Tooth and Nail
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| by Mazuba Mwiinga |
Army-Wormed Terms
Funny how terms change; Battling
with seasons for having a reason that resolved on the usual calendar days,
Junior could not take it – leaving home after a five star five long weeks of
none stop tireless gig of playing antics all over the city, was such a fuss he
could not come to terms with.
In his usual cosmetic way, he consistently
attended Sunday school in an effort to slow down the days of his holiday
through his Sunday school prayers.
Little did I know that in fact
his thinking was so ludicrous to come, think of it, just as the worms were busy
praying for the rains to pour cats and dogs on the smelly scented chemically
decorated crops so as to continue feasting on nature’s most deliciously God
given food.
He flanked so casually as we
walked to intercity to catch a long route bus to another city that just brought
him memories of the previous year where passing maths was as easy as mastering
the two times table and stood the chance of another term in a fresh grade.
Biting his fingers naughtily as
he put his foot on the bus stairs as slow as an infantry of army worms
smilingly stalking entry into his grandfather’s maize crop, it looked like
Kaguta’s fossil Presidential guard
combing the area for an enemy of the state.
The long holiday was a short journey
of a hundred terms flying high and low on the escalators of any Mall that
brought sense in his already pizza corrupted mind. Well he redefined his termly
holiday saying that if UNZA could postpone the opening month from October to
January, it was then right for schools too to move the dates from four weeks to
at least four months. He vehemently argued that what was good for the gender
must be good for the geese. After all if intellectuals could be given so much
time to play hide and seek at home, why couldn’t toddlers at primary school not
having the same privilege.
I was not so much into picking
debates with computer aged-generation for that was such a crap of thought for
me, but with his holier than thou vestige-thoughts, he could not shut up until he
exhausted his little chagrins packed in his minion grey matter, labeling me a
taunted old fashioned writer who couldn’t even know that everyone else was
pushing terms staying at home, for it was the best ever time to regain
childhood.
He opined that if army worms
could extend their eating habits from their barrack grass to enemy lines of
maize crops, why couldn’t his term move from four weeks to four months
expressing that, resting was biblical,God given for one to find better
recourse after a tensely hard-earned working period of creating wealth for
thoughtless creatures.
All I knew was that he was
already carried on the bus and to me that mattered most; everything else was
his own mental squabbles he had to deal with on his journey to school where I
knew he was going to learn the lessons of madness the hard way.
