the cleaners

THE CLEANERS
Why they had to stay in such a dimly lit room was possibly the most important question. There was one bulb upon the yellow roof glowing with so dismal a light so that it looked like it might die off any moment. Yet the men did not seem to mind that at all; looking at them one used to making conclusion made on the outside appearance would have concluded that they liked it that way. But, was that the truth? Could people long endure a slight amount of light and be left unblemished? That dementia and neurosis are caused by overexposure to unenough light has been proven by Jung and Freud is a point to ponder.
The room was sparsely furnished; a small table from which one had to lean to get something from unless the person who was so acting was seated on the floor, a flared couch against one wall and two armchairs directly opposite the couch; this apt and creative arrangement caused the small table to be at the centre of the room. Three small mattresses were folded, tied and were by a chord hanging from the roof upon long nails. It was a small room for the seats were astride the wall and yet the person seated on any of the seat could comfortably use the table; not that the inhabitants used it much or seemed to want to use it much.
They had been quiet for sometime when the man on the couch—the thinnest of the three men which made the couch seem bigger that it really was (which leads to the moral and logical observation that a small situation may seem huge when contrasted against a small organism or when being executed by such a creature and vice versa as was proven by the case of the Lilliputians) said “when a man is talking to a woman, any woman and any man, it is always about sex. They may talk about the weather, animals, church, politics, artificial happiness, favourite colours or even flowers but principally, it is all about sex. Sex happens to be, in this case, like a treasure to be discovered at the end of a maze. Flowers, politics, church, favourite colours and all the rest are but pathways in the maze”
“Ha ha ha! Where did you read that?” Fei laughed
“It came to me, I was inspired” Jorum replied and it was in a haughty voice
The other man did not seem to have been following the political-social thesis that had just been laid bare. He seemed lost in thoughts
“Do women know that?” Fei asked
“Do men?” Jorum asked
“You made it. Why are you asking me?” Fei sounded quarrelsome
“I am answering you with a question; a common enough figure of conversation amongst intellectuals. What men know, women will never know”
“What?”
‘Is that an exclamation?”
“No. ok yes it is. Women now how to drive, they can cook, they can read and write and... And they can climb trees…”
“you are foolish, you know” the man who had been lost in though or so seemed now spoke and his vice was such a lovely voice that it was hard not to be enticed by it at once. Thus, when he spoke, everyone listened and if they did not like what he said they forced themselves to like it. He often bragged that his voice was like a pretty woman, whether you like what it said or not you had to like the sound of it in the same way a pretty woman did not need a brain since people could always say that she said pretty things however dumb. “And, the government wants people like you. People who believes everything that the government tells them”
“What do you mean?” Fei protested wondering how the government came in on an issue concerning sex and women.
“By forcing you to contemplate, to consider the mere thought that a woman might even be close to being good like you, the government forces you to lower your pedigree for if you have higher thoughts and a woman happens to overhear them, she will frown on them down and thus put you down”
“How?” wondered Jorum
“By forcing you to reconsider” peter replied and then leaned back on the armchair causing it to creak, “once you reconsider because of a woman influence, meeeen, you are gone. And, nowadays, men are daily reconsidering. A man will have an idea as to the perfect way to destroy China in one day and he mentions so and there is a woman nearby and she laughs down the great idea ad the man is forced to reconsider. Note this, once a great idea is reconsidered, it is thereby reconfigured and it’s patent die”
“Just what do you peter have against women” Fei wondered throwing a chocolate sweet into his perpetually wet mouth as the other men watched in envy.
“EVERYTHING!” Yelled peter for no apparent reason, “but the most important reason is they gave birth to me and they continue giving birth to this very day…”
“What? That was the most beautiful thing that was done to you” said Jorum sounding genuinely shocked, really shocked.
“BEAUTIFUL?”
“Yes, beautiful”, Fei concurred looking across at Jorum
“Have you ever seen a woman give birth?”
“No”
“No”
“Then you do not know what you mean by the word beautiful. They heave, they sigh, they scream; there is blood, there are fluids. Jesus, you should see it some day. Why do you think I quit the medical profession at the height of my career?”
