HoneyCrisp 17 Lady Alice

The soccer keeper ended up on his backsides looking up like an upside down praying mantis battling with its prey in a life or death struggle. His head was not touching the ground. His arms were outstretched flaying wildly against an incoming ball. His legs were in the air moving of their own volition. He started sliding backwards towards the goal line slowly. He was better than a gnu which when giving birth lies sideways. The first defender had tried to flick the ball out. How did a grown man miss a soccer ball? The defender ended up skidding like a jack knifing 22-wheeler truck on an icy road in the middle of a white desert. He was looking down like a farmer planting maize. He receded from the goal post as momentum took him further away. Helplessly he watched the striker pushing the ball through the out stretched legs of his co-defender. The ball was just a round object flying over the ground. Men were falling, not by stepping on its roundness, but by just trying to kick it with their feet. They should have called it a kick ball and fall sport. After all there is an apparatus called ball and flout!

17. Lady Alice

The rains had stopped as suddenly as they had started without written notice or prior warning. The clouds still hung up there thick and darkening. It had been a sudden downpour. There was an overlay of grayish-black thick cloud cover, high winds, and a warm front moving against and suppressing a cold front. In a nutshell, whatever the weather person had suggested would happen wasn’t what had happened. What the weather department had not suggested had happened. It was just a freak of nature to freak out human inhabitants. Maybe nature wanted all human beings cut off the face of the earth so that animals and vegetation would take over like they had done before the advent of Adam. That was according to the Bible, if not make heaven so you can ask your question to the Ancient of Days. The clouds had appeared from the south. They had been pushed by cold polar winds. Clouds had been forecast that they would be there.

No one had prepared a forecast for sudden rain squalls. The forecasted clouds grew like dough with yeast in an oven, fattening by the minute. Clouds have a habit of growing like coffee cream being mixed, as if they were being churned like butter. Did clouds in the sky mix and match with other cloud patterns like two trains coming at each other on the same railway line? Who supervised cloud derailments?

The Antarctica ice cap had moved into the sky speeding across the oceans. The cold moist polar air masses had been pushed up by the warmer drier and lighter Indian Ocean air masses mixing and mingling like ice cream makers to create cloud banks. Maybe they had grown overloaded and too thick for comfort. In other areas when such types of wind mixed, they created fog, thick to light fog. In some warmer tropical areas, this mixture created mist especially in mountainous passes and ridges. In both instances vision was blurred. Safety on the ground or in the air was breached like London during the war when German bombers had penetrated its defences.

At least the winds had not brought colonies of seals, penguins and sea lions. Instead of just drenching them with cold weather, the wind had brought droplets of unexpected heavy rain. The rains stopped in time just as suddenly as they had caught people unaware. The sun remained under house arrest in its sheath of cloud cover. The clouds appeared impenetrable. It was like trying to cross the Himalayas on horseback. The fact that there was ample lighting showed that the sun was still maintaining its glory and reign.

Dark days did not testify to the absence of the sun. These were the tropics, there were no continuous days without the sun or the reverse. They sat by a side street restaurant. They were under awning that covered their sitting area. There were two walls fore and aft of them that were preventing them seeing the other parts of shops attached. These walls took the brunt of the wind and rain.

From the time the downpour had started to when it had ended they were going through lunch. The gusts of wind which had sent shower of water ahead of them had been prevented from passing through their side street by its narrowness of the area hemmed in by tall buildings. Both were equally surprised at the onset of the rains that carpeted everything under a grey mist of droplets. They had prepared for cool to cold weather but not rain. It wasn’t the summer months to expect rains. They were not in a Mediterranean type of climate. Surprises came in small parcels like dynamite. Where are the matches? Someone that had been in an air conditioned office, coming out would be surprised at the rivulets congregated on the storm water drainage systems.

“I stepped on the toes of someone who thought they were a really, really big man. You are aware that politics in Africa has areas that are not written in law. These can be policed and enforced draconically. You first land in the police cells. They then think of what offence to write on your docket. You think you are wise huh? You hire a lawyer. They arrest him for a parking ticket two years old. He gets detained overnight for that. Never mind it was generated last night.

