Local Diggers

It was the size of a football pitch three years ago now it’s the size of two and a quarter. The rate it has encroached is Alarming to Mr. John Ikeje. He returned from his base in London as he always does after every four years with his family. He kept walking and measuring the landscape in his mind sure he might be off the mark by far. He is sure it was even about three standard soccer pitches already. He shivered and hoped he was wrong. When he was a young boy growing up in this town of Umudim, this very desert he was walking in was a little forest some adults even feared walking past alone. Now at the age of 72, it is almost three soccer pitch desert size. The leaders of the Town don't seem to realize what is encroaching on them and don’t even know the thing is increasing in size. Just don’t add it as the problem of the Town. Who would blame the illiterate poor people? They still have arable lands, and still eke out one or two tubers they fill their stomach with each day of the year. It reflected off the sun blazing like fire. He had ignored it twice it communicated to his eyes believing it to be a broken bottle or an ordinary shiny irrelevant thrown away by wayward boys that find their way here to smoke crack. 

This time, it’s as if the reflection was communicating to him, asking to be checked out. Tired from walking around the desert, as he turned to leave and enter his Peugeot salon car back to his house, the reflection assaulted his eyes again. He turned to pay attention to the source it was coming from somewhere at the center of the desert. Pain him to be referring to this land he knew as a kid to be full of green things as a desert in his early seventies. He vowed to extend his holiday for another month to see that the state government start a kind of land reclamation process here before he returned to Europe. At his age, you are not sure of anything any more. Anything in the world including your citizenship. He took a step towards the object of his attention. He is sure it’s at the center or somewhere there. He slowly made his way in the direction of what still reflected as he neared. He stooped as he got to it. It looked like a kind of head of a sword shaped like a head of alligators and not rusty. He became extra interested in what he saw. He placed his hand on it to pull it out believing it wasn’t rooted but to his surprise, it refused to budge. He positioned himself well and applied force yet, it refused to move. He took a closer look at the surroundings and yet no earth seems to have been disturbed there for ages. Sure, this shouldn't be there, At least not in this form anyway. He searched for any long stick to place there for easier location and found none. He circled the place and went in search of sticks to mark the place and plan to return with some young men from his village to dig the alligator head up. He is interested on how it have not rusted despite this rain and sun.

After indicating the place, he returned to his car searching his memory to recall if there was anything like a sword fight during the civil war but there was none. Even the Head of the State Alligator was attached to his name never carried a Sword only a tiny carved image, the full image of the alligator no one knew its history with the man killed before the Civil War war proper. 

As he passed the village stream where many were climbing the sloppy gully to get to the water. Some trip he had made with his mother sixty-something years ago to the same stream, the memory came flooding back with clear alacrity. He smiled at the pure joy he had then for being allowed to make this trip with his family and knew that it must be the same with these sequelling kids. It would be part of their childhood experiences what these screaming kids are passing through. It would be part of their childhood story when they aged. That is if the rate the desert is encroaching still leaves anyone an inhabitant of the town by that time. He sighed loudly as he waved back to the few who recognized him. He went back to his house to send a message to his errand boy. 

   “Tell that village crier, you know his base don’t you?- sure, him. Tell him that I want to see him if he is around pronto”

He was calculating on how best o approach what he saw he didn’t want to raise any ruckus about what he saw which could be nothing or something depending. It is more on the 'Why' side than 'What'. Why didn’t the alligator head rust after whatever time it had been there? There's no way it had not been a year under the blaze. Why it still shines in that golden way of it is surprising to him. But why has to wait for what first before raring its head?

He took a fast shower to cool his system, and but not long afterward, the village crier returned with his boy. 

  After offering a soft drink, he wants to do this digging with a clear mind and head so, anyone in that group of six he plans to return to the desert with, need to be clear-headed too. So, no schnapps for anyone. He kept writing into his jotter while the man nursed his mineral. After about five minutes when he calculated he now had the man's undivided attention, he shifted the jotter and cleared his throat intentionally as with the tradition of his people.

“Yes, I need about five or six cool-headed young men that can dig ground about the size and depth of a big grave. You can record something clearly in any language, right? Good. I want you along too and I want shovels and diggers and any other digging implement I don't know of”

“All those things we can get from Mazi Adam's house at a small price. He hires them out for a day, a week, a month, a year. Depends on how organized the person is sir. But sir, who died?”

Mr. John smiled to himself and told him partially what he wanted it for.

“ You need to get clearance from the King and his cabinets before loitering around there let alone digging. The king will want to know what you are digging for and assign those to do the digging for the town. That place belongs to the town, not individual land. You need to go to the town hall on Wednesday and get papers from the lady managing the office there”

“Clearance? From the king?- Wednesday?, two days from now?funny. Do they have that kind of organization over that desert and yet that place is allowed to be encroaching to the inhabited part of the town?”

“ it’s nature, the king and his cabinet don’t forget to offer yams and goat at harvest time for the place every year. Our ancestors have done great things there for us. Before it was running but many offerings have slowed it to crawling you see sir. The leaders are doing something” 

“ I can't wait for two days. I want you to take me to the king’s house. I want the job done today”

After trying to convince him that his request is almost impossible, he acquiesces to take him to the king's house.

The palace was located in a remote part of the town and Mr. John wondered if it wasn't the desert the man was escaping from to build this house in that part of the town. Far away from the desert. But was told he came from that village. 

 After censoring the alligator part as he did to the village crier partially and replacing it with soil composition, science and testing, the king ordered them to grant him the necessary, papers.

  Thirty minutes later, five young men, one village crier, and Mr. John were at work digging up earth around an alligator head-shaped sword handle in the town's desert.