“To contribute more professionally and in a detached fashion to the business?” Jorum suggested
“No, listen, when a woman is giving birth, you can tell for sure that she is going through hell. She wishes with all her heart that the ground might swallow her. The pain is visible and those who are allowed see it and feel it and experience it. We will never know whether it is all a show or not, women being such good actors as they are, but one thing for sure are, it is nothing you want see and then here is the catch, they do it again, ha! They do it again. After all that anguish and regret, they do it again”
“But that is the beauty of it,” Fei pointed out bravely as he unwrapped another chocolate sweet. They cost him one bob each and on average he ate twelve pieces each day. It was a form of a ritual and it also reminded him of the days when he worked in a warehouse arranging invoices and those chocolate saved him from going insane with boredom “that your mother went through all that pain for you knowingly”
“Dada head, listen, women are not real”
“ha!”
“ha!”
“my research tells me that women are creatures from beyond mandated by their creators or masters to give birth to creatures like us and others like themselves so that thy can keep us down. There are real men who have nothing to do with women; they were not born of women and then there are the men who have been brought about by the creatures we call women and the purpose of these fake men is… all I am saying is that if all women were dead, the world would be without wars, without hunger, without famine, diseases free. The world would be an Eden”
“But men causes’ war” said Fei. Jorum was smiling ruefully “what are you smiling at?” Fei yelled at him
“the first fight I had was because of a girl,” said Jorum, “I was in std four and there was this girl, her mother was a teacher and her father a judge I mean a lawyer it is just that we all knew him then as a judge because there was no other lawyers around, the girl was of cause beautiful, those people marry beautiful people you know, that is why we will always have ugly people because no one want to marry an ugly person unless they cant help it which is of cause as it should, we should always go for only the best, so this pretty girl asked me to assist her with my eraser, of cause I mean rubber, and I went to get it back from this boy I had given it to and I gave it to her and when she was done, she took it back to the boy, smiled at him and said thanks and the word sounded so sweet, the sweetest thing then. I stood up madly, I remember, rushed to the hapless boy and yelled at him to give me back my rubber and he hesitated a second wondering I was suddenly so angry and shouting and seeing him hesitate, I slapped him and we fought and I won, causing the boy to bleed. That was my first serious fight and when we were done and I looked at the pretty girl she was smiling approvingly. I am happy to report here that it was I who took her virginity two years later”
“So, what’s your point?” Fei asked, although he could see it
“No point, none” Jorum replied
“Women are the cause of all the evil in the world today” said peter “they are the evil, they carry it”
“But they are so beautiful; so innocent, so soft. You see their hands you think you are looking at hands of angels, so petite” said Fei unable to conceal his admiration and devotion.
“Beauty” said peter who spoke as if he was not at all excited or interested in whatever he was saying, “Is a good way to conceal evil. When I was a boy, my aunt used to give me and my cousins- they were all girls- pills for minyoo (askaris nubricoids if you like), they had a red covering and was saccharine but if you dared suck it out, the bitterness was brought out with amazing force and will. Indeed, women are so beautiful- though I have met few who are so, I always manage to find a defect in what appear a perfect female, I do not search it out I just spot, you could say I have a finger for that- what a perfect place to conceal evil”
‘May be you medical training causes you to be spotful” Jorum suggested
“Once again” said Fei, “you manage to convince my brother”
“So you will do it?” peter asked turning to face Fei
“Count me in” Fei replied.
“me too” said Jorum as he threw a brown biscuit into his perpetually dry mouth and with that, they all arose and left the room, Fei taking a small black bag from the wall near the small, perpetually closed window; it looked a very strange window and fitted exactly to the flame. When you look at it even more closely, more startling details immerged.



