She held the small axe in her right hand and a small bag of seeds in the other. ‘Either you are right hand or you are not, a man or not’ She examined her left hand, rubbing the blisters as if to feel the veins and blood flow underneath. ‘I am what I am not- a man’. She concluded without a mid-day field spectacle of lifting her skirt to confirm.

The blistering mid-day heat left her puffing, occasionally stopping to wipe her brow of the flowing sweat. She also had a bottle of water by the tree, and she would momentarily walk into the shade, not to rest, but to wash her eyes with the little water she had. The flow of the sweat was bitter to her ageing squinty eyes. Yet she would continue with this routine everyday, waking up early, and often on a small piece of bread, if ever there was that, to be in the fields again.

‘What you are not is only useful if you have to work the land’. She murmured to herself. ‘They said I was special’. She stopped, looked up to the sky with bright aspirant eyes as if in prayer and to the horizon with a twisted face as if in a curse. ‘Do the gods live in the horizon or 12 mid-day above my head’ She bent down, as if to avoid the answer. ‘Wherever they are they must piss on us and we will roll in their piss and celebrate with mud over our bodies’. Mud keeps you younger, she remembered. Not dust choking our nostrils, her prayer turned into an angry barrage towards the invisible hand of the skies. ‘That is why I am here working the land’. She bent down to scoop dust with the little axe she held, simultaneously dropping seeds before dragging her feet kicking dust over the seed. ‘Bury them in this mid day scorch’. She moved on. ‘Hands getting tougher with age I cant even feel the winter early morning chill- as if I didn’t have any circulation left’. Clouds hovered in the horizon as if in promise of freedom. Freedom to be rewarded for this sweat. ‘What would it be without this freedom coming to me for I can’t fly into them clouds for the freedom’? She wondered.

A young man passed by, continuously ringing the bell of his bicycle. The sound ringed in her ears until the sun was setting. Only then the sound of baby goats waiting for milk did the bell ring out of her ears.‘Earworms, earworms’. She pickled her right ear as if in preparation to listen to something only for her ears, in the process retrieving a mud like puss from the ear. ‘Its that bell from the bicycle’. The goats wagged their ears in a cooling frenzy; they wiggled tails spreading shit around their hind legs. They ran in zig zags picking on the rare leaves. Baby goats jumped up and down in mock fights, locking heads.

‘They told me I was one and the same with the earth’. She continued talking into her teeth. ‘That one day we will return to the dust we were’. She reflected. ‘And yet I breathe, sniff and eat dust all day’. She bent over and spat on the ground. ‘And I continue bending over digging the dust to rise up my nostrils and into my mouth’. As the sun retreated its bold, dry red scalp into the darkness approaching from the east, she tied the small bag of seed and tucked it around her waist belt. ‘They might as well have made it a chastity belt’. She chastised.

It usually happened when she was I these reflective moments. Her anger would cover the air around her and she will shut off the whole world. ‘For a moment, let me just be’. Her brother-in-law walked by waving profusely but with no response. She looked at him and thought he must be mad. ‘Waving back will encourage him’. She thought before bending over to tie her shoelaces. She looked at him through the corners of her eyes, continuously and profusely untying and tying her shoelaces. ‘He talks too much’ She resolved not to wave back at him.

As the golden sunset disappeared, an almost full moon slowly was replacing it, engulfing the eastern darkness with the half-heartedness that only the moon can offer. She thought she should start walking home. ‘They were not serious, were they?’ She asked herself as she slowly walked down to her house. ‘This moon and earth talk crap, never heard anything like it’ she continued. ‘Trading eternal freedom for short term interests of those who we are not’. She stopped her thoughts and focused her eyes on the little footpath leading to her house.

As a young girl, she had always wanted to play with her brothers. ‘Was I sheltered or just disadvantaged?’ she questioned her now distant and fast disappearing past. ‘Who is closer to the earth then, they have disappeared my brothers’. She thought. ‘To be a girl is to be like a small axe’. You have to borrow enough courage to cut down a big tree so you can carve your small axe handle, she reflected. Yet to live as small axe you must fell a giant tree. As a young girl, to impress your parents and relatives you have to be both smarter and giant felling your brothers. ‘All they told was how close to the earth I was’. She recalled. The story of small axe, always small and close to breaking point before felling a giant tree to carve a handle. ‘A necessary condition’.

The moon, like a pregnant woman, beared a funny rounded shape. She looked at it, looked away and up again. ‘This moon shows the pregnancy of the clouds’ Freedom is coming, she thought. ‘Up in the north the rain queens are gathering their rain sticks. Poking the rounded belly of the moon to induce the rains to come down’. She wondered what had happened to her own rain queens. The funny pictures in the middle of the moon seemed to laugh at her. ‘Even from outer space we are condemned and laughed at by youngsters’. The rabbit eared child on the moon seemed to be jumping up and down. ‘What time for celebration is this?’ She wondered. Maybe they bring the rains. All of a sudden, she was engulfed in a huge extensive shadow that stretched across the river. ‘The skies are moody today’. A huge demented cloud was hovering below the moon, cutting short the celebrations from the moon offsprings. ‘You can’t laugh at strangers and expect to get away with it’. She pulled a finger as if to communicate with the rabbit eared moonchild. The cloud brought a breeze that sent chill thrills under her skin. ‘Its never too hot or too cold’ why not something in between- she wondered as she shivered with cold excitement.

