Mother Nature (eBook)

Incipiamus

Tamaryn van Rensburg (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
256 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-8196-4 (ISBN)

Infos

The world is changing and not for the better. Humans do what is necessary to live their best lives. Despite others. Despite Nature. Abaddon is happy. Mother Nature is not.

Tamaryn van Rensburg was born in South Africa. She grew up in Pretoria and has a degree in Animal and Wildlife Sciences. After spending 30 adventurous years in South Africa, she relocated with her husband and son to the United States to start a new chapter. Now situated in Iowa, Tamaryn is pursuing one of her many passions - to share her stories with the world.

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Under the malevolent influence of Abaddon and his Legion, humans are driving the natural world into ruin. After witnessing the devastation of her creation for years, and enduring countless victories of Abaddon over mankind, Mother Nature decides it must end. It's the 2020s on Earth. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified inequalities among people, and Abaddon's work is visible across the globe political corruption, poverty, greed, broken human relationships, and climate change. The Amazon Rainforest suffers from deforestation, and its people face crimes against humanity. The ocean's ecosystems are collapsing; corals are bleaching, and sea creatures are being overfished and killed. Antonio Aguilar, an indigenous tribe member from the Amazon Rainforest, and FJ Smit, an animal scientist from the United States, go about their daily lives until Mother Nature intervenes in unexpected ways, changing their lives forever. Humanity sees the signs; they feel it in the air. Mother Nature and her skopos begin their fight against evil.

Textauszug

Prologue

It’s not what you have at the end of life, it’s what you leave behind that matters.

– Stedman Graham

~ A life ~

They say there are beautiful places in this world. I’m sure there are places more beautiful than what I’m looking at right now, but I doubt it. Elizabeth sits on the farm gate, staring over the Free State plains as the sun rises. It’s as if golden fairy dust is being sprinkled onto the veld and fields of crops with every ray of sunlight. The cattle bulk and the sheep bleat in the distance. Springboks come into view as the sun climbs higher and higher into the sky. The air is so fresh, you can smell the day is brand new.

“Elizabeth!”

Elizabeth is torn from her bliss. She quickly jumps off the farm gate and runs toward the house.

“Elizabeth!” Her mom calls again.

“Yes! I’m over here!” Elizabeth runs to her mom, who is waiting for her at the door.

“Elizabeth, are the horses ready? I’m almost done with your sister’s hair and, for heaven’s sake, where are those brothers of yours? Find them, please! You are going to be late for school! And make sure those horses are ready!” Her mom hurries back into the house.

Elizabeth’s mom is always flustered in the morning. Can’t really blame her. Every day starts before the sun even peeks its nose out. Coffee needs to be made before Dad goes out to milk the cows. Then Mom needs to get herself ready for the day; no matter how poor, farm ladies are always as tidy and neat as possible; no city women will point a finger at them. And then Mom needs to start breakfast and get all the kids ready for school. Well, the horses are saddled up and ready to go, as this is Elizabeth’s responsibility for every morning, and she has a good idea where the boys can be. Elizabeth makes her way to the kraal, where her dad is busy with the cows. On the way, she passes three old gum trees. They have grown in such a manner that the branches look like the back of a camel with two humps. Elizabeth has read a library book with pictures of these desert animals and every so often, she comes here and pretends she is riding a camel surrounded by mountains of sand dunes. She reaches the kraal and sees Dad sitting on his stool, almost done with the second cow.

“Good morning, Father.” Elizabeth greets her father respectfully.

“Good morning, my child. Almost done with Potsdam; she has a lot of milk to give this morning. Shouldn’t you be off to school by now?” Elizabeth’s dad is strict, but kindhearted.

“Yes, we’re about to leave.” Mom is probably losing it by now. “But the boys aren’t home. Have you seen them?” Elizabeth burrows her toes into the fine dirt.

“Yes, I sent them to the sheep to see if there are any newborn lambs this morning and to make sure the herd is still healthy.”

“But, Father, that is a lot to do before school. Are they done yet? Because like you said, we need to leave now, or we will be late.” Their mom is going to come down on them like a hailstorm on a cornfield.

“I don’t understand why my sons still need to go to school. They can read and they can write; there is nothing more they can teach them there while here is a lot of work for them to do.” Elizabeth’s dad sees the blood leaving her face. “Don’t worry; I’ll be the one to tell your mother. I’m done with Potsdam. I’ll walk back with you. The boys should also be home by now.”

