Charlene now began thinking the worst.

What eill I do if Suzan and Chad re going on this safari with us?” She reached into her large purse for her pills and a bottle of water. She took two blue pills and a red pill, just in case.

She thought of “The Mama’s and the Papa’s song where the lyrics said, ” one pill makes you larger and one pills make you small and the one pill mother gives you doesn’t do anything at all.” It was appropriate.

Her mother had her on the pill early due to her wild behavior. She had several boyfriends early on and more than one at a time and was was often self medicating. Charlene didn’t feel bad about her sordid past. She didn’t have the guilt gene. her mother had it in spades but not Charlene. It made her life simple and quite pleasant where others might have had feelings of guilt.

If Suzan was on her and Joe’s vacation, what would she have to do to keep joe from going into a depression and miss his opportunity with this book project f his. It was important to both of them.

If Joe did a great job on this project which she knew he would have done until Suzan reared her beautiful face, his future would have been locked in place. A raise, writing credit, credentials and visibility were just what he needed as far as Charlene was concerned.

Now with the possibility of Suzan and her husband on safari with them it was all up in the air again, all she could do was wait and see if they got back on the plane when they headed to Rwanda.

She leaned back in her wide seat as the pills kicked in and the scenery in her mind’s eye change slowly into wide plains and large green trees surrounding them. Elephants trumpeted and threw on their backs. Smaller elephants frolicked in the shallow water while aunts and sisters watched over them.

It was an idyllic setting, unlike where Charlene now found herself. As the panorama spread out in front of her she soon saw danger lurking in the tall yellow-green grass. Lyons crept slowly toward the watering hole waiting for their favorite meal.

A baby elephant would suffice but their mother standing near by meant danger and the possibility f death. Zebras were what the lions were waiting for. There were hundreds all around them heading to the watering hole.

The bravest were working their way slowly toward the watering hole listening to baboon calls and sniffing the air for danger. The baboons screeched their loud screams of panic and the zebras looked up, broke and ran to the west despite seeing anything and slowed down for the moment. They knew well to listen to their warnings from an early age.

The grass was high and thirst wasn’t pressing them at the moment. That time would come but hopefully the lions would have moved on by then. The zebras knew them and their behavior well. As well as zebras can know, in any case.

Death was all around Charlene as she saw herself in a safari wagon watching the zebras run across the wide savannah.

Then it happened. a zebra ran right into the grasp of a lioness. This was how the lions hunted.