The day a thief stole glitter from the sun
‘‘“The khaki shorts would get torn on the sides exposing our ashen buttocks, leaving the centre fold seam only intact. Once in a while our parents put patches to cover the ashen flesh but more often than not, they just left it like that. And being hot October, that kind of clothing was befitting in terms of aeration. It was benign and friendly even to the dangling bits. What with the unbearable heat!”
BACK in the village in the proverbial land of milk, honey and dust or Guruve, the moon of October was expressly angry. Its sun rays, never hid the anger.
Even the clouds hid, one could not see a single cloud.
Day- after- day of cloudless skies had sucked moisture from mother earth, leaving the earth’s crust baked and cracked.
Villagers spent most of their time in the shed, under the trees, under the eaves of roofs and little everywhere else where it was cooler.
On the trees, cicadas cried melodiously for clemency. No one heard them, it seemed. The ancestors must have abandoned the earth.
Even birds flew to riverine vegetation. The distinct crinkling cattle bells also spoke of riverine vegetable forages by the bovines as they searched for their graze.
Even the goats, the notorious hangers around of the village, suddenly knew there was a big river, an old man who only roared when in angry flood.
But October was so angry, Dande River had been stripped of its mighty status; It was now a shrivel serpentine of sand, a ghostly figure of its former self. Most of the parts had dried up except for three or four huge pools.
There was Gwatura, a long dark pool, known for harbouring mermaids in olden times.
Gwatura was the name of an ageless village autochthon. I use the word autochthon
loosely here, to mean the first people who emerged from the ground, the original. The opposite are the allochthons. Then there was Mariana’s Pool. Mariana was an old woman known for her express bravery.
She was known to have protected the pool from drying using her mermaid powers. But there was a counter narrative that she dabbled in witchcraft and used the huge pool for witchcraft.
In her old age, she was very dark, as dark as a night. Her bloodshot eyes, and snuff stained mucus gave her a gothic look. Her dreadlocks made it worse. Then she had a groggy male voice that made a conversation with her very awkward. They said she had single-handedly caused the death of many infants.
As young boys, still having milk behind our ears, we cared less about the tell-tales. Neither did we care much about how we dressed up.
Our maid dressing was English khaki fatigue.
Those heavy pair of shots were known to have a texture that made them stand of their own, when soaked into water.
But they never got torn easily. The khaki short were a fad.
The khaki shorts would get torn on the sides exposing our ashen buttocks, leaving the centre fold seam only intact. Once in a while our parents put patches to cover the ashen flesh but more often than not, they just left it like that.
And being hot October, that kind of
clothing was befitting in term of aeration. It was benign and friendly even to the dangling bits. What with the unbearable heat?
In October men and boys normally used Gwatura pool to bath and do their chores. Women and girls used Mariana’s pool. The separation was meant to bring and maintain decency between men and women.
But this afternoon the village suddenly had uninvited visitors in the form of the police.
Rhodesian police never came and left with nothing. Village elders with cotton tuft hair always likened them to eagles; eagles they said, never got away empty-handed.
If they swooped and missed their prey, their talons wrecked even the grass.
Soon the elders were gathered while we kept in earshot distance.
They were looking for Misheck. Misheck was an old village rum. Everything around him was weird. Even his look, his dressing, his goatee beard. They claimed that a night he covered long distances to steal and that at times he was hired to beat up people far and wide.
He was very secretive and worse still he was a bachelor. An old bachelor.
Soon the policemen started beating him up in front of everyone. They beat him so much that women cried. Children joined in the crying. He cried too. Then he got to a point where his voice could not come out.
As young boys, we started as distant observers and as the drama unfolded we found ourselves occupying ringside seats. Of course, I mean metaphorically, and yet physically.
Soon Misheck led a long procession of the police and villagers to Gwatura Pool. We were failing to get the gist of the story but we followed still.
By Gwatura pool, Misheck plunged in and came out a few minutes with nothing. The police beat him again and again, until he told them to stop assaulting him in exchange of what they were looking for.
He plunged in and then swam to the deeper end. Then he came out with a cattle head. It was a brown cow with a white face.
“Bring out more!”, shouted a policeman. “Save our time and your own time. Bring out more!”
Down Misheck went and up he came with the skin and the hooves. Down he went again and came out with another head, this time, a black cow with horns.
Apparently, he had stolen and skinned three cattle and sold the meat to butchers. Poor Misheck, at the end he accounted for four beasts.
By this time, women had streaked from the village and others from Mariana Pool. There were now scores of people by Gwatura and police were enjoying their scoop.
The findings became the good exhibit and the police truck hissed and puffed towards the village and then to Misheck’s home. There, they found many sacks of dried meat, too.
The October sun set in serene and soft sadness. The village was agog with Misheck’s story. The story spread from our village to those beyond.