• To be laughed at by men is not to be wept at by hyenas, is among the adages
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There are five broad ways in which to dream for a better tomorrow in the land at the Equator. Those who have studied the stars for generations have confirmed this.
They have developed great doctrines of unwritten nature about the matter. Essentially, it is agreed that these five ways can explain the phenomenon of optimism better than other models that exist, too.
Firstly, there is an adage that states an oddity. It argues that to be laughed at by men is not to be wept at by hyenas. There are those who have packaged poverty into a box of thought. It has become a commodity of sheer curiosity.
To carve out of it the diamonds of hope requires chisels of well-chosen campaign slogans. Such slogans may arise out of inhalation of chlorophyll from certain plants. At the moment, such a plant could be one of several that banned are.
No one knows for sure whether this matter can be taken with a pinch of salt or not. What many across the land seem to be sure of is that it can be a professorial opinion. Opinions of such sources are often hard to debate.
Those who stand at the doorstep of prosperity and guffaw at the holes on the hindquarters of squatters with mitumba trousers are several. They may not be in the majority, yet their laughter is bitter than the tears of hyenas.
Secondly, another adage of wonder exists under the skies of God. It holds that hyenas go away and jackals begin to rejoice immediately. In the land of four corners that shares a border with the ocean of Indians, much exists that continues to startle even the toddlers born in this century.
Think of a road without a destination. Reflect for a moment about corners without lines. In fact, commiserate on the co-existence of jackals and hyenas in the same pool of resources. It is clear that at times, both the hen and the eagle birds are.
The difference may not rest on the couch of importance. The similarity already occupies that hallowed space. Such is the melody of life in the land at the equator, where the two tribes of carnivores now seek to partake kilos of Development!
Thirdly, the purge that ousts reason from the epicentre of common life starts with a cough. It is not just a cough. Think of it more as a clearance of the throat and thorax. The need to eject something both strong and inner.
Something in a circle of value that depends on the life of the land to enact the main reason it exists. Something patriotic. But how can such exemplify the urge of the moment? It has been said in another adage of value that without impalas and hyenas, the lion cannot be the king of the forest.
Those who have read palms using phlegm wringed out of the lungs of peasants advise all and sundry using this adage. Who are we to stare into their dilated pupils and see not images of our dilapidated selves?
Fourthly, a wise woman once sat on my laps and we threw pebbles of loneliness on a full moon. The ripples that formed in the pond of the black sky were marvelous.
The first ring turned out to be a proverb in hiding, actually. It said that hyenas are caught with stinking bait. There are many who overnight here have turned to roadside philosophy.
They sit by the bus-stops of this magnificent republic at the equator and eschew deep thought. Most agree that the air of now stinks. It reeks of uncertainties.
It announces a kind of oracular moment, where to be or not is less important that to visit a loo. No one in particular is sure what hyenas lurk out there.
What is as clear as the ripples formed by pebbles of the woman and me, what most significant is, after the National Anthem of here is deconstructed, could be nothing more than the desire to win something. Anything. Think.
Lastly, it is said here in the city at the centre of the country that once you declare kinship with the hyena, all hyenas your friends become.
When the Master was still effeminate and used to shadow-box with the setting sun, or at least its twilight, a small bird without a beak inhabited the eaves of his broken heart. It could fetch the water from the brow of God and come wet his crystal-white tongue tip.
One day after 58 years of fasting, the Master morphed into this country we live in and have devotion for. That is the same moment that he became a friend of our cause.
Those of us who want to distil thoughts and wear their lines as linens of Hope are his friend. He may still be a kind of Hyena, the Master or this country that him is, but we are one. Our destiny is shared.