Although James had been too polite to say that the assignment was an induction test to see if I was good enough for The Dial, I approached the task in that light. The next day, when I brought the handwritten pages to him, he read them, then he leaned back in his seat and contemplated my anxious face.

‘Good,’ he said.

I sighed. I had spent the whole night writing and rewriting.

I use my street, Morgan Street, as a paradigmatic locale, the fuel scarcity as the main theme. The long lines of cars waiting for fuel at petrol stations and obstructing traffic I use as a thread to weave together the various aspects of the article; in front of the petrol pumps I place the ubiquitous gun- and whip-toting soldiers, collecting money from drivers to expedite their progress towards the pumps. I place the pot-bellied, glaucomatous kids of Morgan Street, with their high-defined ribs, beside the open gutters where they usually play; in the gutters I place a carcass or two of mongrel dogs worried by vultures. In shady corners, under verandahs and broken trucks, I position winos to pass the day in vinous slumber. For local colour, I bring in the aged and the dying to peep through open windows into the street at youths holding roach communions at alley-mouths – passing the stick from hand to hand, with knives and guns in their pockets, biding their time. To conclude, I use the kerosene-starved housewives of Morgan Street. I make them rampage the streets, tearing down wooden signboards and billboards and hauling them away to their kitchens to use as firewood.

James didn’t like the conclusion. ‘Are you not laying it on a bit too thick here? Perhaps we should leave that part out.’

I nodded, concealing my disappointment.

I was assigned to the arts page.

‘Today is Thursday – you come on Monday and start work. Remember, once in a while you will be required to cover political issues. Everything is politics in this country, don’t forget that.’

*

Going back home in the slow-moving traffic, I closed my eyes and contemplated my future, but after a while I sighed and placed everything in God’s hands. What mattered right now was staying alive. That was what James said to me as I left his office: ‘Some day you’ll finish that novel. What matters right now is life. Remember, life is short, but art is very long.’

My eyes snapped open as the rickety Molue bus came to a sudden stop in the middle of the road. I leaned out of the window with the other passengers to see what was causing the block. There was a loud, angry murmur of voices in front. Women’s voices. The women appeared, crossing the road. Housewives in a large body, some with infants strapped to their backs. They were all carrying hoes and axes and machetes.

‘Na demonstration?’ the elderly passenger beside me asked.