America had faded from my peripheries, shrunk in my rearview, and now might have floated off to Australia for all I knew. I was standing on my porch in Mambolo, 8,000 miles away. After my two day home-to-home transit, my keys had sunk to the deepest level of my bag. Their jingling was mean spirited laughter as I completely unpacked outside to find them, water splattering all around more like marbles than drops. The rainy-season was welcoming me home. Flicking aside the key to a truck parked on another continent, I plunged my house key into the lock, twisted, then opened.
It had been so easy in America to laugh of worries about my African house and properties. Let future Jared deal with whatever goes wrong, alright? Well now I was future-Jared, and it was time for me to face the music. Was that really a leak sprung in my roof three weeks ago the night before I left? What happens to a back yard in the jungle left unattended? Had vermin, chickens, and children taken to cohabitating in my house? And where was Knut anyway?
“TombRaiderBAM!” I shouted as I kicked my double doors in. I wanted whatever rat, snake, or goat in the place to know the SWAT team was home and trigger happy. Congratulating myself on a forceful entrance I unsuctioned the usual crowd of porch children that had attempted intercalation into my legs and took a bold step inside. Hollywood has certainly taught us how not to enter an abandoned building filled with cobwebs. Namely alone and in the dark, but I know the other obvious things not to do—like meekly say “hello” as the wind slams the door shut behind me. That behavior summons men with axes.
The first thing I noticed was the green tumor/chandelier that was bulging/hanging from my ceiling. Very vivid green mold. Noted.
My next observation was a few shades stranger and more worrying than even late 1990’s Michael Jackson—dead mice scattered across my floor. Don’t get me wrong, not-living mice warm my heart, but four intact, un-nibbled carcasses gave me pause. The circle of life is vibrant in the deep bush where I live, even the chitinous exoskeletons of the cockroaches I smash in my latrine at night are gone by morning. So why had Mufasa decreed these mouse lumps be allowed to lie in state? Anthrax? My unwashed socks smoldering in the corner? The roided-out bully rat that had been eating my protein powder? I uneasily filed this mystery away.
The rest of my place was alright. The weeds in the back had gone all USSR and were threatening to destroy all life as my corn stalks knew it, but I showed them how it’s done in ‘merica and paid someone else to destroy them. After that the only thing left to do was inhale all the dust from my bed sheets later then violently sneeze it out through my eye sockets that night.
I’m settled in now though. I’ve been napping a bit lately to ease the jetlag. Two or three good naps a day. Accompanying my naps have been the best dreams—vampire killer, superhero, war general. One day, feeling more like a loaf of bread than a human, I had been waking up only long enough to saw off then consume generously sized chunks of pepperoni before re-hibernating. After being elected dream-president of Sierra Leone, I kindly waited till after my inauguration parade to wake up again. Upon waking I had this urge to go out and be amongst the people (inception?).
Anyway, after confining myself to pants for the first time in four hours, it was radical to find the sun still so high. Going to the warf was the activity I had planned, so I followed through and found myself sipping Fanta with the usual crowd that haunts the Warf. Like everyone else down there I either sat quietly or argued.
“Lightning doesn’t strike white men.” I stated.
“What? Yes it does. You’re so tall, Oputo, you’re dead once the storms come. Thunder will Kill you.”
“Lightning. Thunder kills no one ever.”
“Lightning then.”
“Lightning never killed anyone in Mambolo!” (Volume is key to being right.)
“It killed my Grandma.”
“You’re lying.”
“Ask anyone. She was chopping down a tall coconut tree with an iron axe.”
“Oh… well that actually sounds like a lightning strike scenario.”
I chugged my Fanta and retreated back to bed. I can’t believe I have to leave this place in less than a year.
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