(Instalments from the diary of an ever moving fly)
By Shilaho Wa Muteshi.
DAY ONE: Arose out of my pupae stage today. Might not have known how it felt to be in the protective walls of an egg. I am plagued by this nagging loneliness. Where do I go now? Perhaps I shouldn’t worry about my origin. That glued somewhere on some meat, some inhuman food, growing into maggots, they loathed me, they hated me, they shielded me not. They loathed me in that filthy surrounding, that neighbourhood of dirt and rottenness, grime and corruptness. I just don’t know how to express the same. The children were dehydrated; diarrhoeal trails, mouths dry, snapping like… like what? I don’t have due experience of the world around me.
Dry sticks left in the slum sun for far too long. But they just create more and more food for me in the process. They are older than me, the weaklings! They came to the world long ago, wasn’t it their negligence that brought me to their midst? Now their complexity, I travel miles from a dirty nose to a wound on the big toe due south. But they have abandoned me to flourish, perhaps helpless, helpless at the sight of my two wings. It’s great news to the wicked in this great unnatural world. Today I came forth from my pupae stage. I arose out of my cocoon already educated in the ways of the world, the history of my forefathers. Think of the minute egg, the unforgiving maggot that I was, and the cocooned pupae that I have just been. Generations of a life excellently lived. I am destined to be great among flies. Am destined to become greater than dad for he knew nothing of my survival after his… * * * Now that I am born, now that I have come into the world, now that I am here, I must ensure that I add onto the piles of riches. Doesn’t everything go to him who already has a lot? They will let me do like they have let past fly generations. And history is here to guide me!
This world is boring. Should have stayed in the pupae stage, where the sun wasn’t much yet. God, and the cold that nearly inactivated me. The cold that nearly de-winged me. But now I can jump around as if released from bondage. Too much green around, too much vegetation. I shall activate them to clear, to cut it, in order to control the outbreak, whose outbreak? I can't tell. They will starve the more, and lose all their strength. And they shall die, and I will feed on their decomposing corpses, and the shit they keep piling, the rottenness that surrounds them, its every fly for itself. The same should prevail among humans, the same idea that I created. They must learn and relearn from our nature! They must feel inferior to all parasites; they must feel lesser than all the parasites that rule the world. I must get my food where no human life flourishes; I must threaten wherever life flourishes.
DAY TWO: Found a rich woman’s meat. Settled upon it and was nearly locked in the fridge. How cold, it reminds me of the poor man’s morgue. So much like my aforementioned cocoon. I hop around, unable to breath. I hop around like a tourist lost in the African jungle. Conditions are far from favourable, no freedom, am competing for some stored heritage. I can't understand the goings on. This small notebook is already damp. I came as a journalist, but landed in this giant compartment. Never shall I visit this boring palace. Where went the music of infant cries, where went the mountains of sweet lovely dirt? I do not want to go back to my cocoon days. I do not want to inherit the cold room lord, can make me sick I say; a congested chest the result. They call mine a thorax but sometimes I forget these little truths. Unlock this place; unlock this place I say lest your comrade in arms dies in infancy. I feel very weak. Yes, here she comes at long last. I feel like announcing her entry to the world without. I feel like telling the whole fly world of what a great ally we have in her! My descendants should know the dangers of such freezy environs. I think the world should know that God, our god is for us and uses we small things to punish the slum dwellers, and the lazy villagers. I should form an alliance with my rich host to keep away from the torturous cold room. I should liaise with her to necessitate her import of anti-diarrhoeal when they fall sick. As usual, no protection without monies. But we can lend you at an interest. Can't we? We can mix oral rehydration solutions using their salt, their sugar, and their water, and sell to them on credit, for the double cost is what we feed on, am I talking too much? Hope I haven’t revealed the real we. This old girl would surely make a good ally. She understands the power I wield; she knows the power in my weakness. I play on their weaknesses, and vilify their strong points. They dream of the past and let the future squeeze the present out of their past. Thanks a lot for your ignorance, and thanks mum for opening the giant gates. Shall I see you in heaven? Let me invite you to heaven, a heaven for the living, for the rest shall have died. Leave the dead to burry their dead. Leave them to mind their business, for when we do, we charge them for the service. Madam, do not let them to clean up their environs, do not let them have a cool fresh surrounding. Your clinic might run bankrupt, and that’s mismanagement. Your sanatorium shall sink into economic doldrums yet you wanted it to treat people, to save them that they may be sick again. How else would one revive an already dead economy if not burying the dead and the dying with a little respect? I don’t like the smell of antiseptic, the perfume from beneath your armpits. I won't settle on your clean settee, life belongs elsewhere. I feel old already. It’s like I fought wars in the past twenty-four hours. I must tour where I belong, where my life shall be sustained, where my powers shall be faced. I must fly due south, to the warmer parts of this world, the world without. I must make an appointment with the lower human forms that evolution couldn’t greet in the palm. They are less human; they spread the diarrhoea, the fluid wars that I create. They only like what I make. My death is better than theirs and they may never unite like we have against them. I shall forever sow my seeds in their midst and when they sprout; things shall never be the same again. I now go, I now visit them. Your fat, your nutritious food, your coldness makes me sick.
