Janet was walking down the road on a hot afternoon and saw something that looks like a sign which reminded her of an ugly event few years ago.
When she was a teen she usually follows a track road to her local school then. One day, Janet saw a maize farm full of maize 🌽 with budding curbs. It looked attractive to the eyes as the curbs appear to be well matured and ready for harvest.
She has been passing through this path for many months now starting form when the maize was planted up to the time it started flowering and now bearing curbs. She never bordered to even go close to it. She only admired it from a distance while walking on the track road and heading to her school.
That fateful day, as she was passing through that path she noticed that a lot was happening on the farm, both squirrels and birds have invaded the farm, plucking and eating up the matured curbs. As she drew closer most of the birds flew away and even the squirrels were also galloping from one maize plant to the other while others went underground and ran away.
But there was a particular squirrel 🐿️ that refused to budge. It kept looking at Janet as she was approaching where it was seated in between a curb and the maize stem. Mind you, the owner of the farm had planted many things like scarecrow on the farm, yet those things did not deter the rodents from invading the farm. The owner also weaved around the farm with some ribbons of various colours.
Janet felt for the owner of the farm and the huge loss the invasion by the birds and squirrels had caused already and decided to wade into the farm and chase this particular squirrel 🐿️ away. As soon as she got even closer to the squirrel, it bolted away. Janet made a retreat and continued her journey to her school.
Few minutes upon getting to the school, her body started scratching her seriously. Soon it grew into rashes and she was taken to the school clinic. She then narrated her ordeal as she was coming to the school that morning. The head teacher then shouted and told her that the ribbons she saw hanging and twisted around that maize farm was not a decoration but a charm to scare away would-be thieves that will come to harvest the maize 🌽. She then applied some ointment on Janet and after few minutes her system calmed down and the rashes started going away.
A Five Minute Freewrite: Not A Decoration