Dark turn , Black return

Dark turn ,Black return

By Dumisani khumalo

His rudimentary radar placed his point home on a narrow path used by donkeys and cattle.

It would get there easier and faster.

He had dreaded the distance with his trudging walk..A gravel road with red clay soil that marked people of his area to outsiders .The reason they were called changara , the soft iron mineral rich soils laying fallow at this time of the year and clinging to clothes and tainting their skins ,hair,as their homes, a russet red ,as if dusk had arrived at midday.

Cattle sale days were fascinating .Dance troops ,village trade,and card games all happened at the same time .It only needed to place you where your interests were,as Simba had his hand at cards ,slapping them and shuffling them with his fingers forwards and backwards ,while pulling those soiled notes towards him as he won.

Simba read into them ,the way he was nimble with his fingers taking those notes in front of their eyes .A little red soil painted them to his advantage, the way black light did ,and slapping them down more ,came with his timeous fine tuning and seeing through them ever since they were changed .

His fortunes were good ,the pub attendant knew what to give him after such an almost rare day ,when he had come in with a bottle of local opaque beer and cigarette in his mouth.Glass toast were made the way he had seen them during those old colonial days, to celebrate his victory.

He bought a whole bottle of brandy .It s brown tint was not like the common imitations of locally brewed hooch ,and eyes kept going to him as he pulled a coke or Pepsi to mix, and threw the plastic bottles away.

Fish , chicken and food vendors, peddled their wares and kept going to him to make a sale ,and he turned like a chameleon,if they had seen his winnings, to hide from those trying to get to his pocket by crooked ways .

What would he carry after all? He had ten kilometers to walk and he had done the one half when he was sober.If there was transport left ,all donkey carts had left before the card game had ended ,and knowing he had to sleep home where his wife and children were, he had to do the extraordinary walk iback ,as they were ignorant of his winnings and the knowing the chicken he had taken .

His wife would be waiting for his lousy losers stories after her chickens and grain had gone to his binges and cigarettes,while her children wailed out of hunger .

Now Simba had a good reproof to her tantrums ,and those scary arguments that lasted for the irritation he only challenged when he was inebriated enough.

Ladies with baskets came in and wanted a piece of him and as buxom ,wanted to be seen .They knew only too well a man wanted to be known ,for the zing of his sting,but Simba would blink and watch them pass by ,If he did it here ,what would he do at home ?

The bottle of brandy was half empty in his charitable hands now as it put tongue to his feet,the music playing to the sordid desires that came .Who knew when one had one too many ,as he drenched them down a sinking hole .He put his money where his mouth is and starting thinking a wily car would come by and take him home,none did.

That Samson Samson state saw the final dregs go round ,and another bottle made him the hero of the day before the senses went to sleep on others around him.

It was tacky of Simba ,as he trudged out into the dark and looked at the moon like a child to see where his mother's breasts lay .He walked out like a sidewinder,his head looking up as he took the pathway with many others,leading to the first villages and down some wary paths as he licked his dry lips with pride ,as his hand went to his pocket to feel cash and after that, his groin,to let his freedom show.

He sought to balance his tender footsteps into the path,and felt the wind draw him backwards.

There was nobody there,and he went down and felt the dark shadows close in on him to sleep .He resisted them, like the devil's and remembered his father's wise words "Son ,when you get lost in the forest ,remove your shoes Where there are thorns ,that is not a true road .Where there are no thorns ,that is the true road" 

He did so ,and a donkey cane out and brayed aloud in front of him as it's teeth sort of smiled at him with shining teeth as if it did so to celebrate with him and carried on , lost in the wooded jungle ,save for the moon that looked on with pity ,his feet kicking into snapping wood ,twiggs,his coat pulled by thorns and bushes

The adrenaline gave that last ditch effort forwards in a straight bee line,he would go up to his village he thought prematurely .He glanced sideways and saw that there was still more walking to do .Maybe three kilometers or so ,and he took the short cut when a car sounded in the direction of his village .There he knew ,his village was near the main road as the road curved out to increase the distance.

He took off his shoes again after wearing them awhile walking on a good path and continued walking and not looking back .His dry mouth had nothing to lubricate it ,and he cursed ,if he would drink his own urine .

He kept going until a borehole he had not seen came up ,and doused himself wondering if this was a miracle.For all boreholes were near shops, and a drumming sound came and it was the sound as it was at the pub that he was at He had once remembered some music clearly after such a binge and dance going home ,as it had also played to him in his vivid sleep to the end.

It was like genius had come to him and bringing all loud and clear as he had heard it .The message in the songs came out as before until he heard a loud laughter.

He cleared his ears .Those were the laughs of the buxom women .He kept walking and realised up ahead a light was as bright as he had left it from the solar panels.

He continued at the verandah where opaque beer plastic bottles lay strewn and some patrons as wel were l in a drunken stupor of a kind of an Amageddon.

A giggle came and on inquiring, the buxom women were in stitches calling him a coward.

" You still here ? Your wife will kill you .You can only get home tomorrow ,or the Lions will catch a an easy dinner of you "

Simba would have listened to he first part ,but the second part on Lions had him thinking hard as he staggered from tiredness back and forth ,and drew back into the bar to inquire on the owner.

All thoughts came to him ,and their hero if winnings ,no doubt had to decide ,when he spoke in whispers to the owner .The owner realised the dreaded and heated desires of the night.of all his patrons .

He took him behind the counter and out of their sight .

In no time ,those growling sounds of a milling machine began to sound in the dark of the night ,as if his freedom like a peace, had finally found a place of repose and wallowed deep into his only kind of freedom that shook his household down with laughter and joy the next morning.