DAY THREE: I found an old man’s mouth. Sore filled and toothless. Not really, there are two remaining. His gums bleed, and their smell attracts me. Seems he has the much feared virus. Is this the breed that the term poor refers to? Must be upgraded to a species, something like Homo sapiens-poor! He must have taken a lot of liquor in his heydays and little or no food in his present. His mouth looks so much like cooked meat, and it moistens my feet, and my wings, and I feel like sticking around for longer. He hasn’t the strength to chase me away. He hasn’t the strength to close his mouth; he hasn’t the strength to feed on me like I can on him. I hop to the sores on his bony body. He should be sued for being juiceless. He should answer charges of crimes against generations of the fly family. But I must feast on him before the dogs Lazarus him. I must make him my breeding ground, and sell him a billion dollar antiretroviral. What a great idea, it’s worth the Nobel peace prize! He is helpless and will welcome anything that comes in form of a reprieve, anything that appears like an adjustment, food or poison, poison or food. The old man sleeps with his eyes open, like a ghost that fears the spirit world. His wife and last born have died, to be buried in shallow graves. I can see their red earth, fresh the smell of the soil. They must continue dying this way, their population had become worrying. Lord, create for us a stronger disease, a stronger virus than this one and your name shall be praised. He coils around in pain, no antiseptic to clean his wounds. The twining is so theatrical; he must be a qualified thespian indeed. His pass is so sweet, yet I fear the possibility of sticking in. wish I could camp here for the rest of my life, but I have to move on, I must go ahead and leave the greying beard, I must fly away from this wounded, hairless scalp of dying host. He must be a great enemy of my lord, lord of the living.
DAY FOUR: I jumped onto the nose of a slum kid, stays on the street because every other place is second hand or is it second leg? The shoe glue smells quite awful, but I must have a share of the sweet smelly mucoid nose. Is it a street boy or girl? In the higher humans I look at the mode of dressing first, and presence or absence of breasts, and the hair style, and the shoes, and cosmetics and a little of everything else. But in the lower cadre of sapiens-poor, our minor colleagues that history forgot, we fail to understand who is who. They might as well be hermaphroditic. This nose is sweet, I must eat a little before he or she collapses. Slowly, I must squeeze out the life in him or her. I must reap the lion’s share, make sure the spirit within disappears. I must proceed; I must advance before I become too old. I must climb to greater heights, climb the warm wounds that mountain this tired skin. These people died long time ago. They seem to have lost the will to live; they seem to have lost their hope for a better life, whose life? Isn’t mine better by each passing day? Isn’t my legacy the best of all time? Haven’t I been a role model in the ways of development? They have to think of my development as their development, and their development as underdevelopment. Am leaving once more, am flying away to visit other projects.
DAY FIVE: Landed in a bowl of sweet dirty water. Nearly drowned and needed hospitalisation. I must visit the fly hospital. Sapiens-poor has provided a mountain of food. Tons of sweet lovely food. Salty but quite tasty. The poor lot know not what is clean, and what isn’t. They remain ignorant even with lots of my education. I was born brainy and didn’t have to struggle with books, didn’t have to struggle with a bunch of papers, didn’t have to read hard to succeed where they have always failed. This education suits my environment, this education is my gift for their eternal damnation, and it’s a gift from my forefathers, a contribution to their economic, social and political stagnation. They ape our failed experiments which we offer them free of charge. It’s the gospel of sweet failure, the gospel of eternal damnation. I must instruct them in my language of flies, the religion of flies, the fly politics, and everything so fly-like, and its flight ideology perhaps! I made myself one of their own; I sweet talked them into believing and depending on my philanthropy, and my love for human kind, mankind and womankind. I must pretend to love them however much bile rises with every ounce of loathing deep within my soul. I must earn their respect whatever pretentious means I apply. I let them decide on the best way forward, and they chose mine way, they chose to do things my way, and I feigned revulsion, repulsion at their copycat nature, but loved it all the better. I must have escaped death several times now. And they fight to please me on my would be deathbed. It’s a life-bed instead. They just saved my life when I was on the brink of collapse. But I earned their praise, and their adoration, what accomplishment! A feeling just crops deep within my heart. I am inhuman! But who expects flies to be human? I haven’t vandalised everything in this hell-kingdom like I wanted, perhaps later generations shall continue with my noble intentions which isolated brainless sons think are wicked. But they must trust my efforts at times; I must make them admire my progress towards their damnation, their progress to hell. I would love to suck them dry. I would love to suck their blood, sap, pus, saliva, urine and everything suck-able. They admire me, and their admiration transcends continents and continental blocks. Why else would they reward me with metric tons of metabolites, litres of sweat and tears and blood? I depend on what they toil to produce, but this is a reality I must veil to their unseeing eyes, and unhearing ears. My life has been extra-fruitful. Dad must be very proud of my efforts, but do I say?
