be found. Without thinking, Tom said a prayer, and

smoked the last remains of his dried-out cigarette -- he had saved half just in case--. The

invigorating taste of nicotine spread rapidly throughout his lungs and found its way into his body.

However, as if by a violent twinge, it alerted him to his particular plight: he was . . . entirely alone.

The ash-weary smell of Africa, of pot-dust smoke funnelling up around him was more than a wisp.

A now salient odour of some dead, decaying meat, in a winds' gust, gained a more pungent

edge.

The urge to get away, to go back home, became more prominent -- Tom plucked a spindle-leaf

from a nearby bush, and crushed it -- then paused - and reconsidered his position, for a second .

. . He knew he was a long way from home, wherever that was...

He remembered how . . .The very first fall had been a mystical one. Gold and amber oak leaves

had fallen all round the college grounds and little specks of dust had gathered up inside the

breeze of an impending winter storm. And in those months that followed, his old ways had been

forgotten -- so he thought.

Then he found some friends, who went to the same school, and he lengthened out his tone of

speech into a common drawl. At 15, Tom had been taunted often, for his pains, and yet he only

wanted to please everybody. And even now as a grown man, he wanted to be good, in future--

But his good was different from that which had become his father's -- "and that much was

certain". His father laughed-- just as if it had nothing but some weird, secret, joke.

"Don't worry, son, this is your home now -- ain't nothing in wrong in this system that can

harm you!"

His father had faith in the Land.

2

Perhaps that was easy for his father, who was quite the doctrinaire Christian. Thomas did not

believe in God. At least, he had now seen how his father would wipe away his guilt-sins, joking

along, with the parish. He tried to make out about how bad racism really was, and how George,

(he himself) would be their strongest armament against it. It was hard to believe that things

should come to this -- the lying and hypocrisy.

That was the 'real' George, his father, who could do all things with God's divine strength. Now

that his mother was in The Lord's good hands, this version of his father would be hard for

anybody to deny. And, these were all of Tom's beliefs, which assailed his mind whenever he was

all alone. During the times in Africa, before, George had been cold and hard to all. His

forbearance with the whites in Africa was matched by his