Echoes of Fury

Echoes of Fury

By Pfumo

Stephen must write! He’s been working on his notepad since two in the morning. Now he is stuck, no matter how much he tries, he has nothing more to tell. He checks his wrist-watch, it’s only 11 in the morning. His fingers are twitching in vain over the keyboard. No ideas are visible on the horizon of his mind. The imagination machine has a notice attached to with the use of adhesives. The notice reads, to whom it may concern; “Out of order!” ‘It looks like I have written myself,’ he thinks aloud, ‘into a writer’s block.’ His deadline for submission of his story is at 11:59hrs. If he misses the deadline the deal is off. He decides to take a short break. Maybe he has been overworking. Maybe after a short rest he will be revitalised. His chin rises slowly until his occiput rests on the wall behind him. His eyes close and he feels the tension in his head ebb away. As sleep steals in he becomes oblivious to what’s happening around him.

His story is racing in his mind: The Assassin penetrates the Presidential mansion as an electronic technician working for an Israeli company subcontracted to revamp the security and access to the premise. The end product is an estate president Ziveko can access on his phone, he can lock and unlock any door, he can view every nook and crevice in the mansion through dozens of cameras strategically mounted in all rooms and outdoor spaces, from an app on his phone. The Assassin is supposed to study his target as well as the murder scene before the advanced security system is commissioned. Date and time of the assassination is the day of commissioning and the target is President Ziveko.

The assassin walks into at Suzie’s quarters at her invitation to his knock. “I’m here to install electronic locks and cameras.” He knows his line well. He has been saying it over and over for days now. But he says nothing. His jaw drops. Suzie’s back is towards the door but the upper torso is turned in anticipation of the visitor. What she sees blacks out her reasoning, she’s looking at a handsome, well-built hunk. The hunk in question freezes exhibiting the symptoms of one who has had a mental blackout. A violent sexual attraction spell engulfs them both. The two leap towards each other and within seconds they are in each other’s arms voraciously kissing. They peel off their clothes in search of the treasure within. The duo is now naked in the entry hall. The feast flows into the sitting room where within minutes they are in the throes of sexual intimacy. Later, when the breathing has normalised and their bodies have cooled down, “Aldridge.” He offers her his hand.

“Suzie.” She shakes his hand with a naughty expression of a well sated lady who had to stoop low but does not regret it

Sleep saves Stephen from the shock of seeing smoke rising from the notepad keyboard. There are no guidelines on how to treat fire especially when the source is an electronic device. Even if Stephen had not been asleep, he would not know how to quench the fire. Wisps of smoke thicken to form fumes of different hues in the air just above the notepad. On close inspection the smoke is actually letters of the alphabet, escaping from the keyboard, rearranging themselves into words, sentences and paragraphs complete with punctuation marks. The paragraphs form a complete description of one of Stephen’s characters. Her physique becomes legible just above the notepad. Further letters of the alphabet describing the same character’s personality begin to rise from the notepad to hover in the air. The words form an image of a beautiful lady wearing an ankle length red velvet dress with a slit that goes all the way up to her hips.

As it were he is now snoring gently without a care in the world.

‘There dozes my tormentor-in-chief.’ The phantom looks at Stephen with disdain. “If I was made of matter I would have slapped him and spit in his face for good measure. He is lucky I am composed of ideas.” It /she shifts its /her head slowly towards his face, maybe the spine is lengthening in the process for the level of the phantom’s chin does not get lower in spite of the forward movement. At this point their noses are almost touching. Stephen would have been woken up by the phantom’s warm breath except that it / she does not breathe. Its / her head tilts slowly to one side as if trying to see Stephen from a different angle, or maybe seeking a better perspective, of its / her inventor. Presently the expression of its / her face turns from disdain to hate then ultimately to anger.

‘Right here,’ It / she says of the sleeping writer head to head with her, ‘within reach of my wrath.’

‘Of all characters in this world, he chose to make me a harlot of a mixed race, took me out of civilisation of the first world to dump me in Central Africa, that hot and heartless world. And to do what, you may ask? He chose to make me a dictator’s concubine, a breaker of the first family’s marriage, given the title of Personal Assistant.’

A finger, in fact words defining a finger, wags at Stephen’s temple menacingly.

‘There was poverty despair and ennui in Central Africa, when I was there. There was a devastating drought but believe me from the Presidential mansion you were as good as someone in Europe, lush lawns, green gardens around you, a total of 15 fountains on the 6 hectare plot. A whole school had been evacuated and structures demolished to build the multi-million dollar homestead, rather a mini-city, proving that in a dictatorship knowledge bows down to greed.’

