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At the beginning of their mother’s frozen present, the firstborn, Rueben Kucera, was a three-star general in the army; the second, Samwel Moya, a two-star general in the air force; the third, Dickens Soi, a one-star general in the navy; and the fourth, Richard Runyenje, an army captain.
It is said that the walls and ceiling of the chamber were made from the skeletons of the students, teachers, workers, and small farmers he had killed in all the regions of the country, for it was well known that he came into power with flaming swords, the bodies of his victims falling down to his left and right like banana trunks.
Let me say as the narrator that I cannot confirm the truth or falsity of the existence of the chamber; it may turn into a mere rumor or tale from the mouth of Askari Arigaigai Gathere:
The rumor about devil and snake worship took root in all Aburĩria following one of the most ambitious programs for birthday celebrations in honor of a Ruler ever undertaken in the country.
His devotion did not go unnoticed, and he was made Minister of State in charge of spying on the citizenry. The secret police machine known as M5 was now under his direction. And so Silver Sikiokuu he became, jettisoning his earlier names.
His dark suit was almost identical to that worn by Machokali, but on careful examination one could see that the stripes were made of tiny letters that read MIGHT IS RIGHT.
He tried to make himself feel angry with her, but no matter how he tried he did not feel anger, for he could not see the difference between what he had decided to do, the Buddha way as he called it, and what she was doing at Angel’s Corner—the way of the fishers of men, as she had called it in the song of farewell.
The foreign journalists were particularly interested in the scene, for they believed that a news story from Africa without pictures of people dying from wretched poverty, famine, or ethnic warfare could not possibly be interesting to their audience back home.
Though she suffered minor injuries, she knew that she had narrowly escaped. What surprised her then and later when she recalled her near fatality was the number of cars that simply passed her by; no one had stopped to see if anyone was hurt or needed help. The people who hurried to her rescue were the barefooted, mostly. One unloaded his donkey cart to rush her to the nearest medical center many miles away, the donkey announcing their arrival at the emergency room by braying loudly and shitting.
History, particularly African history, was the scene of many crimes with many conflicting witnesses.
“The water I drink, the food I eat, the clothes I wear, the bed I sleep on, are all determined by politics, good or bad. Politics is about power and how it is used. Politics involves choosing sides in the struggle for power. So on which side are you?”
Maybe the enemy was hidden within my actions. Had I known that, I would have discovered my enemies much earlier and I could have spared myself a lot of torment. I again returned to my place of work having changed into a police uniform. I now had no worries in the world. I was whistling and walking jauntily and I had a ‘how are you’ ready on my lips for whomever I met, including my boss, Wonderful Tumbo.
“Everybody in Santalucia is talking about you. It’s obvious why. Witch doctors never advertise themselves. They do their nefarious work in the dark. But you actually put up a notice outside your house. What does it mean? That you work openly in the light of day.
If she had heard an account of what she herself had heard, she would almost certainly have dismissed it as a lie: the rich and the powerful denouncing scientific reason in favor of illogical mumbo jumbo. And to know that these men belong to the same class as the leaders of new nations? What did the future of the country hold with these men at the helm?
Or, better still, they should leave the young maiden behind to keep their places warm. He was a first come, first served wizard.
Ebonics.”
A heated quarrel erupted between husband and wife, each berating the other for their respective choice of image: punk and whore.
francolins
Their greed stank. Even as I asked them questions about their afflictions, the smell of evil and greed oozed out of their every pore and made it difficult for me to breathe. For a time I was able to endure the ooze by sniffing the scent of flowers that you always left behind. But Tajirika’s rot proved more terrible than any that I had experienced before: a black man celebrating the negation of himself. This final blast of foul air was unbearable.
“Physicians do not heal themselves. And our people say that even the most skilled barber needs another to cut his hair.
“The Buddhist attitude to property attracted me. A person who chases after fame and wealth and love is like a child who licks honey from the blade of a knife. While tasting the sweetness of honey he risks damaging his tongue.
human beings are free to choose how they use the gifts given to them by God, nature, sun, fate, call it what you like, I mean that transcendent power that you say governs our lives, whether to use it to seek personal salvation or a collective deliverance.
He was baffled by anyone not motivated by greed. He could never understand the type who talked of collective salvation instead of personal survival. How was one supposed to deal with these recalcitrants? A fisherman puts a worm at the end of the line, but if the fish ignores it, how is the fisherman to catch the fish?
