By Udo Silas
“Hello, Chairman? Thank you for moving our friend’s wife into Electoral Operations, as discussed.
A household broom sweeps more obediently than a borrowed one.”
“Minister, this telephone has ears.”
“Then let them hear hymns. Your announcement that the coming election belongs to God was magnificent.”
“It was an expression of faith.”
“Precisely. Give the people heaven; they will stop auditing earth. Their God is the last court where adjournments require no transport fare.”
“You make prayer sound like anaesthesia.”
“Only when the surgeon needs silence.”
“And the temporary election workers?”
“I have arranged the counterfeit corps members. Khaki is merely cloth; innocence is what the public embroiders upon it.”
“That former commissioner, Igini, was on television warning about infiltrated recruitment lists.”
“That retired village cockerel? Dawn has dismissed him, yet he keeps announcing sunrise.
Leave him to his studio congregation.”
“He sounded certain.”
“So does a hungry kettle. These people boil daily and still surrender their cups. Give them a slogan, a sermon, a bag of grain: tomorrow they will quarrel over which benefactor invented hunger.”
“You underestimate their anger.”
“No. I budget for it. Anger without organisation is thunder applying for a lightning licence.”
“The machines, the uploads, the observers?”
“Chairman, even miracles have technical departments. But do not mistake my confidence for permission to improvise.”
“Is that a warning?”
“A reminder. I keep receipts. Yours.
“And those belonging to the gentlemen whose robes turn arithmetic into jurisprudence”
“Paper remembers what perfume persuades the body to forget.”
“You should not say such things.”
“Then do not give them an occasion to become documents.”
“And your territories?”
“I have boasted that the capital and the River kingdom are secured.
Do not make my mouth return its advance payment.”
“There are voters there.”
“There are also landlords who mistake tenants for furniture.
Tonight, let us discuss the landlord’s fear, not the furniture’s patience.”
“The line is crackling.”
“No. That is the sound of our insurance catching fire.
“Remember whose roof shelters every locked cupboard in this arrangement.”
“And if the roof falls?”
“The man upstairs must not fail. If he does, we all go down.”
“The man upstairs must not fail. If he does, we all go down.”
“Down where?”
“Chairman, must a man inspect the bottom of a well before refusing to fall?”
“You speak as though the country were a sinking boat.”
“No. A boat can change captains. Our arrangement is a wardrobe: pull out the wrong hanger and everybodyʼs trousers fall.”
“And the people?”
“You keep mentioning the people as though they are listening on another extension.”
“Perhaps they are.”
“Then greet them. Tell them their patience has been received and forwarded to the appropriate department.”
“There is something you should know.”
“Speak.”
“The department has no forwarding address.”
“Now you understand government.”
“No, Minister. I am beginning to understand disappearance.”
“Careful. That is how conscience announces itself: first as vocabulary, then as an inconvenience.”
“Suppose I refuse?”
“Refuse what?”
“To confuse custody with ownership. They placed something in my hands. That does not make it mine to deliver to your doorstep.”
“Ah. Somebody has been watering the small forest behind your ribs.”
“Perhaps it survived without permission.”
“Listen to me. A referee who discovers football during the final will end up arguing with both teams.”
“A referee who arrives wearing one teamʼs jersey has already ended the match.”
“Who is in the room with you?”
“Nobody.”
“Then why do you sound accompanied?”
“Because you have finally stopped speaking long enough for me to hear myself.”
“Chairman, remember the receipts.”
“I remember.”
“And the cupboards.”
“Yes.”
“And whose roof—”
“Minister, have you considered that a receipt identifies the buyer too?”
For a moment, neither voice occupied the line.
“Are you threatening me?”
“No. I am reading the small print.”
“You think the people will thank you?”
“I do not know.”
“They will accuse you anyway.”
“Possibly.”
“They will drag your name through every gutter”.
“Then I should stop choosing my steps merely to keep my shoes clean.”
“You have become a poet.”
“No. A frightened man. There is a difference. A poet can revise his ending.”
“And what shall I tell the man upstairs?”
“Tell him the telephone worked.”
“And?”
“Tell him you delivered the message.”
“And your answer?”
“Tell him, for once, you could not deliver mine.”
“Chairman?”
“Yes?”
“Do not switch off this phone.”
“I am not switching it off”.
“Then what are you doing?”
“Opening the door.”
“To whom?”
“Someone has been knocking throughout our conversation.”
“Who?”
“The people.”
“What do they want?”
“They have brought the oath I signed. I asked them for a copy.”
“Why?”
“I could no longer remember the words”.
“Hmmm..”
“Why hmmm?”
“Just wondering if the people are the God you submitted to?”
“Who knows?”