“In some African countries, under someone there, they used to make prisoners sign blank confessions. The police were fed up with unsolved crimes. So they added every unresolved crime issue especially if you had wished the president to die. Even Russia does it to its own opposition to the ruling party. With Russia you get charged and arrested for stealing from yourself! That is if their poison fails to kill you first. They then allow you to be airlifted out to seek medical attention. You are accused of having tempered with the allocation you were going to give to the needy, you paid less than budget which is misappropriation. The Gulag!

"The Chinese just send you to a reeducation, reorientation and rededication camp. If you are in Hong Kong, then praise God at least there is a show of a trial before you start eating rice cakes in prison. The North Koreans don’t care. They stand you in a tight cell. They let water drop onto your head 24-hours a day one bit at a time. When you come out you will be convinced the pope is from the Amazon rainforest and the Vikings terrorized the equatorial regions of Africa in the 1700s. Myanmar has the guts to charge someone for importing a walkie talkie!

“Myanmar will charge you for your landslide election victory! Then they like the Russians will ban your party and all its officials from competing against them. In the Vietnam War, the Vietcong didn't care either. They just put someone in a reed box with sharp logs stuck in so you couldn't sit, within a wet field with leeches. They were covered in mud or muddy water from their delicate feet to the ankles or the waist at times. I am sure the USA never used dwarfs in military combat. They would drown the first time. If you survived the Vietcong, you promised them a Huey helicopter in return for freedom. Did I say even rice cakes were rationed twice in three days?

“If you read Animal Farm by George Orwell you will realize that some animals are more equal than others even among democratic countries. Some animals are short sighted. Those that see beyond read what they want not what is written. They add salt, vinegar and tear gas to what has been written to the short sighted. For instance you cannot suggest that the state president is ill. Who? A man described as commander in chief of the defence forces, chancellor of all universities run by the state and first secretary of the party?

"The one we are all told to emulate and praise like demons that are money spinning? But the truth is every human being is like grass which is combustible in dry conditions. We are all prone to disease. We all get worn out. We all come to die. Yet throughout the world dictators don’t want their medicals mentioned. They behave as if they don't use tissue paper. When they get sick, they seek treatment, I believe, acupuncture in India or China, drinking rice water until their bellies get back from swollen.

"The British tabloids declared early one morning, Queen orders Prince Charles to Shave His Beard. Back in the latrine democracies of some in Africa, Asia, South America, the Middle East and in Myanmar you get arrested for propaganda. Telling the nation the president’s Jewish or Islamic type beard is unhealthy to him and us is anathema. Hugh Masekela, the jazz guru of South Africa, rest his soul used to say something. He said he sees desperate people on television hugging their valuables escaping from the people they voted into office or who say they were voted into office by the desperate people. What an irony for democracy?”

“We haven’t even come to the crust of the matter. You are eulogizing and soliloquizing. You are using the Shona term, going around a mountain in circles in order to reach the top,” she helped him out. “Get to the point and crux of the matter. Go to your story as the crow flies. Don't dither around in circles like a lost tourist that cannot speak the local dialect. You edited radio shows to put them within time frames. Do the same here.”

“The Bible says princes are set up by God. This one was not a prince. He was not set up either. He was a bull frog that required no kiss to make him a prince. Lions challenge each other for breeding rights. This one challenged lesser beings for bragging and bribery rights. He clung to the ladder the way a leech holds on to a parasitic victim. He was a parasitic fig tree holding onto a beautiful shady tree eating of it. He was like a tick borer into the body of an elephant. He was a hook worm into the labyrinth of the political structures in the home territory. In total he was a flea.”

“The same Bible says pray for the same princes who are not set up or shall I say the same frogs rather. Those people from who desperate people flee, pray for them. The despots and the war mongers make supplications for them.”

“Keisha! That is a monstrosity!”

“Are you going to finish your story or have you turned into a poet with those words? I heard your comedy on radio, here. You have become very proficient only that you are using too many sexual terms I wouldn’t announce in a restroom for ladies. You do not need desecrate women's naked bodies when you are telling comedy. I thought it was syndicated or within your copyright. I didn’t know you were here. I could tell you won’t be returning to the old country by the political humour and caricature of political figures there and in Africa including that one on Eduardo Dos Santos of Angola,” Keisha had replied. “Angolan intelligence would have you by the throat while the opposition will laud you as a hero. Remember even here our men in suits with dark glasses can have their tentacles reaching out.”

