The man who on one starry night came down from the hill.

One reason why many of the villagers believe – the devil stays in the plantation mansion on the hill is bc – from time to time, they see so many different types of men emerging from the shadows form that hill on a half moon light such as this.

You need to understand. These strange characters who they come across – the rubber tappers as they awake earlier than others as latex only flows runny when its cool between the hours of three to seven – they have all seen these very different men streaming like shadows across the fronts.

As simple folk they don’t understand – to them its like a B movie Batman character minus the special effects lah.

From time to time such as a halfmoon night like this – they see men who are so unlike the man – they see, talk amd eat with during the day time – the farmer who wears a bush jacket and always speaks in a low and respectful voice –  to me this is perfectly natural – as there are so men within just one man – as there are probably so many women in a woman.

Most people don’t know this – but I’ve always known it. And since this is the only condition I’ve ever known and no other – that is how it is.

We all have so many people running around in our heads – we may deny it and tell the whole wide world that we have got it all together. But in truth, all these people in our head just take their turns like one of those village square dances, where one person jumps in – do his thing – then another takes over – that is the way I see the subject of character.

I don’t see character in terms of one solid dead block of consciousness. To me, the type of man that I am at any point in time is really a function of where, who and what’s standing before him that really brings out the different sides of who you really are.

Everyone has a limit. You have one and so do I. Push a man, any man for that matter to his limit. And he could just flip off the edge and a completely new person who you never known stands before the world.

That’s how I’ve always seen it. Character. As it remains very much the reason why we continue to deny this reality is because we pride in the belief that our character is that are entirely different from the self to even exist as individuals – psycho that’s, but perfectly functional individual characters which are different to the side that we so often project to the world.

As I said, there are so many men in a man – there is the slick gangster who once carried money for the four houses, the ruthless and hard Chinaman Cocoa Planter who once turned the wheel of life in Africa in a little patch known as Gabundi Estate – and last night, there was the man who went on to make war with the marauders who have been causing grief to the small holders – man who many villagers saw again – the devil..

There are really so men in a man. So many that even I don’t know who they are any longer.

Darkness 2013

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“The man who came down the hill that half moon night stood on a ledge mid-way – to the far distance a yellow halo of a little village glowed like a little candle lit lantern.

“How easily it is to snuff it out.”

The man had tried to stop this man from coming out – but with every recounting of yet another sad tale of crop theft, house breaking, armed robbery, bullying of the poor and defenseless folk – a fire ignited like thunder flash somewhere in his primal consciousness.

He could feel the muscles in his jaw line tightening. The tenseness around the edge of his lips when his nostrils flared. His eyes narrowing. Fist clenching – till somewhere between two palms – the Chinaman Cocoa Farmer of Gabundi Estate, Uganda, Africa jumped right out – and now that man who once turned the wheel of life as a farmer in the dark continent was mountain biking thru the meandering plantation roads in the moon light. His trusted side kick – a jet black Doberman followed. Together man and beast raced to a spot where the man planned to send the icy cold cinder of fear in the hearts of those bandits who had now descended on his community like a pack of wolves.

Throughout the whole week the man had used his extensive network of clandestine services to ferret out vital intelligence about this gang – the rubber tapper, fish monger, village doctor, vendors, coconut harvesters, victims, police – all of them provided him with vital information to build up a complete picture of this group. This the man knew how to do, to fight – in Africa, he had traded ivory illegal across the narrowest runs of the Ganbezi. The French foreign legion was always behind him, but he knew better and for the time that the man traded in ivory, it was a decent innings – in Sudan and thereafter Chad, the man was a mercenary. A soldier of fortune – a strange and peculiar type, as he only seemed to want land to plant for his services rendered.

A man. One of many men who reside deep within the marrow of my bones. You know it’s true what they say, a leopard can never change it’s spots – I lived that life, it passed right through me like X-ray – sure it left a residual in me that even carries forth today – it’s me and I am not going to deny it – the man who now moved quietly and unseen throughout the plantation – the man who knew that each palm was exactly 19ft from the other and to avoid casting a moon bean shadow, he would have to zig- zag across the field.

As the man closed in on the spot where the bandits planned their raid on the oil mill. The man saw it all, he knelt low and watched them through field glasses. He could spot a thirty something blaring out orders – this is the leader, he thought to himself – cut off the head and the body will die.

The man stood up – the spotlights pointing to the other fence highlighted the lone image of one man standing against eight – in that momentary pause of time, the Bandits froze. The man who wore the skull mask and leveled the arrow at their leader was none other than the devil who lives on the hill.

At the very moment the arrow was loosed – images began to unravel like a scroll dropped from a flight of steps revealing it’s deepest mysteries. The man flash backed to the moment when he had first set eyes on the cote de noire – where he thought to himself. He would be finally free from the perpetual hunt from the triads – the invisible hand, the all seeing eye – they would never come here. terra incognito.

They didn’t come. But others came. They razed his farm to nothing. The man who loosed the arrow that half moon night didn’t want to kill the leader of the bandits – he just wanted to send a cold cinder of fear into his heart. To remind him that if he misbehaves then creatures of lore and monsters will descend upon him – the arrow found it’s mark, missed all vital nerves and came right through the nose.

A warning shot. A wound that even allows you to watch TV and ride a bike. But what if it went back 25mm or forward by 15mm. And let’s not even discuss the upwards or downwards – a warning shot.

As I am sure even an expert would consider that type of shot highly improbable – consider the distance, the size of the target – a head shot. It had to be one as that is that sends the coldest shard of cut ice into the heart of matters.

In that brief span of time – the man weep. He cried for the man who he had to be that night. A man who he has always tried to run away from – he cried.

And the arrow found its mark.”