Mbogoyoyo sat cross-legged on the old brown blanket under the old pine tree playing with marbles. Mbogoyoyo was not his real name. his real name was Nathaniel Mbukuse and Peterson would soon be his too if his parent had their way with the catholic priest so that he would agree to administer the confirmation sacrament; the alluded sacrament always came with a brand new name. Mbogoyoyo had to have such decisions made for him by his parents because he was an example of nature’s errors. His nickname was given him by his sister who then considered herself an old woman at twenty seven. She gave him that nickname when they were both four years old (which tells you that they are twins) after she observed that her brother was not like other people; that her fraternal twin brother was given to answering everything with that one word . She also observed that her brother’s nose was always encrusted with mucus when it was not running, that, furthermore, sticky saliva was always running from his ever open mouth to the clothes he wore. At first, Jane was afraid of the monstrous brother but she soon grew familiar with him, even wiping away the mucus when it became too much and a disgusting sight. Her parents told her that her brother was a gift from god thereby forever alienating her from the god for she did not want a relationship with a god who gave such strange and monstrous gifts. Had her parents told her that her brother was a gift from the devil, she would have become a nun, now, she wore miniskirts, was promiscuous because sex to her was for fun not duty and she did it with anyone especially the patients for she was a nurse
Mbogoyoyo was seated cross-legged and he wore no underwear. Since he was twenty seven, his huge uncircumcised penis lay slump on the blanket amidst the hairs and it was not a sight to behold—that is to men.
The men who had just walked into the spacious compound that had almost all type of trees and herbs did not seem to mind the ridiculous sight; they walked calmly towards Mbogoyoyo as if they knew him.
It took quite some times for Mbogoyoyo to see the new comers and immediately he saw them, his soft and porous mind registered that they were not familiar and he grew frantic and extremely shy. Mbogoyoyo expressed those emotions by nodding vigorously as if he was agreeing with something and somebody else was suggesting that he was of the contrary opinion. When the men got closer, he threw away the marbles. He could now see the men very well and they were pointing at him and he did not like that which was easy to understand since even human with hard minds were made uneasy by such a gesture. The men were also making sounds but he could not grasp their meaning and it made him even more frantic and shy.
Fei said, “We will, at this rate rid this village of all of them”
“Natures errors, old age and the ugly human nature made so by the women forces u to do this” peter said in his strange voice that concealed or was devoid of all emotions
“I have to admit that looking at this one get me more fired up, they sure are an eyesore” said Jorum
“What that you said?” peter asked with a shocked voice
“An eyesore” replied Jorum wit the slightest indication of frustration. That was a huge improvement for when Jorum first met peter he was the easiest person to annoy and peter had several sessions with him and soon after peter talked to him about the cleaning idea and he was all for it; Fei was of cause the owner of the idea and the question is how he talked peter (a degreed doctor and psychologist and yet fei only a primary school drop out) into the cleaning idea as a business proposal.
“What?” peter said again but only got a calm look from Jorum. Peter had problems with his hearing but would hear nothing concerning an ear aid. His companions had tried to talk to him about it, after growing weary of repeating themselves, in vain. The fact that micro-ear aids that could be installed inside the ear existed did nothing to convince him. He always retorted that if he was not perfect, then god was to blame and since god was such “an ass-holed perfectionist”, he would always throw it into his nose just to show him that he was not that good and when his companions asked him what was wrong with god being a perfectionist, he always replied that the state of perfection could not exist in a universe of perpetual motion unless god was the famous Alfa and omega and his friends would of cause say that god was just that to which peter would titter so deliriously it was easy to fear that he had lost his sense of sanity. After the laughter he always said that his favourite colour was pink
And then the ritual question “why do you love pink?” it was Jorum who asked for last time Fei had asked.
“Because it is the colour of god” peter said as he gazed at the huge house behind the retarded human
“How do you know the colour of god?” Jorum asked.
“Because I know the colour of the virginal” he replied
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” they all laughed and as a consequence almost drove Mbogoyoyo crazy with excitement.
“Don’t you think,” Jorum said tentatively as if he was stepping on unfamiliar waters, “that we should hurry a bit” e curled his face.
“Ah, no, nobody comes to this place until well after dark” said fei. “So, we will wait until they come”
“Until who come” Jorum wondered.
Why you fool, the parents” said Peter not concealing his disgust or trying to. Here, it may be illuminatory to mention that it made their operations infinitely or potentially infinitely intriguing when they all pretended not to know all the details or what to do.
And, so it was, now that the ritual was dispensed with( a ritual that was so scarce in its execution and the materials used therein that it was easy to miss it as a casual conversation) that they all moved more deliberately towards their quarry, towards Mbogoyoyo who sensing their intentions somehow could not hold it any longer and shot up like an old chimpanzee (and it was remarkable how he resembled one due especially to his long black mucusy hair and the beard that covered his entire face except the nose) and started running toward the glove which was also the direction that the barn reposed.
