each of them carrying a monitor lizard

Source: Inam Ahmed

The boy got their prize. Photo: Inam Ahmed

In the afternoon, the elder kids returned, each of them carrying a monitor lizard. One was quite huge, about four feet long.
Their legs were tied and they were rolled into coils. They looked helplessly with sullen stares.
As the kids dropped them to the ground, the animals flinched in pain. The whole family gathered around them. Their joy was palpable. The children weighed them in their hands. The men and women felt for their meat and praised the kids for their bravery.
The smaller lizard was more agile unlike the bigger one which seemed to have resigned to its fate. From time to time, it squirmed to get free. And every time it wriggled, the children would hammer it. And when nobody was looking, it finally got its hind legs free and bolted out in lightening speed.
I watched it with bated breath. My every inch praying that it could escape. The kids hollered after it and in ten seconds it was caught again. As a runaway, it received some rough treatment. Its legs were secured tightly. The poor animal just lay there, panting.
Later, when we went for a walk, it again broke free, and this time it vanished into the jungle.
But for now, a fire was being built. The big one was carried to a distance to the bush and from the perch, I saw a knife being produced. I could see crimson blood splattering on the grass.
In the evening, I was sitting on the bridge above the creek. All around me the darkness was surreptitiously creeping in. the sky in the west was catching the late evening fire and the flares were streaking out with clouds.