This is a work of fantasy and fiction. Any coincidental resemblance to actual places or persons is just that, coincidence. Copyright 2024, Coyote Howard.
***
Badru was in the center of his village, where their well was. The sandstorm around him caused his skin to tingle where the tiny grains hit, but it did not hurt.
He approached it and pulled the rope with the bucket up, but even in a dream he could tell it was empty. Dry. It had been for months.
And he looked around and saw everyone he knew around him, the orange dirt in their mouths as if they'd tried to swallow it.
They were going to die. There was no water.
"I order water to flow from this well for all," he said in his native Ghanian.
There was a burbling sound, and quickly water flowed up from the rock circle in the center of Ser'ug and onto the sands. But this water was strange, with a gray-blue tint to it's edges. It could not be stopped though, and flowed outward, over Badru's feet of 31 years.
As it hit people, they rose rejuvenated, smiling at him with sudden gray-blue irsed eyes, but blocking the winds with their arms as best they could.
Badru outstretched his hands, "I order these winds to cease!"
And they bade his command, heavy sand falling immediately and light orange dust hanging.
His wife, Chuandi, and their 5 children, suddenly emerged from the dust and embraced him, smiling and crying in happiness.
His love for them overflowed in his heart, and he woke.
"Badru?" his wife questioned from his side and he turned to look at her.
"A dream," he said, "it was like a nightmare at first. A horrible, vivid horror."
Chuandi rose up more, to her elbow on the worn mattress they shared.
"But then it turned. I was able to make it better," he said with a smile.
"That's good," she said, laying back down.
But Badru, for all his 43 years, couldn't go back to sleep. It was an unusually hot night, even for December. So he got up and dressed in his usual shorts, sandals and shirt.
Outside he looked out over the moon-lit farm that was his and had always been his family's.
Although they descended from the Kingdom of Dagbon in Togo to the east, his family had been ostracized well over 30 years prior due to his grandfather being found out as God-less.
It was one thing to not be Christian, it was another altogether to not believe at all.
But his wife had still chosen him, and they'd been married when she'd left school, so well on 25 years now.
They were well known within their village though, as their children were all still alive and well. Usually most families would lose one or two, they had not.
Badru worked his fields, he had three of them. This year he'd decided to for-go the rat race for cocoa, rubber, oil palm and citruses, instead going steady for maize. It was worth less, but much less volatile than the others.
And he was getting on in years, relatively.
Chuandi came up behind him and wrapped her strong arms around his chest.
"Still thinking about your dream?" she asked, fingers playing a random pattern on the fabric.
"I cannot get it out of my head," Badru said, a gust of wind kicking up.
They shielded themselves and turned around, he encompassing her, though she was much wider than he.
But it didn't let up, strangely like Badru's dream, only intensifying in velocity until he felt the sting of sand impacting his thin shirt and skin on his back, legs, upper arms and neck.
And the memory of the dream nagged at him.
"I order this wind to cease," he said, almost under his breath, so Chuandi couldn't hear him.
He blinked several times as the dust settled, an eerie calm washing over them both.
They turned and looked out at their farm, and saw the wind had continued, but only after about 10 feet away from them. It was as though they were in a glass bubble, the shadowy, swirling dust impossibly moving around them.
But it wasn't impossible. It was real. This was happening.
Badru's mouth dropped in amazement as he spoke, "Like my dream."
Chuandi Looked up at him, her full face questioning.
"How? What do you mean?"
"I- I dreamed that I could make the wind cease, and I said the words here, and they bid my command," he said.
His wife gripped his hand tighter.
"Are you serious Badru?" she said, her brown eyes twinkling up at him.
"I order the sky to clear so we may see the stars!" Badru said, raising his voice to almost a yell.
The wind above them stopped as well, the sand and dust falling until the night sky shown, the stars twinkling brightly, but only directly above them. Again the wind and dust around them swirled.
"Wow, Badru," his wife said to him, "Am I dreaming this?"
"I do not believe so my love," he said, looking at her. "It is so quiet all of a sudden."
"You stopped the wind. Noise is just the air molecules moving, or something like that. If you stop them, they make no noise," Chuandi said, looking up in bewilderment.
"What else could you do?"
***
"Badru! This is unbelievable!" Kwesi exclaimed, watching the water bubble up from the ground and flow down his ditch. "You just bade it flow, and here it is! No well! No pumps!"
The older man practically jumped for joy.
The drought had been oncoming for years now, every year the water getting more and more sparse.
But in the past 2 days, Badru had used his newfound power to help not only his own farm and fields, but the town of Saboba and the surrounding farmers.
And while the water came from the ground, Badru and his family had experimented with his power since 2 nights prior. The part where it came from the ground was a falsity. When he ordered it to, the water came from nowhere as if by magic. He ordered, it flowed. More than flowed. His control of water was absolute, making it make shapes like animals or objects. He'd made them a pool in their living room, then made it a spa by ordering it to be hot and bubble.
They experimented with his control of the winds as well. He made stairs of air for his children to climb, then a floor which they laid on, making them feel as though they were flying. That led to him ordering the air to lift his children up, soaring them over 15 meters into the sky before he realized his mistake and brought them back down.
And, there, were some of the dangers he and his wife had realized. If he was too vague or imprecise, bad things could happen.
"Thank you so much Badru! Thank you!" the old man said, shaking his hand vigorously.
"You are welcome, have a great harvest!" Badru smiled at the man, turning to walk to his truck.
His truck which had two more men at it, one of whom he'd met several years prior at the co-op, Fenuku was his name.
"Good afternoon Badru!" he said, smiling widely.
He was thin, as most of them were, and stood several inches taller than himself, with bigger gums and ears, but Badru remembered he was a nice man.
"Hello Fenuku," he said, gripping his hand in greeting.
He explained that he and his neighbor, including many more some 30 miles away, were also starving for water, and his cousin from Saboba had told him of Badru.
They rode separately, and when he got there he did the same thing as he had the previous two days, make the water bubble up from the ground right into their ditches, as if by magic.
It was at the last farm before heading home that Badru's ife changed, irreparably, again.
Three vehicles pulled up to the Seringa farm and men got out. They weren't wearing uniforms that Badru could tell, but he knew they were from the northern area.
The AK-47s, shotguns and handguns were what caught his attention most.
"You! You are Badru?!" the biggest one said, one-handed putting his rifle on his shoulder like a cartoon.
He easily stood almost a foot taller than Badru, and must have weighed more than 80 pounds more, of muscle, not fat.
"I am. What do you want?" Badru responded, his power bolstering his confidence.
"You are giving water away. You cannot do this," the man got closer.
"I am helping people. You will not dissuade me from this," Badru stated.
"You are stupid. I will keep this simple. You have a family. We will take them from you if you do not stop."
"You will try," Badru said defiantly.