“Why,” yelled Jorum full of excitement, for he then recalled his hunting expeditions with his buddies at Ngubi forest, “a chase!”
“Yahu!”
“Yahu!”
The other yelled back and they chased.




Several reasons made Mrs. Mbeui unpopular at her place of work and plenty much wherever she went. The first and the strongest reason was her distinctive body oduor and the fact that it was her natural body oduor and there was nothing she could do about it did not detract her workmates and those other humans that she came into contact. It was a torment. She had tried the hotel business in her earlier years and it had proven an unwise move for nit was soon closed due to her body oduor. Everyone wanted to void being near her but she could not be completely avoided since she was the owner of a chain of green grocery an she was thus the boss of those who ran the green groceries. She had for sometimes—since puberty to be precise—known about the repugnant nature of her condition, that flies buzzed around her. She also came to know that the oduor origin was her blood, that certain varieties of blood had such a stench. The best shot she had at an okay fragrance was through the use of perfumes and it is okay to mention that sometimes it went well and that sometimes it did not. Her husband (who when he was courting her and begging her to marry him was suffering from an offensive and strong flu that prevented him from detecting any oduor) had let her know about it during their tenth year of marriage and—believe it not—the two had not spoken for a month.
Mrs. Mbeui’s stench was so strong and disagreeable that it was a known fact that the chances of one vomiting quadrupled when they were next to her. Jane had from the onset known about her mother’s sickness; at first she had thought it was okay and that all women stunk so until she went to school whereby she learnt from the other pupils, who had come of the knowledge from their parents, that her mover was sick.
The other reason that made Mrs. Mbeui unpopular was that Jesus had left the world hundred of years ago, this fact was significant in that had Jesus still lived, he would have healed her of her bleeding problem like he had done with the woman who touched her gown, but Jesus being long gone and all hampered such a chance. She bled from her virginal unexpectedly and anyhowly. The worst thing about the bleeding was that it could not always be checked instantly by clotting; sometimes she bled for an hour in droplets. Since it was her blood that stunk, she especially stunk thus when she bled.
Jane had known about the bleeding for long and had one day innocently asked her mother about it. Her mother was so pained that she hurt her daughter’s emotions deliberately by telling her that the bleeding had started after she gave birth to them, that she and her brother were the cause of all that pain. Those were lies of cause for the bleeding had started at puberty; it could be said that she had a perpetual menstrual flow.
The third reason and the only reason that will here be mentioned in details was her spirit or heart. She had a different heart or spirit or soul from the collective mass. Most people who encountered her and her soul were offended by it. She had a good heart and it was suggested by the fact that she was generous and was always smiling. The thing that madder this otherwise beautiful aspect of her was that she bled and stunk. It did not seem natural that she should have a good heart. It was like an ogre that came calling and offering to do good things like washing the house, clothes and the latrines and toilets. It was like a politician helping the poor and donating to worthy cause. It was like the cactus producing white roses for seducing pretty, innocent virgins. Furthermore, everyone thought that she was forcing herself to be good to mollify her sins that had resulted to the cursed condition that she found herself in; others thought that she was trying to share her curse; her uncleanliness.
There were other innumerable reasons that compounded her unpopularity but these were the same reasons that made everyone unpopular with everyone else but were overlooked since humans are social animals and must overlook some things so that the sociability condition may prevail; like a pretty girl, the prettiest girl actually, who can no help firting and hence releasing the foulest stench or the fact that monkeys(other social animals) have an ugly feature on their buttocks but it is always overlooked even when they mate for the sake of the society or the fact that the parasite nature of the politicians is overlooked because they are an integrally important part of the human society acting as an example to the little ones with little impressionable minds to what the little ones should never allow to sink to
Mrs. Mbeui’s maiden name was Judith Nyashiaga. Her husband was John Mbeui and what about him?
