Playing Hide and seek with God

As a boy, Kabare was a good Christian who was trusted by a local pastor, Francisco of Assiss. He liked the church services and he had promised that he would join missionary work on completion of his secondary school education. However, he forgot what happened to Anania and Saphira when they failed to fulfil the promise they had made to ‘I am who I am’. In the course of time, he encountered countless problems from his family and his neighbours that he started nursing his frustration by drinking. All these hardships forced him to join a church called “Came as you are” because it advocated the best policy. He liked it, since it didn’t restrict wetting of the throat with the beverage for real men while patched on a high stool popularly known as “I have no problems”. He would dish the small brown papers with a drawing of a gorilla to the waiter and ordered drinks as they were. However, he wished that he lived during the time of certain young man, who was a lab technician, who had never attended any chemistry practical classes and was popularly known as the wine converter from ordinary H20. That had won him many tenders in wedding ceremonies. He wet his throat with the juice like a dry sponge or a culvert during El nino. He was a heavy-duty machine that swallowed this juice like a 10,000cc engine with quadruple carburettors. If you scanned his stomach, you would see eroded topography that needed a quick building of gabions and terraces in order not to be arrested by the environmental conservation ministry. The mistake he made, was to drink on an empty stomach tummy, which was only lucky to get a few drops of saliva forced through the gullet by the force of gravity after waiting for some visitors from the mouth but all in vain. To misdirect people that he had not fed on contents found in the atmosphere ‘air bags’, he would walk straight, picking his teeth with an old toothpick to register his name in the register of those, who had swallowed real goat ribs. On coming out of the rest room, if you are bankrupt in vocabularies, I mean ‘toilet’ you would see him busy removing some contents between his teeth and you would wonder what he had eaten, from there that he was removing from his teeth. This made his health to deteriorate, though he was tall and well built, he looked sickly like a hen rained on. Kabare was such a chain smoker that he emitted dark smoke, that you would think it was an 18th century steam engine during the European industrial revolution. He did it so well that you would think he was preparing for the final championship competition with aeroplanes, motor cars and motor bikes in blowing out the thickest clouds of smoke. He became the greatest enemy of the ozone layer. The smell from his mouths was enough to make you faint. The food he took several years ago was evident in his teeth, that when he laughed, a clamp of rotten food eroded from his teeth and the birds of the air would follow him wherever he went. If you came near them, you would think there was a dead dog nearby. When one spoke to him, one would have to go about ten metres away from him not to get the effects of the stench from his mouth. He would take many months before his skin come into contact with H2O. However, he was suffering from an unusual disease called hydrophobia. He carried with him a weapon to fight the spiritual forces, which was also the man’s operational manual. This was a small book popularly known as “hypocrite’s Bible”. He would put it in the pocket when going to sprinkle his throat in the bar and produced it like a secret weapon during services at the church. At the entrance of the church were two bouncers wearing business faces. They looked like they were hired from a Congolese forest whose job description was to spot, chase and milk buffaloes. They were nick named “Dare cause chaos in the church you get it”. Their main job description was to keep vigil while the tithes and offerings collection exercises were going on. Their eyes were like a snared rat. From a distance, one would think they were herbivorous since they were chewing curds. However, their cheeks looked tired from chewing the goat’s leaves “miraa” grown in Vaite alias Mt Kenya Highland. This would suggest that if you attempted to take off with the tithes and offerings, they would squeeze you with bear hands and swallow you whole. These young men had a mass migration of some of their flesh from other parts of the body to the biceps and triceps or as if some flesh were transplanted on their bodies. From a distance, they looked as if they were converted wrestlers, who had asked an emergency leave after they had met Jesus on their way to DRC or had been advised like Nicodemus to have their bodies irrigated in order to acquire the passport to heaven. The offertory baskets were open, and one would put ones hand in and no one could tell what one gave. Kabare could just insert his empty hand in the basket, only to harvest a handful of papers that make everybody smile. He thought that the bachelor who defiled the law of gravity by walking on water about 2000 years ago was so far that he couldn’t notice his game. “After all, my bleeding wallet would do little to the day’s collection. Don’t think we don’t see that the pastor drives a prestigious limousine as his faithful worshipers go on foot,” He would say to himself. It became difficult for him, when they introduced new generation offertory baskets that had a very small opening just enough to slot a note or envelop. In one incidence, Kabare was awoken by the offertory song and thoughtlessly, he dug deeper into his pocket to get money to give but he gave a packet of Prudence condoms instead. Since it couldn’t go through the offertory basket it rolled and finally landed on the ground near the pulpit as the faithful worshipers gasped in disbelief. His grey material found in his forehead told him that he had offered unacceptable sacrifice like his big brother “Cain” who gave cassava leaves and rotten tomatoes as a burned offering. Oh! What a shame! In order to avoid returning what belongs to Engineer God, he had to discover a new strategy. During the giving exercises, he would develop an emergent biological need and he would visit the only room that is visited by only one human being at a time “toilet”. He would only come back after the exercise. When he was caught up with the giving exercise, he would go deeper in the spirit by closing his eyes looking up to thee, where his help comes as the offering basket drew nearer to him. He would burst at the top of his voice the famous 18th century offertory hymn, “All to Jesus I surrender”. Moreover, he would ask God to consider his request of making him a millionaire with US dollars not Zimbabwe printed papers. This was the real hide and seek he was playing with God. iruxnjau@yahoo.com