Leading the Night

Dancing snakes

Leading the Night 1 Dancing snakes Leafing through The Sabat News, Rika steals a glance at Jazeera TV on the wall in front of her. Her head is well supported by the back of her hard seat. She can feel the wooden rail touching her neck. She pulls the paper up above her eyebrows. From there she still peeps at the screen from time to time. Is something calling her to keep track of the TV news? Her eyes fall quickly to the pages but before she finds her line, she hears the words ‘Eeeh State Guests called Lukiimam’. She shoots up. Rika looks straight into the screen. It is as if the word Lukiimam perforates her ribs like a spear. She sits down again, leans back on her seat and takes a deep breath. She lifts up the pages of the newspaper and covers her entire face now. She drops The Sabat News and some pages first cover her lap and then fall down to the brown carpet. She puts her elbows on her desk and digs them in as she throws the palms of her hands open in a questioning gesture. Her open fingers freeze mid -air. She is hardly breathing. She stares hard at the TV screen and then sucks a deep breath in. It is as if her large eyes are about to pop out of their sockets. Our Biology teacher would have said they had already fallen out of her cranium. Her round dark chocolate face narrows down to frowns on her forehead. Her thin black eyebrows are puckered. The bridge of her nose stands clear and straight. It shines like a torch. If you were very close to her, you would see her round nostrils gently rise and fall as she breathes in and out. You would hear that her breathing says she is fed up but her nose tells she will not stop. Her eyelashes are lost in her eyes. Her face is a picture of fury, pain and daring. Yet, Rika fears. She fears compassionately. On the wall, two long ebony African masks with thin eyes and long noses seem to begin weeping. She picks the pages up from the carpet and stands up straight. She opens her eyes wide. They are clear and focused. She lays The Sabat News back carefully on the desk before her. She stays on her feet. 2 Leading the Night Now, the TV screen is filled with the broad faces of two men with round strong necks well decked with golden bling- blings on their shining skins. They smile. They look like twins. They both have jet black hair; and well pronounced thick eyebrows. Naughty smiles play on their lips. Their rosy cheeks flush as if dabbed with a little golden brown blush. They are talking to tree young girls. Their name Lukiimam is prominently running in the TV transcript below. The moving strip looks like a black snake belt that moves all the time, tying theTV around its waist. Their pictures remain on the screen for minutes. Rika sees that the two men sometimes look like one man, and then suddenly they look like two men. It is as if she is dizzy looking at them. It is as if light waves leave their faces and blind her eyes. Suddenly, it is as if they leave the screen, get tele -transported in the instant into the newsroom where she is standing and hit her.They are still on the screen. A frail woman is seen for few seconds shouting at these men with a shrill voice. She is a villager in poor clothes. The crowds on the street laugh at her. The people are pleased to see the Lukiimam who now flex their huge arm muscles facing the woman. They both hit the woman. She falls down. The crowd cheers. The little woman stands up again. She dusts her skirt and shouts at the shining men again sticking out her neck harder and preparing to run should they charge at her. Nobody consoles or joins her. Rika stares till one cold tear in her right eye gathers and falls, rolling down her cheek. She can feel the edges of her own upper eye lids move higher and higher. A soft movement as if of a tiny gentle breeze covers her eyeballs. Something has travelled from one little capillary to the next inside her eye. The soft sensation over her eyes disappears. More tears fill her...