DAY SIX: Once again I have escaped death, but I keep recreating myself in ways seemingly favourable to their kin and kith. Didn’t they allow me in their midst? Didn’t they let me dwell upon their land? Didn’t they offer protection when I was most vulnerable? Blessed are they for having laboured to please me for they shall inherit the slow death that characterises my presence in any community’s midst. They agreed to a mind transplant long time ago, they allowed me to suck their bodies dry. Cholera, typhoid, dysentery and HIV/AIDS are mere scapegoats. They know the cause of their slow death. They know the cause of their dilapidation, their evaporation from the face of the earth in my favour. The faithful are happy, they are grateful for the death I spread among them, it moves them closer to their god, the god of small helpless things, the god of … of …what? They have gone without food amid plenty, they have gone without water amid floods, they have gone without clothing as they till cotton and flax, and produce bales of wool, they have taken this path of self destruction instructed by my forefathers, and now I must harvest from where they left. I must renew the assault, I must reinvigorate my efforts. They must suffer from a rare love of satisfying the neighbour in me! I would love to suck them dry at their request. Thank you people, I love your kindness! You gave me the right to squat on your rooftop even when I had proved defenceless. You gave me the chance to start another life, and I must reward you. I must pay you back with a beautifully packaged peaceful war. Only enemies of progress can call it civil. I shall provide the arms free of charge, I shall provide shelter for those willing to fight their lifetime neighbours, and I shall provide them with food. Aren’t such efforts towards my restoration? It’s this blood, this sweat and tears, this toil, this war that shall win the kingdom for us. Who are we? Does it matter? I will parch on their filthy bodies and carry away the dirt they so much require! I shall strengthen my hold wherever I settle. I shall strengthen my resolve as I age. I shall make the will to succeed at their expense the only worthwhile course. And we shall call it development!
DAY SEVEN: Ladies and gentlemen, it’s as if I have been around for seven decades of destructive development. How the human world wearies and worries. I don’t want death. I don’t want whatever kind of death. Not peaceful, not violent, and certainly not self inflicted. I can't accept death of whatever kind lord. I am its co-architect, how can it turn against an ally? I must seek ways of prolonging my sweet life and ending their as soon as they are born. This will earn me another Nobel Prize, this time for Chemistry or Medicine. I must build a bunker, some kind of nuclear defence unit that shall protect me lord. I must build some tower of Babel to be closer to you God. Like a parent, you must never leave me at this hour of need. I am leaving this dark world, I am leaving this underworld, but I must leave millions of my descendants. I must reproduce before I depart, for only you knows the hour lord. I must produce the offsprings that shall rule in my absence. I must leave a legacy in this land of lesser mortals. I must leave behind a legion of worshippers. Who shall occupy the throne lord? Shall I anoint one of their own? Who shall I anoint? I do not want to die lord. I do not want to depart lest you assure me of a safe return. I pray that you grant heaven for the living and hell for the dying; I pray that you take away this cup of freedom and give them that of pseudo-independence. I pray that you have mercy on your faithful. I lied when I said I don’t fear death, I lied when I said I didn’t mind mortality. Another day is here lord, only you knows the hour. Grant that I receive eternal life to forever devastate these lesser mortals. Lord have mercy on your instrument of… of …
DAY EIGHT: Death seems imminent. What shall I do lord? I won't go to hell. I shall not visit my cold hell. I don’t want heaven either. I want to remain in this place, here with you forever. Whatever you decide let it favour my stay. They need someone to suck their pus, their blood, sweat and tears. They need a little cholera here and there, and a little typhoid to digest their inside. Am not eight days old lord, life starts on the third day. And you know better lord; I am five days old lord. I am five days old and you know it lord! I am sorry if you think I am ungrateful for your support all through, but the idea of death is scaring for sure. Remember your promises; remember your promise of life in abundance to your faithful. Am I not one of those who have remained loyal all my life? Why should I leave the products of my tourism behind? Why should I leave a continent I have loved so much? Why should I leave my tower when all I wanted was to be closer to you? Don’t take away this precious life lord; don’t let your good servant go to waste my lord. I don’t deny that life has become a little more expensive, tedious and boring, I don’t deny that the people are a little more congested than I found them, I don’t deny that they need my absence lord, but look at what I have achieved in the short time you granted me life in their midst. Look at the kingdom I have created, this heaven. God, you can't do this to me… you can't God … I ….God …!