Short story – Kambangane’s dream car

“I’ll buy a prrrrrrrrrr cart,” said Kambangane, blinking at white donkeys pulling a blue cart. Thereafter, he sprinkled needle-sharp thorns over the two-spoors and punctured the threadbare tyres of Zakueeua’s donkey cart.

Instantly, he jingled rusty pennies and ripped his olive-green jacket. “I’ll buy a 4×4 car,” he said, crisscrossing a wrinkled finger over his pointy forehead. His remarks tickled Kanairombe, who sent a dust-legged boy with a prank that ‘Kambaa’ went to buy the first prŕrrr-pah-pah.

Minutes later, the sun played hide-and-seek, as it peered in and out of the flowery clouds. First, Kanairombe pictured herself buckling at the passenger’s seat and then schooled the knife-wielding boys on how to skin a fattened cow.

Hours later, pregnant-tummy men picked their teeth after chewing chunks of meat. The burping men giggled at the girls snapping their necks towards a snaking road crawling up the mountains like a white python.

The news of a diesel cart coughing black smog had spread along the yawning river, as the men cracked bones for the buttery marrow, while the women sprinkled coarse salt over the cow’s skin before sewing the skin into a cosy blanket.

“The new car will spin on rubber-smelling tyres,” said Kanairombe, twitching her nose and sticking her tongue at Zakueeua. In response, Zakueeua escorted his donkeys towards the sun-dyed grasses visited by lions. Later, he turned the donkey cart into a chicken house.

Suddenly, a whirl of dust blew, and the villagers washed their hands so as not to stain the new car. However, the whirl of dust disappeared, for it was a spooky wind picking up the loose white sand.

Instantly, the villagers quarrelled that they had spotted a vrooming car but couldn’t tell the colour of the Rocks-Cruiser. Upon hearing these quarrels, Kanairombe begged the spirits to stop the loose rocks from hitting the Stone-Cruiser.

“May the ancestors’ breaths sweep all sharp thorns out of the car’s path,” shouted Zakueeua, sowing V-shaped thorns into the sand and watering them with gallons of tears.

Seeing Zakueeua had changed his heart, Kanairombe scolded the children to blindfold each other because they wouldn’t bear the surprise of a car parked next to her dung-plastered hut.

In a blink, Zakueeua chained the ballooned-tummy dogs to barbed-thorn trees, so they wouldn’t bark at the Sand-Cruiser. By now, the women sewed their lips with wiry threads to stop chuckling after spotting a horseless car. Suddenly, Kambangane shot out of the dust balls, riding a toy car, while swerving the steering wheel and hooting through his mouth. His sunglasses looked like a tinted windscreen, while his rabbit-like ears resembled the car’s mirrors.

Everyone popped their eyes at the bottle caps rolling like pumped tyres on the toy car.

Afterwards, bearded men queued behind Kambangane and gripped his windblown jacket, after shaping a human train. Finally, the walking car hobbled towards Okahandja with the full moon beaming like a headlight.

-Mungambue@gmail.com

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