‘One senior advisor saw through the scam, came to my quarters under cover of darkness and announced, “I know the truth.”

“Of course everyone knows the truth, the sky is blue is the truth, the house is white is the truth, you are in my space, that is the truth, nothing special about knowing the truth.” I tell him, about to close my door but he puts his foot between the door and the jamb. The door can’t be closed and he’s not budging. We look each other in the eye and I see that this is one hell of a truth I might want to hear.

“Okay, I know the lie.” He concedes before I do. I release the pressure on the door handle and he steps into my chambers. In short he knows President Ziveko saw me on a state visit in Europe, sent one of his aides to get in touch with me and arrange to bring me to this country, to this sweat sucking country, to do what? To please his sexual fantasies too gross to share with the first lady. They give me a decent sounding title; Personal Assistant. The senior adviser sneers, “Personal sounds appropriate, as for assistant,” a snort of laughter, “only “ass” is relevant the rest of the word is pure gibberish.’

‘What do you want?’ I ask, the fact that I might need to negotiate beginning to sink in.

‘Rather what do you want?’

‘To be left alone.’ I say it plainly.

‘Good, do you know that you’re asking for the most expensive aspect of life? Peace never comes cheap, countries go to war for it. They build nuclear war-heads for it, mass produce Avtomat Kalashnikovs to attain it. They sign pacts with NATO to achieve it. Can you afford it?

‘And so, for his silence Stephen made me the senior advisor’s bitch also. But the delegate was an ambitious one, he,’ waging a fist, or ideas defining one, at Stephen, ‘made him come back for me again. “I’ve recorded you touching me in the wrong places. I have a clip for the President that could see you before the firing-squad first thing in the ante meridian. Don’t fool yourself,” I told him, “there’s no second coming [pun intended].”’

Stephen’s consciousness rises slowly from his head like a giant snake uncoiling to float buoyantly. Green fumes arise from the dozing writer’s temple. As they circle about in the air hints of component colours appear as blue, yellow, black and white faint threads. Presently his consciousness is face to face with Suzie, his character in Echoes of Fury, the book he is writing. Soon there is a non-violent battle between his conscience versus his creation’s.

‘You dragged me in your last story as a cannibalistic witch. Now in this book you bring me up again. Why do you keep bringing me up if you hate me so much?’

‘I don’t hate you; I can’t hate you because you don’t exist.’ Stephen conscience replies.

‘Are you telling me that you’re talking to yourself?’

‘No, what I mean is you are not physical.’

‘So is air, does it mean it does not exist?’

‘I mean, unlike air, you don’t occupy space.’

‘Ditto a vacuum.’

‘You made me steal a murdering psycho’s husband.’

‘What psycho?’

Before the coup Grace wielded as much authority as a General’s mistress could muster. During the melee of the coup, Grace’s handful faithful lieutenants went on an errand to subdue the general’s wife. From declaring himself the new leader of Central Africa at the state media house General Ziveko came to the safe house to the news of his wife’s passing. He did not shake with rage, he did not, it is rumoured, order an enquiry into his wife’s death, all he said was, “Well, you win some and you lose some.” Then casually went on to prepare his inauguration speech.

President Ziveko’s first move was to ban elections. “Too divisive,” he told the stunned masses. “One party; one nation.” He roared at the end of his proclamation and hopeful diplomatic picked up the chant and adopted it as the national slogan. Due to international pressure he allowed opposition parties to exist. After a ten year hiatus he reintroduced elections. Every five years he lost the people’s mandate to rule and each time vote of no confidence was announced by the electoral commission as an electoral victory. The rigging machinery was simple; the commission chair announced the opposition party leader’s votes as the president’s and President Ziveko’s vote-count became the opposition party leader’s. This ensured a resounding victory every time. In a way the President Ziveko waged a coup de tart every five years. His sons were born in the Presidential mansion, did not have any other home except the Statehouse. They did not know any other profession except being the first family. Their relatives were top government officials, cabinet ministers, directors of parastatals and permanent secretaries. A whole dynasty created over a generation. The opposition learnt that the only democracy that works in Africa was bloodshed. Bloodshed rather than votes was what got Presidents inaugurated in Africa. When the opposition realised that a man was hired to assassinate the President Ziveko. He came into the country a week before the proposed assassination.

“Well, you did not steal outright, if you don’t mind the correction, I made you share a man with a dangerous woman. Remember she was a mistress once upon a time. As for the adjective “murdering”, look, the coup happened some four decades ago when she was full of zest and zeal, by the time you entered the presidential mansion, Suzie, arthritis had set in Grace spine and I’m sure you were exactly what the mansion needed to spare the president from scandal with lowly housemaids.”