The demented cloud hovered as if in somersault, twisting and turning to momentarily reveal the bare moon. ‘What a pool?’ She thought as she caught a glimpse of the moon, which now seemed to be collecting all the cloud waters around her. Another spine tingling chill rushed up and down her chord. ‘A sensation of both cold and hot’. She wondered what rain queen spirit had passed through her tired body connecting her soul to unseen and unheard voices.

The dog barked, running towards her and wagging its tail as if promised a bone. She continued walking, her thoughts by now flying all over. At the edge of her household, she stopped to pick up lemons and oranges that had fell onto the ground. ‘Too soft, almost rotten these oranges’. She squeezed the oranges as she threw the lemons onto a pile of rotten leaves and all sorts. A flickering fire kept the outline of a door to her kitchen visible in the balanced moonlight and darkness. Occasionally the fire would get brighter as the demented cloud hovered over the moon, producing a demonic shadow that crawled over the land, accelerating and decelerating in different directions as dictated by the cloud.

She looked up to the moon and it appeared to be moving around and underneath the clouds. ‘Hypnotising effect this movement’. The longer she kept her gaze at the moon the more difficult it was for her to figure out who was moving – the moon, the clouds or herself. She had been carrying a letter from her daughter for almost two months now, reading it when she feels lonely and when she misses her daughter. The strange effect of the moon led her to the bedroom where she put on the light and pulled out the letter from among the small bag of seeds she had stashed along her belt. ‘Mama- you taught me to live life to the full and follow each path to the end’. She stopped and looked out through the window. ‘I hope I have the courage to continue looking for the earth’s beauty through your wonderful and questioning eyes, your sharp and inquisitive mind’. She stopped to try and imagine what was going through her daughter’s mind at that moment. ‘I am rushing to finish my studies now after which I intend to take up a full time job with the company I have been doing internships with’. She stopped again to remember her own past when she was on the verge of finishing a teaching diploma and throwing her full worth to the world.‘Mama, I have also met a man who I am so deeply in love with’. I also met my man then, the footsteps of history, she thought. The footsteps of history are louder than a heart pounding into your mouth, be careful my daughter, she thought. ‘My problems seem small when I think of you mama, when I think of the greater working universe of which we are both part’. Go and throw your fate at the universe my daughter. Its almost full moon here, your worries will be swallowed by this moon. Besides, the pool of water gathering around the moon will wash them away. ‘Mama, your insights gave me such a big window through which I can peep into the world. Don’t let the flowers of the world blind you in one alleyway my daughter. ‘You taught me to squint my eyes to stop being blinded by the overwhelming sights of the world’. The earth has been sleeping here my daughter, scorched its bare back to a brown bake, you will love and hate being here now, to feel that the gods are showing us their backs, she continued the conversation with her daughter. ‘Today I sit and wait in patience for the earth to turn around and show its smiling or cruel face- will you wait with me mama’. In a few months, after the rains, banana plants and reeds will respond to your patience in song to the winds and flowing waters of the river. ‘We never realise how time is always ahead of us, how we all leave it to sprint ahead of the other generations’. Yet we continue to sing, ululate, dance and bear children.

She had been living with her niece for some time now. The niece would help her piece together her everyday life, from waking up, heating the water for her baths, to food and to keeping sanity. As she approached the room, her niece was finishing preparing dinner of homegrown rice and vegetables. As always, there was an option for dried goat meat but she always opted for the vegetables or sour milk. ‘My teeth are not strong any more for this goat meat’. She rolled her tongue around the arch of the teeth, feeling the gums and testing if they could stand another goat meat bite. This was a daily exercise, even though she had long concluded that she didn’t want to eat goat meat anyways. ‘At least they are still there’. She reassured herself and went on to prepare to take a bath before dinner.

Some had developed a strange illness. ‘Gout’. She thought she was old now to worry about gout but still the thought of it revolted her and that sealed the decision about the goat meat.

She was startled in the middle of the night. ‘The whole day has been building up to this?’ She thought as she struggled to open her eyes in times for strokes of lightning tearing the sky apart. For a moment she lay still in bed, just waiting. The wind was tearing through the now rain soaked atmosphere, at times blowing heavily against her modest two-bed roomed house. Scintillating sounds of water flowing from the roof gutter to the tank she had put beside her kitchen. In her fowl run, she could hear guinefowls and chickens tussling for dry spots, fighting and dislodging each other from prime spots. The sounds of these birds made her uneasy. A few months back, a snake, a cobra, had found its way into the fowl run and left half a dozen chickens dead. Just when the cobra was carrying her away in thought did another splash of rain come down onto her corrugated iron roof, dwindling and burying the cry of fowls.

Further down by the river, the sagging waters kept tumbling and negotiating their way down stream, being booed at on every corner of the river, on every drop in the river. ‘Life along the river must be fulfilling’. She thought with a fixed gaze on the ceiling.