The fact that John Mbeui’s wife was so infamous had made John innocuously invisible, people talked of the man of the stinking woman
Mbeui family was possibly the most successful in Choire village. They were so successful at whatever they tried that they had stooped trying due to the crazy ear and notion that they might try to be god herself and succeed—this fear was understandable to some extent. Their greatest secret success was that they had managed to hide their retarded son that at last it seemed everyone had forgotten him. Almost everyone had forgotten him except the cleaners.




Jane inserted the key and tuned; at last she had her own house in her own compound bought by money acquired by her and her natural assets. At last he had her own house and was away from tat sickening stench from her mother, though she t times thought that she would miss her but always quickly scolded herself at such a crazy notion; who could miss such a stench? She looked around the living room, fashioned like one she had seen in a soap opera though the material were not exactly of the same value since that would take time. Everything was exquisite. The doctor she worked with would go green with envy if they saw what a house she owned; she, a mere nurse owned a fabulous three bed roomed mansion. The irony or the good part was that the doctors had pooled their resources together to buy the house without ever knowing such a thing. She giggled to think that they did not know that they were all having sex with her and paying dearly for it, very dearly. She thought it strange that the men should have to pay yet, all indications showed that she enjoyed the experience more; for all she knew, men only enjoyed ejaculating, the rest was but a journey but for, it was all ecstasy from the moment a hand was laid on her bare breast, through to the moment when the penis was thrust in until the final joyful death that could only be described as a transient neurosis.
She took her mobile, scrolled down and got her number; she was tempted to flash the person she was calling as was her economical habit but thought better of it; it was unlikely she would be called back.
“Hi there” she said and was her voice beautiful? It had the entire seducing element that Delilah’s voice had.
“Yeah” replied the loud speaker in a voice that seemed to say; I don’t give a shit
“Cleaning services, please” she sung, she intended, in spite of the move, to keep the responsibilities of cleaning her parents’ home since her brother could not be expected to take such a duty
“Ah, no…”
“Are you the cleaners?”
“Yes”
“Then I need cleaning services tomorrow”
“Oh! Tomorrow ok. I thought you wanted them now”
No, not now although I do not see why you should not do it now yet you say in your board that you are twenty four hours people”
“We are that. Where do you live madam?”
“It is not my home I need cleaned, it is my parents’”
“Who are you?”
“Fei, silly. that’s you right? It is Jane”
“Oh! Jane, hi. Ah sorry can’t delivers cleaning service to your parents’ home”
“Why not?”
“Because we have to be invited”
And the phone went dead. Jane looked at it the way you would look at the moon at night when the clouds will not cover it and yet you want it covered so that you can continue having your breast caressed by this foolish, sweating boy who is riding under the delusion that you adore him. Such emotions did not close Jane’s mind as she gave Fei a moment of her thoughts. She had had sex with him on several occasions and he was the only one who had never paid a penny for the pleasure; it was he ho took her virginity. In her decision to keep holding the home keeping responsibility, she had thought that it would be easy since Fei would return the favour and since he was the boss of the cleaners agency; it may also be okay to remark that, like most females, Jane thought tat all men were tools to be used by any female whenever they had something they needed done like pulling a chair in a restaurant or opening a door of a car or any such romantic thing.
Her phone rung, rather sung, and she jumped, she was a jumper. It was her father calling.
“Yes father” she answered at the same time wondering where those who called their fathers dad got the nerves, the word sounded like dead, she thought, and it was possibly a death wish concocted by a filthy witch. She had never used it herself although all the member of the middle class or the well off to which she belonged used it; the word father was for the slum dwellers and rural folks yet it was the word she used.
“Jane, we have trouble at home” said her father
“What trouble?” she breathed in. it was always imperative not to forget to breath.
“we cant see your brother. Please tell us you are with him” his father voice was not only edged but also on the edge overlooking a high cliff. Jane could hear her mother frantic movement and breathing, when he grew excited or angry she instantly bled and the stench was simultaneously exemplified.
“I, with my brother? You are joking”, Jane replied and quickly pressed the cut call button before any request could be made. She giggled and shook her head and her silky, long hair; she almost felt pity for her parents. Jane found dreamers and those who live in denial exasperating.
The phone sung again
“Yeah” she answered
“Hi, it is Doctor Mathew, matt eh? We meet at the same place we were last week, eh?”
“Sorry doc matt, can’t”
“Why?”
