Kenya 1978

The deep blue of the sky made the sun look almost white. The heat came off the ground in waves, so even the scant shade under the thin trees seemed useless as a shelter.

The tribal village filled an open area along the edge of the sparse forest; the dirt around the tents was baked dry and hard. A dozen children of different ages played a game of tag, toughing each other with sticks, then running to avoid the one who was 'it'.

Bunnie, a young girl no younger than 12 with a white streak running through her dark hair, played with them. Bunnie was proud of herself because so far she had been able to keep from getting tagged. Swaet was streaming off her head and arms, but she didn't care, she was having the time of her life. And Bunnie loved the warm air, the slight breeze that dried her sweat, the bright sun. She just loved being outside and had been for as long as she can remember. To her the sun, the rain, the winds had always been things of pleasure and joy. This game with the other children just provided her with another chance to play in the sun.

The game continued until suddenly she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The tap of the stick on her arm was like an insect sting, and the laughter of the others told her that she was it.

Bunnie could feel fear grabbing at her stomach, the last time she was it, she failed to tag anyone else and ended up laughed at for days. She was used to being laughed at, she was different from the others, and they all knew it somehow. Though except for her white streaks she had no idea how and why she was different, she just knew it.

Bunnie saw a young girl about half her age lingering near a group of giant trees with its roots sticking out of the ground, Bunnie knew that this girl was almost faster than her, but she was bigger, she ran towards her. She only realised that it was a trap when it was too late. She tripped on the roots, she looked up to see that she was surrounded by 3 nasty kids much older than her, all pointing their sticks at her and her snapped stick. Now there was no way she can win, no way at all.

Bunnie was getting angrier and angrier as the others kept poking her, then a menacing looking girl hit her, then before she knew it she was getting whipped by the older kids's sticks, she begged for them to stop, for it to end, but that just encouraged them to hit her harder and harder, so hard that it drew blood.

Why were they doing this to her?

All Bunnie wanted them to do was stop.

Why can't they just leave her alone? She could feel her face getting hot from the anger

She wanted to hit them all back, show them how it felt. How it hurt. But they kept on, and it seemed to go on forever. As Bunnie got angrier and angrier and then everything changed, the hitting slowed then stopped as the kids looked up in awe at what was happening around them. The sky was falling in big white flakes.

White, cold flakes in the heat of the afternoon, out of the blue, cloudless sky. They fell slowly at first, then faster, harder.

But none of the snow was falling on her, but Bunnie was so angry that she didn't even notice or care, she wanted the sky to keep falling on them all, to hurt them all. The white flakes falling from the cloudless heavens turned heavier, then became small chunks of ice. The kids picked up the ice, looked at it. They laughed, staring upwards as it pounded down. It was still fun for them.

Bunnie stared at the other kids, the force of her anger more overwhelming that any she had ever felt. It had built up in her for years like water behind a dam. And now the dam had burst, and she was letting all the anger flow. She had wanted, more than anything for the sky to fall on them. It was doing just that, but she wanted more. She wanted them to hurt as she hurt.

The ice chunks coming from the cloudless heavens got larger and larger, soon the other kids began shouting out in pain. They scattered, trying to run for the tents. But now the chunks of ice were so large that they began to knock the kids down, smashing the tents, breaking off limbs from the trees. She cried even harder as the kids shouted and screamed for it to stop.

Now they knew how she felt, maybe next time they wouldn't torment her again.

Bunnie looked around and it dawned on her than no flakes or ice from the sky had hit her, and the pain in her body was replaced with a deep feeling of knowing the winds and rains of understanding the clouds and the sky, she can feel the water in the Earth and the energy of the sun. All felt comforting, deep inside, she understood them, knew them all like if they are a big family.

It wasn't until she arrived home that he hair had turned as white as the snow.