“He was a bull frog that lived in the prince’s pond. He knew someone who knew someone connected to the presidency. He did wet jobs when impressed upon, eliminating the opposition in business and political circles. He welded more power than was judicially justified of him. However you know Africa when politicians’ side step the law. They need strong armed men to take the blame for their own genocidal tendencies against the opposition or intra party squabbles. They behave like Rowan Atkinson in Johnny English Reborn trying to shoot using a revolver whose magazine is falling off.

“They then are like a buffalo bull running away from a lion. It jumps over a crocodile forgetting it had galloped off in fright a few minutes earlier. It doesn’t take fright when a hungry irate African cobra rears its head in its flight. The issue is to be politically well connected, grease the right palms then you can misbehave and get away with it. It’s like you are a front in muddy deals which you share with the elite in order for the righteous of the party to be clean. If the guys shielding you gets the boot, you are in hot soup. You will be in the open like making toilet at a bus station with a newspaper for cover. You go down too, easily.”

“Would you get to the point?” she asked. “You are sounding like an African politician addressing an election rally. They never stop describing their achievements including programs run by non-governmental organizations independent of them (which they tried to stop but failed, went to court and lost) as long as they are done within their jurisdiction. They can even start describing things away from their speech.”

She rubbed her shoulders. The chill was biting. The cloud cover was still majestic. It was moving yet it appeared stationery changing colours after a few minutes as more dominant colours pushed out the receding ones. The sun was prophesized to be nowhere at all. Its symbol was the presence of light. The moisture content was now high. There was the arid smell of rain on dry and dirty concrete. All the dirt which had not been swept, and whatever had been hiding therein, when disturbed by the rains gave out its smell. Everything had its smell beautiful and acrid. The rain was sweet to the nose. It had however raised other pungent smells that had been hidden on pavements by the heat and dust including vehicle oils.

“The frog searched all my records. He found where I had been paid in Belgian francs which I had used without remitting to Zimbabwe. You know our foreign currency regulations. You bank all foreign currency within 90-days lest you are interned for externalization. When you need use it you apply. You can be denied access to even a quarter of what you brought in. Fuel, arms, tear gas, grain and other imports overstep your meagre request forgetting who brought in the currency. After all tear gas canister imports ranks higher than fuel to keep the unpatriotic demonstrators in their miserable tin and wooden shacks.”

“Will you get to the point? Do I need read a Harlequin romance while you explain?” she asked. "I have several books on my PDF reader. Need I get into those?"

“I was accused of externalization. This frog was very good at pinning opponents legally, planting evidence or harassing their customers. I was an open cheque to him. He wrote the amount. I was squeezed in a press, stamped and done for. He delivered me to the prosecution authorities on a silver platter.”

“You were arrested for externalization of foreign currency which has nothing to do with the elections or political parties. No evidence was planted. Your court records proved that you externalized foreign currency not your ill-mannered jokes on radio or in the club. Those jokes didn't send you to detention. That is why you have police records of being pounced upon and beaten savagely. It was some people returning your jokes. Externalization happens to all parties in the country as long as you do not remit foreign currency earned when you are staying within the republic. Everyone wants to exchange their foreign currency on the black market. The rates look higher but so are the risks.”

“Whatever. You should have done law Keisha. You are so good at pinning people like me. I am so emotionally poor you should have comforted me or offered me asylum. A bear hug would have been appropriate but very welcome. Even pandas show more emotions than you are showing. I went through my own kind of hell. From getting arrested, arraigned before a magistrate moved from Highlands police holding cells to Harare Remand Prison. All the legal issues, speaking through lawyers and visitations by people to prove I was down the chute.”

“You committed a crime by the laws of the country back there and now. Guilty as charged your honour. Any mitigating circumstances? Honourable sir, I am a first time offender. I still have girlfriends to placate. I will find them gone.”

She accused as if she was an organizing secretary of the ruling party based here in the city of Perth. Politics and political parties were like learning to smoke. Once you started, you were hooked. People would flee from all directions going out of their countries yet some would still support the same political parties by starting overseas branches. Call it they would have found a lode for benefits. She wondered who the organizing secretary for the Chinese Communist Party in Johannesburg was. Was she running government policy?