“Look in chapter 6 you made me look like a bitch, how the hell do I sleep with a stranger I had just met?”

“Suzie, you don’t appreciate, that bout of sex saved a president’s life. It made you a co-hero, in a way.”

“What, by jove, is heroic about making love to an assassin? I tell you, Stephen, you’re losing your touch.”

“You forget Aldridge is very intelligent.”

“Yes, an intelligent assassin.”

“He is ruthless, the only one who suffered no nightmares after his first kill in training as if he had slaughtered a rooster for supper. I’m sure ladies love a man with guts.”

“There are better ways of displaying guts than opening up other human beings guts.”

“You tend to forget the dude is tall, dark and handsome, every woman’s dream, there are millions of women out there who would pay millions to have the same experience you had with him in my story, in fact who would kill their own parents to have sex the way I made you do with him.”

“Stephen! Are you deaf? It’s sex with an assassin I’m objecting to.”

A left-handed idea poured happy emotions into a mortar and the pestle was obliged to crush happiness to a powder. Why be merry in a diseased, disintegrating world like this one. With countries competing for military supremacy. With millions set aside for the most efficient device that can exterminate cities in one strike. Life somersaulted backwards to undo mistakes made in youth. Because some errors are irreversible, they can only be undone. They are insurmountable and can only be looked up at. A time capsule becomes a need rather than a choice. Silence has a name, but it will not be called in the interest of silence, to preserve silence. Time ticked past puberty, kept ticking until a billboard scribbled “Menopause Welcomes You” was in sight. It was only then that Grace stopped her wicked scheming. Stephen cannot help how he made Suzie do what she did. He cannot uncreate her, she is a stubborn phantom that one. She got a life of her own now and she is making Stephen’s story run at tangent to the original plot. The storyline has several teeth missing, moreover its limping on the wrong leg. She spoiled a nation’s hope for freedom in her quest to avenge a sex predator. Her satisfaction left millions in bondage. She watched hope of millions in Central Africa being quashed as the bullet destined for the dictator’s head was diverted to his senior adviser’s groin.

Now that he had seen her he felt that he knew her better. The bindi on her face like an Hundu bride, two strokes on each cheek like razor blade scars from inoculation at a tender age of an African. Get long sinewy legs of Afro American sisters. Slit eyes like an Oriental sleeping beauty symmetrically pegged above a patrician nose. She formed the epitome of beauty of the five continents. A sexually attractive body demanding sexual abstinence from its creator. Now that he had seen her he knew that his conjuring mind owed her an apology. Seen her? Really? Had he not perharps reconjured her in a more perfect form this time around? Had he really been asleep or had he just found a most effective way around writer’s block. All of a sudden he had more to say than he had time to say it.

Where were the President’s sons when the assassin struck? Suzie wrote the script, much to Stephen’s chagrin. In Suzie’s quarters of course. What both of them? Both William and Clinton, named in that order, after an American democrat President, to prove that opposites attract, were in her quarter, one in a closet in the Walk-In-Closet, the other at the corner of Suzie’s bed the funnel of his ear collecting and assimilating the poison oozing out of Suzie’s vengeful heart, doing what her previous anger had undone, shaping the future of Central Africa by taking advantage of two smitten brothers and luring them into the world of bloodbaths.

Then how were they suspects? Because the assassin was given the Senior Advisor’s coordinates as the President’s. His aim was on point albeit at the wrong target. Like Pharaoh’s daughter, Suzie had requested the President’s head on a platter from his sons in exchange for her heart. And they wanted her body badly enough to deliver. So did the two brothers want to share the same girl? In fact Bill came to Suzie’s quarters before Clinton, read her an equivalent of the song of songs. That did not work. A knock at Suzie’s door and William disappeared to the adjacent Walk-In-Closet. Enter Clinton, another rendition of the Song of Songs. Again love offer rejected. Clinton switched to plan B. He reminded her that the first lady commanded a sort of venereal power over the President’s errand boys, the fatal department of it, and all she needed was a whispered hint from a trusted source viz Bill her first son, that presidential infidelity was happening right under her nose with his so called personal assistant and within minutes the errand boys would be out on a mission, sniffing blood. Suzie realising that she was not only in her quarters but also in a tight corner, negotiated a deal. Love with her was possible, if he really wanted her even marriage, especially to a President, and, she whispered with feeling; “there’s nothing sexier than a husband with looks and power”. Bill’s youth made him good-looking. He knew what he had to do to be both good-looking and be a president. Clinton, eavesdropping from the built-in-cupboard in the walk-in-closet, knew he could beat his brother hands down on the looks scale so he decided to beat his brother to the game. He would bring the president’s head first.