STORY OF TRUE FRIENDSHIP: MARCUS AND THE LION
By Susan Diamond
He woke one day and instead of thanking God (which was his usual custom) he took a vow in God’s presence. “Today is the day I will change my destiny.”
Marcus was a slave. He was strong, smart, and hardworking. All qualities that worked both for him and against him. He was valuable chattel owned by a master whose pockets were lined by the blood, sweat, and tears of young Marcus with no last name.
On this day, after Marcus made his vow, he silently stole away just before sun-up on what was to be a blazing hot day.
Unarmed and unprepared for the dangerous journey ahead, our hero felt sure he had the might of right within him and the hand of God guiding him.
He walked swiftly and surely heading west, away from civilized man and into the den of beasts and critters.
At nightfall he surrendered to his bodily needs, stopping to pluck berries from a thicket in the jungle and quenching his thirst from the clear stream of a waterbed.
Sated, he found shelter in a cave to take his rest. Sleep came quickly. Dreams of open roads and welcoming arms accompanied him on his first night of freedom.
Hours later he awoke. This time thanking God with every fiber of his being. He finished his morning prayers and heard a noise. Marcus knew he had company. Fortified and fearless, he looked around in the still darkness and could find no source of the sound. On and on went the noise growing from a whimper to a feverish pitch.
Marcus deduced it was not man, but beast. He smelled his cave mate before he saw him. Senses are heightened in such circumstances and there was something feral mixed with fear coming from whatever sat at the mouth of the cave.
His options for escape narrowed greatly. He stayed low and slid on his behind slowly inching up to the source of the sound.
He was at arm’s length from the beast.
Now upon it.
Marcus extended one hand and delicately with three fingertips touched the fur collar of a giant lion...read more
