The a-thousand year old man

THE A-THOUSAND YEAR OLD MAN.
The small kerosene lamp flickered in the night draught – almost a sign that it was
time to go home. The night was weirdly warm although it had rained heavily that
afternoon. The village fast asleep by the time the shop owner decided to ‘shoo’ away
the remnants of his customers. They consisted of a fat drunk named James
Kamwesigye (he had been drinking since God conceived the idea of him), an elderly
woman named Gertrude something, something, Ivan Kakondo the popular village
barber and another dark stranger who barely spoke to anyone at the shop but did
ask for a packet of cigarettes and smoked them slowly since 5:00 o’clock.
No one paid any attention to the ‘dark’ stranger since he did not bother anyone and
besides he looked like a local drunk who’d crawled out from the underworld to by a
packet of cigarettes before he crawled back. The stranger was rather dark skinned
like he had sat in the sun all his life and had ‘yellowed’ eyes – the sort the big bad
wolf had in Little Red Riding Hood’ – a faded, threadbare shirt; stripped with white
and moss green and wore a pair of old trousers ripped at one knee. His shoes were
very old, they seemed to have been around since his school days and those looked
to be a rather long time ago. He was possibly in his late sixties heading to his early
seventies.
The crickets sang out into the midnight African blackness as the frogs and other
creatures joined in the harmony. Ivan Kakondo made his way through the
darkness from the shop. He used the small LED torch on his phone to illuminate
his way as he staggered along the narrow path known as a pan-ya (the Swahili
translation meaning ‘rat’) with thick bushes growing all around – it was the
quickest way home. He might have been a little drunk but he was good for the
night. He hummed to himself as he made his way through the dark towards the
small one-roomed house he called home. It was half-way down the road when he
heard something very peculiar.
“A cow mooing in the night?” he mused turning in the direction of the sound. The
peculiarity of it was just how close it sounded, he had not heard it move as he
made his way down the panya and neither could he make out its shape in the
dark. He turned the light in the direction of the sound and what frightened him
more was the fact that he could not see the damn animal. He swept his light back
and forth but there was nothing to see. His mind screamed “RUN YOU IDIOT! RUN
ALL THE WAY HOME!” his pride hastened his departure.
The village was a tough place to grow up and as a male child your fears are dulled
as you grow into a man. It is where a boy is taught to be as tough as stone and as
rigid as iron when it came to showing fear. That with the occasional action film
made one almost fearless in the presence of an unseen danger.
Ivan felt his curiosity overwhelm his sense of fear as he stepped off the path into
the bushes to look for the cow – big mistake. He wandered aimlessly through the
bushes for five good minutes, twice retracting his steps before he concluded that
there was no cow within ten meters from the path. The animal had not made any
sound since he stopped. He figured that it must have just been his imagination – a
freakishly vivid one – as he turned to head back to the path, the beam of his light
caught a figure standing by the tall lone tree in the bushes.
Ivan felt his heart stop for what felt like a month, his bowels tightened and his
entire system froze (please press ctrl+alt+del to resume). The man had been
standing there quietly – watching – in the dark as Ivan wandered around the
bushes.
“You’re Ivan Kakondo.”  The man said in a calm voice which was scarier than if
he’d shouted it. Ivan opened his mouth to respond but he recognized the man’s face
and the words dried up – he was the man from the shop. “I thought we would meet
someday Ivan.” he said slowly moving forward the way a hunter would in order not
to frighten his prey. “You and a man named Kikomeko killed a man for his money
six years ago and hid his body right here.” The man stated calmly.
Six years ago, Ivan was turning twenty-two. He was young, wild and only God
knows what else. It was around the time his father had died; Ivan had never felt
more regret for not listening to the old man at the time. Kikomeko was what Ivan
later realized as an opportunist. The kind of person who preyed on vulnerable
young men who’d spent their lives drinking and living rather reckless lives. They
stalked a ‘nobody’ for months when Kikomeko informed Ivan about the amount of
wealth obtainable from the demise of such a character. The money was the only
real thing about the incident but everything else had turned out worse than
Kikomeko had painted.
“who are you?” Ivan demanded trying to find his courage “what do you want from
me?” the man smiled and his eyes twinkled in the light.
“I am older than the hills of this village, I was here before you or anyone alive today
was.” He grinned “I am the reason why people don’t do bad things.” The man was
standing at arm’s length from Ivan now – Ivan had not heard his footfalls as the
man advanced. “you don’t hear much from Kikomeko nowadays, do you?” just then
Ivan go a vision as bright as day in his mind of a man – a frightened man – sitting
on a rock in the middle of what appeared to be a desert in the hot burning
afternoon sun. The sun never moved and night never came in this place. All
around the man were dog-sized millipedes, centipedes and spiders. The man was
naked except for the dirty torn underwear he had one as he crouched like a
frightened little boy on the rock – the only thing between him and the spiders. Ivan
felt the strength leave his muscles as he recognized the man – Kikomeko.
“The man you killed had two children and a wife. The children were four and six.
They had no land the money you took was what was supposed to keep them.” the
old man said. The old man’s face had changed at this point. His pupils seemed
blacker and his cornea pus-yellow. His nostrils flared angrily and his teeth –
countable and badly stained yellow. The worst thing about it was his breath – it
was hot, not warm; hot as in charcoal hot on Ivan’s skin and stank of rotting flesh.
Ivan wanted to scream but his diaphragm didn’t have the strength as he opened
his mouth but only a whiz came out. Ivan felt the man lock one hand around his
wrist, tight as an iron shackle and knew it was no point in fighting the out of the
man’s hold. The night air for a moment was filled with the screams of Ivan
Kakondo ringing out into the darkness which faded into silence.
The next morning Ivan turned up to his shop punctually but there was something
different about him. He was smarter than most other days with his shirt clean and
his trousers neatly taken care of and by the looks of him he was a changed man. A
man changed forever.