At least some African states’ citizens seemed to enjoy more freedom than in North Korea. At least no security agents stood at passport application counters denying state enemies passport rights. There was no vetting against the opposition or dissidents except for those with criminal records. She did not remember anyone being denied their passport rights except for crime and high treason. Bails conditions included surrendering of travel documents.

“Yes but ______.”

“Your jokes spooked him and other politicians I heard?” Keisha replied. “That is what someone who knew you said. You were warned. Thrice beaten should have been enough. You are always stubborn. You were born stubborn. Didn't you have a political commissar at the radio station?”

“Yes. So you knew? Are you a spy on me?”

“The underground cables say you were sleeping together with this man. You were competing for the same hyena alpha queen as if she was the only female with a mile radius. By the way in hyena colonies, only one alpha breeding female is allowed to have puppies yearly. She only breeds with a select few, royal studs. So all the available horny potential males have to turn their attention to one like you all did. Someone would be on day shift another on night shift then she did lunch errands for others. How did she look after her brood with men competing for her attention? You shared the same bed. Men are real cowards at most times. Was it the drink or the marijuana speaking?”

“Keisha, I drink and smoke. I don't do marijuana or drugs!”

“Tell the truth. Who knows? Maybe the lady bewitched you.”

“My jokes were based on the fact that we had been chasing the same woman, yes I agree. Everyone gets junk mail in their folders if you do stand-up comedy. There are weirdoes everywhere so I didn’t take notice. You can’t fail to run a comedy show because of some weird guys.”

“You were sleeping with the same orthopedic nursing sister who is suspected to have a baby with this intelligence guru. You knew it too that he was suspected to have fathered her last child. He was not into paying child support or paying household expenses either. He liked keeping his womenfolk very close, threatened, and accommodated but very unhappy.”

“Keisha! Are you a spy?”

“I just got told what happened.”

“They were not married. A free woman is up for grabs even if she has kids. There are no bonds. So is a man, you are free if not married legally, socially and physically. It wasn’t an issue of me failing to pay child support, no, there was no baby with my paternal traces.”

“I didn’t say she was married. She has a very dark history of being a side kick to the influential. Your competitor is said to have had his own score of illegal girlfriends that he partially lived with and you had yours. His wife and their two kids and another girlfriend and kids, ran the coop out of the country with their and his children earlier before your hocus-pocus, I heard.

"He alternated with whom he would be between the sheets. The underground cable says he had several children out of wedlock. You extended your hand to another man’s girlfriend with whom the three of you shared a baby. Maybe it was yours with him taking the tab for maintenance.”

“You know everything so why do I say anything?”

“I want to look into your eyes as you lie like you used to,” she replied. “Grit your teeth and chew the lower lip lying like a professional politician addressing a rally in the drought ravaged rural areas. When the politician tells the poor ruralites that HIV/AIDS is a creation of western imperialists bent on regime change they believe. You worked with party appointees who were taught toile from sunup to sundown. You do the same as well. You need a vaccine for the truth.

"They will almost drive out any western tourists coming to see their environs. They are told food handouts by NGO are laced with poison. They die of hunger. Next they tell them grain which is imported and in short supply is coming. They believe too. By the end of the week, the same emancipated sick villagers are climbing wild fruit trees to get vitamins and proteins eating what baboons chose to eat and leave for the next quarter of the season until the rains come. They don’t even have seed to plant the following season yet they believe in politicians and their lying machinery.”

“She didn’t even have his baby. She was a divorcee with two daughters. She was a loose c____. “

“Hey we are British _____. No offensive talks. Mind your tongue man!”

“Sorry, I let slip. If she told him the child was his, she was playing him.”

“So it was true that the great comedian came down because of a bitch of an African lady? I looked at the pictures. She was not deserving that she killed your career for. Maybe the big hips, bum and lactation system swayed you. There are better things to do with rudder sticks than let the boat run aground Philip. When a boat negotiates a channel, make sure it stays away from the sand bars. Ask for a general chart of the area before you run aground. The fact that you own a T hand held wood drill does not give you permission to go drilling holes in every dead log or living tree.”

“He lost. I didn’t win either. Soon after my incarceration, she moved with her daughters to Francistown, Botswana outside his political and intelligence sphere of influence without warning him. She was afraid of his threats in misusing state apparatus to keep a tab on her.”

“Sis.”

© Copyright tmagorimbo July 2017