Him. Falls onto blackened mattress with a thud. Creates a cloud of dust.
Can love survive in a dying world?
Her. Collapses into chair. Flies around.
What is the final image of ourselves we show the world?
“The bankers come today” Daddy says. “Mzungu bankers”
Daddy is a thunderstorm because of these bankers. Mummy is in a bad mood too. She hasn’t had a drink today.
There is no water in the well.
Daddy goes to Mummy.
Eyes shut. Bones making right angles. Skin like the withered fruit of the date palm.
He brings his hand to her forehead. She weakly deflects it. Daddy pauses, faces the wall and starts shouting about the bankers.
Mummy tells him he is making her headache worse. She says “God will not fail us”. She says this over and over, like a politician making an election speech.
Will God be elected?
Daddy looks around. He is wondering about us. The rest of them are outside, sleeping under the snipped shade of the Fever tree. Faith said she was taking them here to play.
Was Faith making a joke?
Faith has worry stitched into her face. The bankers are hurting her head too. She says they are not real bankers. Our neighbour Sarah says they are coming to take our land.
Our land is nothing but sand.
Sarah reads foreign newspapers and preaches about white people changing the weather.
Lucky is crying about his belly. We fear he may have caught it. It is spreading fast. Faith comforts him. Suddenly, Daddy sticks his head out of the door and shouts “Ho!”.
The sand is dry under my feet. I feel the heat, but I do not feel ready for what is next.
Mummy makes a monstrous groan and struggles to her feet.
They are here.
Hannah Fitzpatrick 