They are still a few meters away, but Elizabeth can see the smoke coming from her mother’s ears. At least everybody is there—even the boys—and she is sure her brothers told their mom all the work their father gave them to do before school. Luckily, with Elizabeth’s father next to her, Mom will project all her anger and frustrations onto him. The children say their quick goodbyes to their parents and leave before the argument gets too heated.

On the back of the horse, with the wind in her hair, Elizabeth forgets about all her worries. She feels free. The children ride through the fields and past magnificent places—you can believe fairies live in the willow trees next to the vley. The city folk may have fancier clothing and better houses, but they do not have the beauty that surrounds them on the farm. They don’t know what it is like to have Nature as a companion. Elizabeth is excited for what the new day can bring. How can’t she be if she’s so in tune with her surroundings? Feeling fresh like the new day! Everything seems peaceful, as if time does not influence it. And yet, with a blink of an eye, eighteen years have passed.

Elizabeth is done with breakfast and the house is nice and warm. She looks at the clock against the wall; it is time that everybody returns home. The door opens and her two eldest daughters come in. They were harvesting the land with the tractor. Their faces are dirty and their cheeks are red from the cold.

“Quickly now. Clean yourselves up and get yourselves warm. Breakfast is ready.” Elizabeth’s words sound harder than she means. “And make sure your sisters are also up and ready.”

Her daughters disappear to their room. With all the work that needs to be done on the farm, everyone must do their part, even her daughters. Her two eldest help on the farm wherever help is needed. This time of the year, it is harvesting. Her two younger daughters help in and around the house. The boys go with their father; her eldest son helps his dad with milking the cows and the twins help however they can as they are still very young.

The door opens again and her husband and eldest son walk in. The twins do not follow.

“Where are Vinkel and Koljander?” she asks her husband.

“I have sent them to pick up some cornstalks. I am sure they will be here in a minute.”

“It is like you don’t know those two at all,” Elizabeth says, a bit irritated.

“What do you mean?”

“They get paid a penny for each bag they fill with stalks; they won’t come back until there are no more stalks to pick up! On top of that, they will do anything to skip school. You better go and get them or else we won’t see them till dusk.”

Her husband leaves with a sigh. She would usually go after the twins herself and bring them back from whatever mischief they’re busy with. But her due date is almost here and it’s the middle of winter.

Her husband manages to bring the twins back by their ears and all the children are fed and ready to go. It is cold this morning and no one seems eager to get into the little Volksie to leave for school.

“You children can be grateful to be driven to school in a car. When I was young, we had to take the horses to school. And before we had horses, we had to walk barefoot. In the winter we would walk through the cattle herds so that we could put our cold feet into the warm manure. And if there were no herds along the way, we would pee on our feet to get them warm.” How times have changed, thinks Elizabeth. “Now please hurry and get in; we don’t want the bus to leave without you again.”

It is about a fifteen-minute drive to get to the tar road where the bus picks up the children. The school sends out a bus to pick up all the farm kids, but they must wait for it by the tar road. In Elizabeth’s case, the bus driver usually waits for them, and if they take too long, he leaves without them. Elizabeth sees the bus at the road, but she’s still a kilometer or two away. The driver should also see them and the cloud of dust that follows and hopefully will wait for them. Or not—there the scoundrel leaves without them! This means she needs to drive after him until his next stop, where he will receive an earful! The kids are grateful for some extra time to catch up on their homework in the car. As Elizabeth drives after the bus, she can see all the farmers working hard on their land. It looks a bit different than eighteen years ago, but still beautiful. As far as the eye can see, there are veld and fields of crops. The ground around them is very fertile and the farmers work hard to cultivate each square of it. There is a big vley close by the city, where she grew up, and the crops produced there are always magnificent. There you can smell the life in the soil. Mr. Prinsloo and his children will reap the benefits of that fertile ground for many years to come. But as time passes by and life’s demands changes, those years may not be so many as Elizabeth thought.

Elizabeth is sitting at the kitchen table reading the local newspaper. Her arms are getting too short to hold the paper at a length for her to see what is written there. She’s in her late fifties and she refuses to wear glasses before sixty. It will be a new millennium in a few months’ time and the newspaper is full of foolishness that the new millennium will bring the end of the world, but she’s not reading those articles. She and her husband must drive into the city to buy food for his seventieth birthday, so she is trying to find all the specials of the grocery stores. All the children and grandchildren are coming to the farm this weekend for his birthday. How their little family has grown with eight children and twelve grandchildren—she must be...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.4.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-8196-4 / 9798350981964