Babida who had randomly discovered the whereabouts of his crush in the east of Ekule was now fleeing from her and the glorifying crowd. His true identity had been unconcealed. He was not a regular woodsman like the others. He was Babida the lumberjack, killer of the Monster of the forbidden mountain.
From that moment, he was conscious that his life in Ekule and even beyond, would no longer be as quiet as it was since his coming back to the empire a year ago.
He walked back to his home in the south of the village, his kufi hat lowered to the level of his eyebrows so that people would not recognize him. He knew news in the region spread like wildfire.
The woodsman arrived in his humble two-piece wooden cabin. He removed his leather sandals and kept them on the shoe rack on the left side of the door, then went to the center of the room and lay on the perfumed wool carpet.
He stared intensely at the ceiling above his head till he lost himself in deep thoughts. A moving light showed up and formed a circle in the middle. An image of the young maiden in a pink dress, the beautiful Suzie resurfaced. She was smiling radiantly, blinking stars, and blowing tiny bubble kisses in the shape of a heart with her right hand.
The enamored lumberjack dove even more into the depth of his dream until Burrrrrr…