Though they performed divination, Kamĩtĩ and Nyawĩra based their practice on the philosophy that illnesses of the mind, soul, and body were bred by social life. They even wrote down seven suggestions of healthy living: Take care of the body, for it is the temple of the soul Watch ye what you eat and drink all the time Greed makes death greedy for life Cigarettes arrest life; alcohol holds the mind prisoner Life is a common stream from which plant, animal, and humans draw The good comes from balance Don’t abandon yours for a mirage
when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers?
“I will tell you what. Let’s establish a hotline. Anytime you feel the urge to beat your wife, please call me and I will tell you if the time is ripe.”
Strange that the tone of one man’s voice could carry such a mixture of prayer, bribe, threat, fear, and ambition.
There were many stories of spousal murder in Aburĩria: husbands arranging their wives’ deaths and then shedding crocodile tears while claiming to be hunting down the killer; wives incinerating their husbands at home while making sure that they themselves sustained superficial burns as proof that they had narrowly escaped the fire.
‘What I most fear,’ he told me candidly, ‘is that the sorcerer will arrive at the airport dressed in a garb of uncured leather, a necklace of sharp animal bones around his neck, a gourd of stinking oil and green leaves in his hand, amulets on his wrists, and bangles around the ankles of his bare feet. These people here are very sensitive to the importation of agricultural products
He could imagine the snickering that would greet him wherever he went: How are your Ruler and his sorcerer getting along?
They agreed, after much discussion, that they should not show too much eagerness to meet the wizard, that they should simply cast quick glances in his direction in order not to give him the notion that he was in the same ranks with ministers.
Queuing, as an expression of order, organization, and discipline, was a very Western idea, and they should be mindful that they were now in Aburĩria, Africa, where people are guided more by emotion than by reason, and therefore to scramble for things is “what comes easily” to Aburĩrians.
The history of capital can be summed up in one phrase: in search of freedom. Freedom to expand, and now it has a chance at the entire globe for its theater. It needs a democratic space to move as its own logic demands. So I have been sent to urge you to start thinking about turning your country into a democracy. Who knows? Maybe with your blessings, some of your ministers might even want to form opposition parties.” “No, no,” the ministers hastened to say, almost in unison. “We in Aburĩria know only One Truth, One Party, One Country, One Leader, One God.”
In the days of the cold war, they used to shower him with praises for dispatching thousands of his own people to eternal silence. And now, even after he had assured them that he was ready to repeat what he had done for them, they were lecturing him about restraint and the new global order!
The news came from the State House through Big Ben Mambo, Minister of Information, and it was broadcast by all the media. The Ruler had devised a philosophy that would cure the people of the stresses of modernity. The government printer even issued a booklet: Magnus Africanus: Prolegomenon to Future Happiness, by the Ruler. The book said, among other things, that during his retreat and meditation it had been revealed to the Ruler that the real threat to Aburĩria’s future lay in people’s abandoning their traditions in pursuit of a stressful modernity.
no night is so long as not to end in dawn!”
“It is unnatural for money to give birth to money,” he said irritably. “Banks alone know the secret of money producing money. They hide the secret in ledger books and computer screens.
The days when sorcerers were put in beehives and rolled down a mountain to their deaths in the valley are gone.”
He told the story of his travels in time and space in search of the sources of black power and a rather long parable of how humans surrendered control of their own lives to a blind deity with a double-barreled name of M&M, or money and market, and how Africa’s independence mutated to dependence.
Why does needy Africa continue to let its wealth meet the needs of those outside its borders and then follow behind with hands outstretched for a loan of the very wealth it let go?
But if he could keep the state stable through sacrificing truth rather than lives, bending rather than breaking the law, sealing the lips of the outspoken with endless trickeries rather than tearing them with barbed-wire and hot wax, if he could buy peace through a grand deception rather than a vast display of armored vehicles in the streets, which often gave his enemies material for propaganda, it would be the sweetest of victories.
Great quoo
But if he could keep the state stable through sacrificing truth rather than lives, bending rather than breaking the law, sealing the lips of the outspoken with endless trickeries rather than tearing them with barbed-wire and hot wax, if he could buy peace through a grand deception rather than a vast display of armored vehicles in the streets, which often gave his enemies material for propaganda, it would be the sweetest of victories.
Great quote
Domhnall liked this
Take away ten, make a firm stand on not giving any back, then, under pressure, relent and give back one, and the result is all-around applause, of victory from foe and congratulations from friend.
In Aburĩria there are those who reap where they never planted and those who plant but hardly ever reap what they planted. The first camp, even with its allies abroad, is small, and yet it is able to lord over the second because it divides it along ethnic and sometimes gender and religious lines.
