The Walls Behind

The walls of the sanctuary felt wet as dew fell upon them and the surrounding terrain. The doors were metallic; the windows wooden and thick. There ought to have been a blanket of grass before the gate at the frontage but it was said that the horticulturists missed that part in its plan’s execution. Opinion also held that that omission brought about an addition to its functionalities. As a hospice, it towered over the many trees that surrounded it five meters apart in a fencelike panorama. Its inhabitants could relish their presence beneath their shades as they shuttled between them and the warmth of the morning sun each day. Thus, Shadows of Penury dwelt in affluent grandeur for twenty-nine years.

In the local arena lived a summary farmer. His produce was no more than a hundred yams; two bags of cassava; one of groundnuts; three of potatoes and a hundred kilograms of maize per harvest which came biannually. Pelisa daily arose with a hand to his back, for the ground was rough and stony. If weeds were allowed to fester, they could overshadow his plants to cause them to wither and reduce his output. He, therefore, uprooted them in forlorn regularity.

Pelisa’s latest harvest had come a week before the day he was summoned to Shadows of Penury by the new administrator of the refuge of the indigent.

“We would like you to join us here, Pelisa,” he said. “Farm work is getting too tough for you.”

“Farm work; I’ve lived by it. My lands cannot be left uncultivated. That’s my only security for them,” replied Pelisa.

“That is why I am asking you to join us here. I can secure you and your lands for the rest of your life.”

Pelisa laughed in silence. It was in the news that certain men were on the prowl with hostile take-over obsessions. They gave assurances such as the promise in his ears to augment the power and pertinence they craved for their ulterior ambitions. The memory thawed into him like ice from a dairy cocktail.

“Buy off my lands. I can move eastwards and do business,” he returned.

“No. You could go bankrupt and come back to us for refuge.”

“No, I won’t. There is no justice to me in what you’re offering.”

“The choices are very slim, Pelisa. Go home and think about it. I will call you again after some time.”

Excerpts from THE WALLS BEHIND, The ZAS Household.

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