THE street dweller with a head as dirty as a public toilet mop did not run from the armed men of peace marching the violent peaceful demonstrators out of town. 

Their paths crossed in the middle of the street and he went straight to the bin at Chicken Inn and turned it upside-down and scattered the contents on the concrete pavement.

He opened a neatly closed ‘two-piecer box’ and found only a few bones picked clean by a meticulous foodie.

Disappointed, he sat on the deserted steps leaning against a pillar and rested, mopping everything going on.

The passing armed men of peace ignored him.  

Through the window of a hotel room in the middle of town, two love birds wanting to shut out the world before doing their thing could not help but watch things turn ugly on the streets far down below … streets they had sneaked from barely 30 minutes before.

The man, a pastor familiar with the signs of September, had prophesied the opportunity in the confusion and encouraged his flock to raise the banner of human rights in the peaceful demo against ‘bad governance.’

And the good shepherd had shepherded a familiar lost sheep into the lodge.

And, through the window of the ‘upper-room’, they saw peaceful marchers appear vari bararamhanya possessed by the spirit of end-times.

The echo of random shots seemed to be funnelling the mob into that one street.

And even as they watched, a man fell and two women tripped over his body.

The bulkier of the two women was back on her feet and sprinting just as fast.

The man got up and limped into an alley.

The smaller woman could only sit up and remained in her state of rest, obviously waiting for an external force to light her fire.

The lost sheep pointed to some window in another skyscraper.

She said: “Look over there.”

The good shepherd asked: “Where?”

And then he saw a puff of smoke before the echo of the shot!

And even as they watched, a man running on the street threw up his arms, staggered and fell face down on the tarmac.

The lost sheep cried: “Mwari pindirai!”

The good shepherd exclaimed: “My God!”

The lost sheep moved away from the window and sat on the bed and she was crying and kept whispering: “Mwari pindirai.”

The words unnerved the good shepherd. He wanted to snap, ‘Cut the crap!’

Instead, he marshalled the effort to keep the lid over his own boiling pot.

And then he also moved away from the window and joined her on the bed, trying to console her.

But the lost sheep would not be consoled.

 She kept asking kuti: “But why? Why are we doing this to ourselves?”

The good shepherd went back to the window to draw the curtains and could not help notice kuti the fallen man had not moved from his awkward position. Further down the street, there was another body that had not been there.

The woman who had tripped over the man who had limped into the alley was still sitting up … waiting for external forces to light her fire.

The good shepherd also noticed that the window from which the sniper had fired his weapon was no longer open. 

He drew the curtains and went back to the lost sheep.

And then, a new understanding suddenly dawned on him: “Sniper!”

Notwithstanding the familiarity of the word, a familiarity ‘condensed’ from movies watched, novels read as well as the casual talk of interesting men at social gatherings, the propriety of the word to the situation he had just witnessed surprised the good shepherd. 

And, it had come naturally to his makeshift intellect.…

Identifying signs of hysteria in the lost sheep, the good shepherd decided to work on his own nerves.

The continuous whispering of: “Mwari pindirai,” kept wracking his own nerves. 

He lightly touched her on the shoulder and she wrenched his hand off.

“Please take me home. I no longer want to be here.”

“And, how do you think we can go home nemahwani ari panze aya?”

“Handiti ndiwe wauya neni kuno? Wanga uchiti tinodzokera sei?” 

The good shepherd was shocked by the sheep’s sudden change from lovie dovie to this and he called the reception desk. There was no answer.

The lost sheep’s phone rang and she reached for her purse. 

She froze looking at the phone. She let it ring. And then it went to voice mail and a voice said:

“It is important kuti usiye whatever you are doing uende izvozvi kunotora vana kuchikoro just in case things get out of hand.

Nelson Mandela’s June 21 1990 meeting with Americans at Town Hall was being aired on some channel.

Someone was telling the most popular prisoner that ever lived kuti: “Those of us who share your struggle for human rights against apartheid have been somewhat disappointed by the models of human rights you have held up since you have been released from jail. You met …. over the last six months with Yasser Arafat. Are those your models of leaders of human rights?”

And the reply of the most popular prisoner that ever lived was: “One of the mistakes which some political analysts make is to think that their enemies are our enemies.

Our attitude towards any country is determined by the attitude of that country to our struggle. Yasser Arafat, Colonel Ghaddafi, Fidel Castro support our struggle to the hilt. They do not support it only in rhetoric. They are placing resources at our disposal for us to win the struggle. This is the position.”

And then he said: “We identify with the PLO because, just like ourselves, they are fighting for the right of self-determination … Arafat is a comrade-in-arms.”

The most popular prisoner that ever lived again said: “We have many Jews … members of the Jewish community in our struggle and they have occupied very top positions but that does not mean that the enemies of Israel are our enemies. We refuse to take that position.

You can call it being apolitical or a moral question but for anybody who changes his principles depending on whom he is dealing with that is not a man who can lead a nation.”

More posts of what was happening across Harare appeared on social media. And they included images and video clips of incidents of violence borrowed from distant times and regions to stock the Zimbabwean fire into an ‘Arab Spring.’

The posts included very familiar videos and images of black-on-black xenophobic violence in South Africa. 

They were all being mobilised to turn Zimbabwe up-side-down.

And there were incitements from civil society, churches and political groups to make Zimbabwe ungovernable.

Equally, there were encouragements from aging veterans of the liberation struggle to defend the gains of the liberation struggle.

There were desperate encouragements to read history and recognise kuti the Rhodesian and Western beneficiaries of colonialism have no reason to sponsor African self-determination.

And, there were struggles between pro-Zimbabwe leadership ‘appointed by God’ and anti-Zimbabwe leadership ‘appointed by God.’

There were struggles between prophets who had been sent by God to prophesy doom for Zimbabwe and prophets also sent by the very same God to prophesy hope for Zimbabwe.

They were all emphatic. 

They all said: “Mark my words, the voice of God said to me bla … bla … bla!”

And the voice of God was telling the prophets different things, each according to his political leaning.

And some had hired Nigerian prophets to prophesy their own strange ‘truths’ in pidgin.

The followers of the Moses whom God had appointed to lead Zimbabweans out of the Rhodesian-Egypt were fighting the followers of the Moses whom God had appointed to lead Zimbabweans back to the Zimbabwe-Rhodesian-Egypt.

The street dweller with a head as dirty as a public toilet mop mopped it all from the steps of a Chicken Inn.

And he laughed out aloud and said to no-one in particular: “Mahwani sekuru!”

A greasy woman with an equally dirty mop on her head dragged a greasy sack onto the same porch and sat far away from him.

She said to herself and to no-one in particular: “Manje ini akandirova ndinonyatsomudzosera.”

The street dweller looked at her and laughed: “And you could get yourself killed.”

He stared at her legs and she quickly pulled her frayed skirt around herself.

She jeered at him: “Manje harinyare!”

Three riot police officers passing by heard the exchange and burst out laughing. One brought out her phone and filmed them.

Another said: “Of all the days, mapenzi aya asarudza nhasi to go on their date.”

The third officer said: “Wozonditumirawo zvawatora. It must be interesting.”

After the police were gone, the greasy woman casually said something and the street dweller was surprised.

 To be continued…