Trolley Tussles

The Trotro halts harrowingly in the middle of a major street, and a nursing mother hops out. She drops her shrieking suckling on the pavement, and seizes the reptilian driver’s mate by the scruff of his neck. As the callused captive tries to escape her grasp by aiming kung-fu kicks at her nether notch, another woman gathers up the abandoned nestling. Stranger and foundling are soon enveloped by the madding crowd.

Another Trotro has not even come to a serene stop, when a bawling boor tumbles out. His feelings have been injured by the driver’s mate’s stupefying slap. He rolls until he bangs his head on a concrete pylon. He gets up on his feet swiftly, sees the driver’s mate advancing with insane intent in his eyes, and dives towards the nearest rock. The mate beats it to the other side of the minibus, just before the projectile hurtles in.

A Foolish Case

A coconut huckster nicked my main man’s wrist with the macabre machete he was brandishing in order to avoid giving back the change. This senseless impulse erupted in broad daylight. Moments later, a vacuous vixen in the complaints cubicle at the Legon Police Station took one languid look at my friend’s bleeding hand, and barked, “foolish case”.

Aggression

This week’s theme will be Aggression. Aggression in urban areas. Who’s to say what the reason is? I’m looking for material beyond aggressive cops at checkpoints, street beggars, vendors etc. I am also looking beyond the scariest spectre of armed robbery. I really don’t know where this will lead. I hope it’s worth your reading.

The Bouncing Lights at Yeji

When nightfall swallows the day, and only the valiant venture outdoors, a psychedelic spectacle sweeps across the wooded pathways in yawning Yeji town. In the dark distance, dozens of brilliant, yellow lights bounce hippity hop towards you, past you and away into the night. Witches and wizards on their way!

Elfin Fertility in the Volta

A stony kernel and a hale hen are brought to the festival grounds at 7 a.m. Fetish dances and songs are performed by dreadful spirit-beings in varicoloured clothes, dry grass skirts, naked torsos ‘pastelled’ in chalk and war paint. Around 9 a.m., the kernel is buried in the holy ground, and a cock is intimately introduced to the hen. The yodelling and gambolling continues, but as the fetish demi-gods become possessed, they start displaying some shocking acts; wickedly whipping one another, breaking the sable skin and bleeding badly, but there is no cry of pain. Some are cutting and stabbing their own bulging bellies with knives and daggers, but there are no weeping wounds. By 12 noon, the kiddo kernel has grown into a 20-foot-high palm tree with mature, vermillion fruit. The hen has laid an egg and hurriedly hatched a chick. Now the mystic messengers of the gods are appearing and disappearing with a bellowing ‘poom’ amid wisps of white and yellow smoke. At 2 p.m., the chick has ‘imagoed’ into a big, fat hen, and the mother hen withers and dies. By 3 p.m. the new hen and the palm fruit have been cooked into delicious palm soup. Six short hours it took!

Bullet-Proof Verse

The ultimate exhibition of spiritual strength is the will to repel bullets with the mortal body. It’s been the Holy Grail of the African warrior since the sky separated from the Earth. Bullet-proof status is sealed by skin slicing, inoculating the incisions with spiritual salve, boozy bounds over midnight fires while mumbling mediaeval mantras. And there’s only one way to experiment whether a warrior or warlock has divined an anti-ballistic body; that is live, public demonstration. Props required: shotgun, trusted friend/marksman, delirious crowd, newsman and bullet-proof verse. News item the next morning: A self-proclaimed wizard dropped dead instantly when he was shot by his friend... As the town fool walks by the lifeless body of the pretender, he’s heard saying Kwasea!*


*Idiot.

Supernatural Mischief

In the malevolent military days, in the hoodoo-haggard Afram Plains, a soldier cuffs a little old man, and sends him sprawling in the dust. The fouled elder has done nothing wrong. He utters not a word beyond his whimpers and tears. He picks up his scrawny body and crawls pitifully out of sight with a hideous, haunted look. Minutes later, the gloating gladiator starts shrieking and shivering. Before scores of irreligious eyes, the wailing warrior’s own shoulder is swallowing up his affronting arm. The shoulder-socket sucks in the muscled limb until only a forefinger and thumb are left hanging out.