“Sorry” she sounded as if she was about to cry
“No, wait don’t cut off. I’ve a surprise for you, you will be delighted”
“This better be good coz it means I cancel a very important appointment, matt”
“It will”
The doctor signed off and Jane placed the phone on the table and screamed. Just for the fun of it.




It was not hard to catch up with Mbogoyoyo. It was made especially easy by the fact his retarded condition had made him a target for fat accumulation which is to say that since he rarely thought or really did anything, he was fat. It has been proven again and again that all a person need do in order to remain in a sublime figure is think mildly at least twice a week; since this retarded human did not think that much for he was not naturally so inclined, he was in excess of seventy two kilograms, he was in fact more than one hundred and eighty kilograms. Scientist and social teachers agree universally, independently and unanimously that to be excessively fat is to be over seventy kilograms and to be fat is prove of inactivity in the brain excluding such mundane tasks such as eating, breathing or shaking hands
It was fei who pounced on him and he yelled in joy: “such a sport”
Since he was not willing to walk, due to the strange circumstances involved, they dragged him like a sack of carrots towards the barn which was not far off.
“So?” said peter
“Jorum?” said Fei
“Yeah, no problem” said Jorum and from the bag he removed a stocking which he put on his head and Fei helped him to roll it down so that it concealed his long face and he resembled a ninja. He then took from the bag a pair of overalls into which he entered; they were oversize by many degrees.
“Good luck” said peter with a grin
“What?” said Jorum and he sounded amusing for the stocking was preventing the smooth flow of words
The other men laughed and it was natural for even unretarded humans to wonder what they were laughing at. Since Mbogoyoyo as a natural course did not understand jokes, he did not understand that particular one and he did not laugh. It is not an exaggeration that Mbogoyoyo’s taste of jokes bordered on the intense; he, for instance, found the taste of salt an excellent joke; he had almost died once after eating too much of it which caused his considerate parents to keep it under lock and key henceforward thus denying, unwittingly, their only son his only easy joke.
Jorum walked towards the house to wait for the parent




As a show of love and unity in their suffering and learning, Mr. and Mrs. Mbeui always went to and from work together in the Nissan car. They were extremely creative, good natured and socially well inclined for they always found something to talk about
“Why do things change taste when one is sick?” Mrs. Mbeui asked
“Oh! I think it is the way god want it so that we can apprehend the good taste of food when we are well” replied his mild-mannered husband who, in a surge of creativity that would amaze homer, always found a way of praising and crediting god on all situations.
“That is true, it can’t be otherwise,” replied his wife, “we should have rain soon the road is so dusty”
“Yes, I have to drive slowly so as no to dust the people and anger them”
“Yes, you don’t want to anger them”
“No, I don’t want to anger anyone”
They arrived and Mrs. Mbeui got out of the car and went to open the gate. She usually walked the rest of the way to the house unless it was raining and left the husband to close the gate after paring the car for the garage was near the gate and so the gate could afford to stay ajar in the moment it took John to park the car and close the garage.
“Hey! Mbeui!” he heard his name shouted as he closed the garage‘s door. His name had been shouted so by his wife on two other occasions; when Mbogoyoyo was dying due to consumption of a packet of salt and when Jane lay in a pool of soggy blood which was her own blood caused by what the man and the wife much later learnt was a self-induced abortion. As a consequence of the rarity of his name being yelled, so, he took it seriously and left the gate still ajar and the garage locks unfastened and ran, in spite of his weak, old muscles, towards the house.
“what is it” he asked breathlessly for the dash towards the house had been about twenty steps and he was not use to straining his muscles for he was a manager, not a worker.
“Where is Nathaniel?”
“Probably somewhere,” replied the husband gazing around and his voice trembled to betray his fear. It would be in bad taste, but illuminating, to mention that the two parents were not so much worried about their bad son because of love and affection but because they feared he might expose himself. They had done all they could to conceal him and it would have been unfair for him to be remembered after all those years.
“What now, where?” The wife mumbled
“Jane, Jane” the wife suggested brightly
“No, she can not, she would never…”
I will call her”
“no, I will” and he did. And the news was bad. Nathaniel was on the verge of exposure or already exposed.
