291. The pothole gobbled up the front wheel, then spat it out again

The pothole gobbled up the front wheel, then spat it out again, a horrible metal and rubber mess. It was the second wheel they’d lost in three hours time and with the sun setting on the African jungle, panic was slowly setting in.

There was no spare left in the trunk and the nearest village was half a day’s journey on foot. They were alone in the heart of the darkest part of the continent, surrounded by predators who would not hesitate to pounce once the golden ball in the sky had been replaced by a silver one.

They retreated into the car and lamented the fact they had made the journey in the first place. They could have spent three weeks on the beaches of Torremolinos. But they chose adventure. Now it seemed they would pay for it.

As the sun set, the sounds of the African night pummelled the car in force. Mysterious sounds of unknown creatures, whose eyes popped up one at a time from behind the leaves that lined the road. Even in the relative safety of the car, they could feel their presence, as the animals slowly gained on their pray, until the car shook and bent under their weight.

Holding each other,  they prayed death would be swift and painless. They prayed and waited. Prayed and waited. Waited. Waited.

***

The truck driver reluctantly stepped out of his vehicle, holding a handkerchief against his disgusted mouth, as he witnessed their mangled bodies, gobbled up and spat out again, a horrible flesh and bone mess.

Then he stripped their car of the three remaining tyres, hauled them in his truck and left.

Africa was no place for accidental adventurers.

Only survivors thrived here.

If they wanted a proper burial, they should have gone to Torremolinos.

 

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275. Water had run out days ago

Water had run out days ago, but against all odds the three of them were still trudging through the Sahara. They had set out from Zinder, packed like sardines in dinky lorries that broke down once the desert sands had wrecked the engines.

The trip will last a week, the man had promised. Then you will see the Mediterranean. And across the sea, on a bright day, the promised land.

Adamou had sold his goats to pay for the journey. Others had sold their lands, their houses. They were superfluous anyway once they would set foot on European soil. Once they got a good job, a good home, a good life.

Tabarkalla stumbled. He was the weakest of the lot when they had set out. That he had survived this long was a minor miracle in itself. Adamou and Ghaffar did not kneel down or aid him. They hàd done when the first of them had fallen. They had helped them to their feet, carried them, buried them. But compassion was but a distant memory. Each minute in the scorching sun, each lost drop of sweat could kill now.

Adamou and Ghaffar would not give up. They owed it to their families, whose corpses were in all likelihood now covered by the ever-shifting Sahara dunes or eaten by scavengers.

“There is an end to this desert,” Ghaffar assured Adamou in a dry, hoarse voice.

Ghaffar had just a week ago been a complete stranger to Adamou.

By now he was willing to tell lies with his final, precious breaths to make sure his one remaining companion did not die a man that had forsaken hope.

 

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152. The giraffe’s neck pushed through the foliage

The giraffe’s neck pushed through the foliage like a periscope splits the water: upright and rigid.

The sweet juicy foliage. O how the animal wanted to take a bite out of it. But that meant bending its neck down, something it had not been able to do since its fifth vertebra had locked up three days ago.

Ever since the other animals started mocking it for its perilous situation. Lion cubs and hyenas playfully bit its ankles without the giraffe knowing if it was for taunting or for dinner. Rhinos tickled its belly with their horn, causing painful neck spasms. And birds made a sport out of circling around its head, whistling insulting remarks.

In their mind they had every right to. The giraffe had always been haughty towards them – it was the tallest animal among its troupe and therefore of the savannah – and they had never forgotten its disdain for them. Even members of its own troupe did not come to its rescue.

This torture went on for several more days, until the giraffe, exhausted by lack of water or food, bent its knees, breathed one last sigh and fell dead onto the dried grass below its feet.

The other animals talked about how they could have helped the giraffe. How the birds could have fed it berries and the elephant could have used its trunk to spray water into its mouth. But they felt no remorse. This was the way of the savannah. No mercy for the feeble ones.

And as the scavengers and big cats feasted on the giraffe’s carcass, they knew that one day they’d befall a similar fate as that of the giraffe with the locked-up vertebra.

 

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