MATATA

By Victor Lugala

"Life is sweet, even on the street. Life is even sweeter without a bank account, with little or no money in my pocket and with little care for anything." Matata is prose poetry packed in a novella-in-flash by South Sudanese creative writer Victor Lugala.The protagonist, Matata, is a homeless African philosopher and flash fiction writer who sees

• Language: English
• Publisher: Africa World Books Pty Ltd
• Release date: Oct 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9780648969891

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A Note from the Publisher

The publisher wishes to acknowledge and thank Dr Douglas H. Johnson for his invaluable help and support for Africa World Books and its mission of preserving and promoting African cultural and literary traditions and history. Dr Johnson and fellow historians have been instrumental in ensuring that African people remain connected to their past and their identity. Africa World Books is proud to carry on this mission.

© Victor Lugala, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-6489698-0-8

ISBN: 978-0-6489698-9-1 (e-book)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition including the condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Design and typesetting: Africa World Books

Cover artwork: Hussein Halfawi.

Cover design: Abdallah Awad.

THE MAN FACED THE FIRING SQUAD WITH A STRAIGHT face, eyes popped-open, daring. His penis was erect in his camouflage trousers and he was ready to die a man. The bullets knocked him down. That was his own business.

I’M STANDING ON AN ARTIFICIAL MOUNTAIN. THIS IS my vertical frontier. Dry dreams, convoluted ideas and chaos clash in my head. She pulls me aside and whispers something in my ear. Her words are tender, reassuring. I regard the height and wink at her. She walks away, her nimble feet the touch of fate. Nothing can tame the fears of a doting mother. I look down from the artificial mountain and feel dizzy, yet blessed with happiness and determination. My mind goes wild with uncontrolled thoughts pulling in all directions. The compass is pointing me somewhere within a heart’s beat. Who am I?

The door flings wide-open and ejects me into the elements. This is the day I’m going out to meet the world. And the world meets me, embraces me, and kisses my heart. I’m in the world. The world is in me. Am I the world?

I am on my own. I embrace freedom. Freedom embraces me.

I don’t live in my father’s shadow. I have never lived in his shadow anyway, have I? The man is dead. Dead men don’t have shadows. Like ashes their words are scattered in the wind.

The evening is getting dark, the banana groves in the shamba even darker. A metal skeleton tower with a red beam like a lion’s eye towers high over me, over the city. The half-moon shines dimly. I can’t see my shadow as I trudge down the dirt road like a lost soul. The banana leaves whisper like a departed soul. Dead like Dad. Oh!

Son, why do you bring shame on me, your Mum, and yourself?

Who are you, may I ask? I respond, timidly.

The voice is familiar though.

I’m your Dad.

What! Dead people don’t speak.

"I’m the wandering spirit over the face of the Earth.

Son, I’m here to guide you. Listen to my voice!"

Don’t haunt me, Dad. Begone!

Don’t bring shame on me, dead as I am. Go home. A man must have a place to call home. The street is home for scatter heads. Idiots with no past, present or future.

As the evening wind carries away the familiar voice of the departed, a turbulent cold wind squeezes my internal organs. I want to yawn. A lingering hiccup is arrested in my throat like a stopper.

I walk with heavy steps like an undecided journeyman. But obediently I follow the compass.

A pregnant woman passes me. I look over my shoulder and see her back. She is dragging her tired feet; one weak hand is pressing her broad waist. She is walking on hot coals. Her feet hardly touch the ground. Sweet pain! Pregnant women are rare to find in the street these last few years. Women in their prime crave for that fertile male sperm which has almost become a rarity in modern times due to constricting condoms, alcohol-and-drug-induced impotence, weak sperm, testicles crushed with global stress, etcetera. There are too many women and few men to go around. Singlehood or single parenthood is a modern way of life. A choice for some who cannot cope in a union. Even gay couples are looking for children by other means. The science of human reproductive health is being engineered in different ways. The potent male sperm is a coveted item, even if it means acquiring it from an underground sperm vendor. The urgency to harvest and preserve the rare potent male sperm is growing as fast as humans liquidate themselves through internecine scorched-earth civil wars, terrorism attacks, car accidents, rampant terminal illnesses, Ebola, and the new arrival: Coronavirus – this one has shaken the whole world. Will an empty world recreate itself?

MY PAST IS BEHIND ME LIKE A DRY PIECE OF SHIT LYING ON a barren field, a rebounding virus which must be dreaded. The past is a nuanced mixture of outdated, tired ideas. But stubborn reflective thoughts and dreams are naturally inevitable.

The outer world; my world, our world. Rain, shine, the sun, moon and stars, the open world under the sky is democracy made visible, public opinion hops like a grasshopper, changing shapes, chameleon-like. Freedom swims in the air like the wind that must be inhaled. I hear my voice in the footsteps of the ordinary people in the street. The footsteps travel this way and that, rhythmic and in perfect communication with nature of the wretched earth.

My mind migrated. A brainwave jerked. When the world spun out of joint we rushed to touch the feet of God.

I’M PROBABLY MY DAD’S HAND OF CHANCE. I’M HIS LEGAL or illegal project, consecrated on a dark night. How long did the male chauvinist labour to achieve his dream? A century of cold sweat dropped while he toiled. I’ve tramped the red soil of mother earth for 37 good years and counting. I keep a bushy beard, not for some extreme and wacky ideological reason, but because I’m too lazy to shave every day. My kinky, shaggy hair is greying fast. I’ll soon outgrow Wole Soyinka’s cotton-white mushroom head. I’m tall like a colonial police officer, but lanky. I’m a hustler. I dance with one leg on the tipping edge. I scrape around the edges of the wheel of life. I dare to swim against a turbulent current in a river infested with economic crocodiles. My heart is steel wire, hardened by pages of trials and tribulations. I don’t complain as long as I breathe. In my waking and in my bedtime my head is upon solid rock. I’m a survivor, I take it one day at a time. Time is on my side. Hope is my girlfriend.

How is your Mum? Tell her I miss her. Tell her I’m still faithful to her, the way I was before my departure. There are angels here, mind you, women with aquiline noses and striking features without the scars of poverty on their legs, but I have never shared a bed with any other woman. Never.

"Why do you tell me these