They entered the house and it was in the living room that they started considering their options when the door was shoved open and a hooded man in oversize overalls entered.
“Good evening” he said through the stocking
They did not answer
“I thought Christians answered when greeted by bearers of good news.” Jorum said with a sly chuckle
“We salute you then if you bear good news. But, you are hiding your face which fact give us fears and doubts” said Mr. Mbeui and his wife was nodding concurrence with every word
“What is that smell?” Jorum asked although he knew, when no one answered, he added, “Whatever it is that is smelling so, it should be buried far away from humans” still no word from the host, “for it is a cursed thing”
“What do you want?” the mild-mannered man asked.
“What do people want these days?” Jorum asked, sitting near the woman on the blue, butterfly couch, “people want these days what they wanted in those days that were before the storm that Noah wanted to save them from and what is that?” the question apparently was for the woman
“Peace of mind and the assurance that they will go to heaven” she said proudly
“Old, dying people want that. People who have nothing to live for want that. But, energetic, healthy, clever people want money and it is money that I want and you will give it to me for I have your son
“Oh!” the parents said simultaneously.
“Please do not harm him. He is not… he is not…” she was lost for word
“He is not brained?” Jorum suggested
“He is special” she said
“Ha! Ha! Ha! We will not harm him. Here is a proposal for you. First f all, how much money do you have?”
“That is our personal business,” retorted the mild-mannered man.
“Oh! In asking that, I was hoping to help that is to say so that I do not ask what you can not afford. Okay, I will guess then. Looking at this house, this superb furniture, your clothes, the fact that you have a car and also you own a chain of green grocers tells me that asking from you three hundred thousand is not extreme
“Or what?” wondered the man
“Two options. We will expose your son or you will never see him but he will live in both options. If you do not produce the money in two weeks your son will be exposed and a story will be told of how we found him neglected many years ago and only learnt recently that you are the parents. Just in case you do not know, negligence is a crime punishable severely by the law or can you prove that you have been with him all along?”
“But we want him here” said the mild-mannered man
“That is not an option. We are ridding this village of such creatures as him and, good evening, see you in two weeks. If you go to the police, we will know and kill him and his sister” and with that he walked out.



Two weeks later they had their money and had their retarded human. But the money they had was mere loose change compared to the money that was to come.
Jorum and peter were in that small room. Fei was not with them nor was Mbogoyoyo anywhere to be seen.
“Two hours late’ said peter looking across at jorum who was reading a huge novel that had neither a spine nor a cover
“What do …” he did not finish and was cut off by footsteps.
“They are here” said peter
Fei arose and placed his huge novel on the table. He opened the door and it was an anticipatory move for in entered fei and he was guiding a blind folded man
“It is game. Open up” said jorum
Peter walked toward the window and when he pulled it, it turned out not to be a window at all; it was a secret door.
The fat blind folded man was led through into the just revealed door and peter followed in. Jorum closed the door and followed the others through the secret door.



It was a wide room that they had walked into and the feeling one had on stepping in was that one was in a hospital. The walls were white and there were equipments: cupboards- sparkling white- with drawers, boxes and cartons with labels. Astride the wall were two hospitals operating beds besides each other. On one bed lay a still, fat body; it was Nathaniel!
The blindfolded man spoke: “can I see now?”
“Yes”
And when he saw, he believed. Whenever they saw they all believed
“There is your kidney, there is your doctor” said Fei pointing at the body on the bed and at peter.
Peter walked towards the man and showed him some papers: “you are safe in my hands” he said with a doctor smile, “it won’t hurt a bit”
“so sign the cheque” said fei, “and no business will be transacted until we cash it. We have trusted you and we expect you to trust us, like gentlemen”
“Like gentlemen,” said the fat man going into his coat’s pocket and getting the cheque book.


And that was how it was done. The only thing wrong with Mbogoyoyo was his brain. His eyes were okay which meant a healthy pair of cornea; his kidneys were in a superb form considering he used no alcohol; his lung, his heart, his bone-marrow, they were all okay. He was worthy millions and those millions were always harvested, always for there were millionaires who needed those body parts and they were willing to pay and the cleaners were willing sellers.