The Battle For Water (Flash Fiction Part 3)

Flash Fiction #126

This is the last part of the story. The first part can be found here and the second part is here.

I’ve tried to come up with a better ending, but so far I have been unsuccessful. Now I have no choice but to just describe the real life ending. It was a story I heard when I was in middle school. It happened in the village not far away from the coal mine where my father worked at the time. I didn’t like this ending back then and I don’t like it right now. Still, it is an ending nonetheless.

Tiki’s return sparked a lot of controversies and disputes. First of all, he wanted his wife and his child back, but that seemed to be impossible. His wife preferred his cousin and his son ran away every time he saw him.

Tiki wanted the reward he was promised, but the village elders told him that all the reward had been paid already, which was used to fix his roof, repay his gambling debt. The rest went to his wife and her new family.

Tiki wanted his old house back, but that was also deemed impossible since his cousin, his wife, his son were living there, with another baby coming.

Tiki wanted his plot of land back, but that was also an unsettled thing, although it was the least controversial issue of among all the difficulties. Tiki’s land had been work on by his wife and her new family. Since the year’s harvest had already past, the head of the Tiki’s extended family and the village elder promised that something would be done to give Tiki’s share back to him when the next spring came.

Where would Tiki live? Since all the houses were occupied, Tiki could only be placed in the old bungalow where the village militia used to gather and the homemade bomb used to be produced. Since their successful negotiation with the northern village, the bungalow had not been used for several years.

There were rumors in the village that the village elders were thinking of doing matchmaking for Tiki so that he would stop ‘harassing’ his wife’s family. Once the news spread, all the families with eligible girls were against it–they either sent their girls away to stay with relatives until after Tiki got married, or they hastened their marriage arrangement so that their girls would not be selected.

Poor Tiki couldn’t get anything that he was supposed to get. And staying in the deserted bungalow made him more lonely than his days of wandering around not knowing who he was. The autumn passed and the winter came. Since Tiki didn’t store any food during the year, he relied on the handout from his extended family and other villagers. Everybody considered him a burden and a pest. They often verbally abused him when they brought food to his bungalow.

The new year festival came and the village had their week long festival, for which a traveling performance group of stilt walkers and singers was invited. Firework was arranged for display on the edge of the lake with a thin layer of ice on top.

As the crowd gathered, they saw Tiki with a wheeled push cart, on top of which something was piled and bulged, covered underneath of a bed of straws.

“Is Tiki bringing us gifts?” Someone said.

“I hope he can be happy and smile a little. That will be his biggest gift to us.” Someone else saud.

Tiki pushed the cart into the crowd and it exploded. It’s the biggest explosion the surviving villages said they had ever seen.

And this is the real life ending of Tiki’s story and it’s a big carnage. I really dislike this ending. I’ve been thinking of an alternative ending, for which Tiki was approached by a journalist and a historian who were collecting local stories and chronicling local events. Eventually they helped Tiki publish a book to talk about his story, exposing the hypocrisy of the villagers and the whimsical vicissitudes of life. Tiki finally had his revenge.