Stay tuned for upcoming content!
Short Stories
The rain was late.
The August winds raised up hands of sand in expectation of rainfall, but the days blew over without a single grey cloud in sight. The whirling dust was forced to cling to anything above ground: huts, houses, cars and foreheads. The only drops of water came from the tears of farmers whose cattle and crops succumbed to the waterlessness of the nation.
The walls around me are as white as the page in front of me and as white as the sheet I’m seated on, until I shift on the sheet, “Oh sh*t, it’s now creased. Oh sh*t, it reeks.” Gas comes up like a kamehameha. Ahh, my nose! Those channeled fumes were released by my dietary choice of beans and eggs and rice. Of course, I can’t neglect the biology. My digestive tract broke that food into methane and hydrogen sulfide.
“Mma,” the constable said over the phone, “we have the boys. They are waiting for you at the Station in G-West.”
About a half hour later, Danielle arrived. The station was empty and dusty. She walked slowly, supporting herself on her walking stick. The constable brought the two youths from the cell. He released his firm grip on their wrists and shoved them to Danielle. To the eye, these youths were barely men but hardly boys. They fell at the lady’s feet. They crawled to her dusty ballet flats, kissing them. Their saggy pants exposed their briefs, and the sight of them offended Danielle. Their jerseys were as baggy as their saggy pants, which collected dust as they licked the floor with their kisses at Danielle’s feet. To her, these youngsters looked like riffraff; examples of a degenerate foreign culture. She didn’t want to be near them. She stepped back once the kissing started.
A long time ago, there lived a man from the East who owned a ring of unimaginable value. The stone was an opal that refracted hundreds of beautiful colours and had a secret power to make the bearer adored by God and mankind. It is no wonder then that the man from the East never let the ring escape his finger and decided rather to keep it safely at home. And so it was, he said that he would leave his ring to his favourite of sons who he loved the most, irrespective of the order of his birth. The power of the ring would make this son the head of the home and ruler of the region.
They say that Lake Venus is the most beautiful in all the land. In summer, it provides the beaming sun with a surface to waltz upon. As the sun changes its axis and each sunbeam gently flows to the music of the breeze through the trees, the dormant fairies wake and begin to dance to the tune.
“Legato crescendos in D Major! Oh, what a sound—what a sight!” my father would tell me in my childhood. “Not even the winter’s chill could freeze it. Although the skies be grey and trees bare, the Lake itself would still glow a melancholy blue. A rich navy blue indeed!”
Impressionable I was as a boy, and I began to long for it. To see this Lake with my own eyes, quench my thirst and… dare I go on?… submerge myself in its waters. Would it be as father told me? Or did his command of the language lack the finesse to express what he saw? At the time, perhaps my own vocabulary was still too limited to appreciate the richness of his description… (click on title for more)
Follow My Blog
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
Miscellaneous
Botswana Citizenship: Low hanging fruit for business tycoons
Lessons and Letters, the book launch
Prophets and Economists: Reviewing David Magang’s Delusions of Grandeur, Vol. 2
David Magang has done the Lord’s work, and I fear — like the prophets of old — his wisdom will fall on deaf ears.
Samuel Rubadiri 