Once there were a kind of people; a migratory people, they never seemed to have an abiding city. Just like a type of bird that lays its eggs in another bird's nest and moves on, leaving the hatchlings to be raised by those said other birds in whose nests they were to have dropped off the eggs and moved from, so I've heard. Then those hatchlings would grow up to settle in amongst those of the foster parents' kind and serve them into perpetuity, mankind, or until? well, maybe.

So, these people will leave and go away. Your people, the very best of your people, I'd say. "An opportunity," they call it, a new job, you say, and mixed it in with the�?it falling on the grit. But if this is something that happens here every day, like, where the best of the rest of you leave and go away? Where does that leave you and me anyway? And you and I, what do we do in this abandoned city? Fight each other over scraps, and about who is pretty, maybe?

But what if it should make its way back home; the real truth as to why they had was to pick up, pack up, leave, and go out of town. What if the real truth were to be made known to you? Showing up on you, that, what those people did and do, was to make a statement against what you do? They pick up, pack the truck, and leave, going far away from these. Far from you and me and what we do most. "Like, trying to please?"

"Oh, please, yes." That way, they can retain a friendship, too, whenever they happen to come back, or while passing through. What if people make a statement with their walking shoes, like, with a tool of mobility, just like you?

What if people will vote with their feet, and then stay in the sweet, like, the sweet spot of your good grace? But as for me, I? this wild ass of a guy, I'm going to tell you why I ain't gonna lie. Look bacca yuh, a nuh ungle di boogie man a cum fei get yuh. Sorry folks. I tend to get carried away at times on these speeches of spokes, and rhymes. You must forgive me, or else. "Else what?"

"Well, for sure, heaven won't be seeing your face for that if you don't, close the door, if nothing else." Fun and jokes aside, though, we as a people need to take a moment to look in the rearview mirror sometimes, to assess and analyze things?-?"On the clotheslines?"

"Yes, there even."

We need to take periodic looks back over the path we have just come, to see if there are things we could learn. Things to drop off or pick up. Or even if there are things there that are worth holding on to, in the cup, cup, to carry on and continue with. Or we may choose to throw it down and let it sit. Do you think that you have done well? Why then are you so afraid to tell your stories, or have them scrolled and told for you, to your glory?

"Shut up your mouth," you say, "Don't talk too much, just pray." What is that thing that you're so very afraid of today? That someone may start to talk, perhaps, and then something might slip out from under the tongue where it was parked, and start to flap, and a few more folks might get up and start walking away from you, and yours. Could that be it? Of course, if your doings were good and you know it, shouldn't you be itching to tell and show it? Or to have someone else tell and told it, for you? But hold it, what do I know, how to do, do? Eat. Sheet, boo-boo.

We need to start practicing the art of stock-taking. It may well be because we don't dabble much in the world of business, either. Other than minding other people's business to please her. This may well be why we never seem to take stock of anything but the bin feeder. But we need to, badly. One cannot expect to be doing the same thing constantly, and then be expecting different results, unless?-?"What, unless it's like coffee?"

"No, unless that one so happens to be? well? You know the rest, of me.

The little road that Chii built is now an antique showpiece. His children, too, all his children (no, not you,) are now in managerial positions, running not only construction businesses like these into existence. But also: Merchant stores and manufacturing enterprises galore. "Oh, please!"

"Yes, among them, there are also inventors to be found, inventing not only road construction equipment to be put down, but any and every other kind of equipment one might require, as known. Other provinces across China and other places throughout the world are now in construction and upgrade mode. Upgrading the down-the-drain system, too, and the road. Although Chii is now an old man and retired (not to worry,) his construction company is still on the job and busy getting hired. Being ably run by a top-class management team, consisting of some of his very own children and grandchildren, wedged somewhere in between. You see where this is going, don't you? Chetalee sure sees it, and that is where she and the foundation are going next to, something.

"Start with what you've got," she'd said, "Expect boo-boos along the way. Plan for them, learn from them as you go along, and grow. Strive to be the very best that you can be at whatever it is that you do." Chii's hammer and chisel are in a museum now, preserved for all to come and see, somehow. Come over and see for yourself where it all got started, for him and me under the orchid. Wow!

Like a wise man once said, if you cannot find a job, go create one of your own. You can do that too, or you can go back and sit down. Continue doing what you've been doing, as it is known, like praying for jobs. Luckily for us, though, those things don't happen around our part, only among those other faraway people over there, and afar off. It's time for the wasp to grow up and transition into bees, though. Too much of the stinging and swelling, but not nearly enough of the sweetness of honey to flow, if any, with this bunch of morbidly over-churched people, I'm telling you.

Maybe, "Oh!" Perhaps we, as a people are cursed and marked for death, though, because we don't never seem to get a break, I mean, (ever.) Other than for the breaking of the neck, of any, and every one of us who happened to catch a vision for the people, what the heck? Then dared to get up, stand up, and follow after it. Follow up after that vision and see. Look out, Chetalee, they're coming to get you and me. Children of Ham, perhaps, or of a lesser god? "What's that?"

"A piece of spoken word poetry, I think."

Crying, crying, crying over you. I feel like crying, I said, I feel like crying. And you ask me whying? Well, I can't be lying. It's my people, it is for my people that I'm a-crying. I looked, and that's when I was to see. I saw them there, just across from me, wearing a frown, where there should have been a tear. And yet more tearing down of the gear, of the gown, the garments even.

They're angry, mad they are. Righteous indignation burns like hot tar. For all of this nastiness, for the pile of scraps that this traitor has gone and written, there's no forgetting that. No, too, for giving back. But oh, how one would have liked for them to have seen. The generous sprinklings of treasures and all other precious things. Scattered unsparingly and growing in between.

Which was the only real reason for this, to begin with. The stack of scraps was just there to hide them in. But they are my people, like children, aren't they? This too shall pass on, for this, too, we'll pray. I must run along now, though, but before I'm done. Of all that's already said, I must remind you of one. The robots are coming, and as for them? They ain't praying none.

Don't worry, though, your breakthrough is on the way. Elkhan, I mean, Akan. Akan has been unmasked and showed up today. You've found him, and his accursed things, you've plucked them out from where they were hiding amongst you. From among them, he has been shown up and cast out, now, look at it, Canaan is in view. Sanctify now yourselves, every one of you; wash your clothes and bathe your skin. Be clean against tomorrow in the evening.

Because the bands are coming through, to deliver you, and to take you now over into the lands and into all of the wonderful things that the Lord your God had promised, planned, and purposed in her heart to do for you, to you. For all of your wonderful people, too.

Now, be sure to remain sanctified and holy, even as you are today. Show me, I say, for the Lord your God is holy, and she's coming your way. Never allow another such thing to happen to you. Never allow another such person as Akan to rise, or come in, amongst you, or else, a worse thing than that one might come upon you. Continue now in this the right way, as you have made it happen, even to this day. Come, let us now reason together, saith the Lord of the host, and your savior. Even God, your father. If no one had told you, you probably would not have known.

Because you didn't know it, though, doesn't mean that's not how it went down. So, which of your emotions will rule supreme here today: anger or laughter? Let's choose laughter, I pray, it's medicine to the soul, they say. So, let's laugh at ourselves a little, and maybe we'll begin to live a little bit more on the pickle and love a lot, as before. Yeah! Like that, mi poop? Don't get discouraged by the letdowns and put-downs; use this as fuel for the fire, and you will have arrived home, fully grown-up, higher.

To be continued.�

WritingElk.