Tonderai opens his arms wide, and staggers as though they are full of planes. Rudd laughs. Tonderai does not. Instead he spins around with a splash, to face Simi.

“Suddenly there is Snake.” His voice whistles on the wind, pitched now with fear. “Snake twists towards the piles of aeroplanes, and beside him Wife of Snake shouts at the Workers to get their brushes and sweep the papers away. But the Workers cannot, for there are too many papers. They try harder. They sweep and sweep, but it is no good. There are fallen aeroplanes everywhere. They lie in heaps on the ground, so many of them that even Snake does not know what to do. Besides, he cannot raise his head high enough to see where these paper planes come from, and his Wife shouts so loudly that he cannot think. She too is going mad, mad with her sjambok. She whips the Women and the Workers, and shouts and screams that they must clear the papers away – faster, faster. She yells again and again, and Snake slithers, and slithers, and he hisses and hisses … but they can do nothing.”

Tonderai’s voice drops away. He turns and sits down beside Bernard, and his eyes lock on to the red remains of the fire. Rudd cannot see Bernard, but he can see Simi. She sits now with the blanket dropped from her shoulders, and one hand holding the other up against her chest. Her whole body looks tense to him, stiff from the listening, the absorbing of the story.

Tonderai’s next words are careful and deliberate. “Girl is happy now. She feels stronger, for the messages tell her that she is seen. That the People are seen. That the world waits for them to be free. Her arms full, she turns to the window, and smiles at the faces she sees there. They smile back, and start to wave – first one, then two, then three, then too many for Girl to count.”

Tonderai pauses briefly, then starts again, his voice accelerating into a loud roar of rage. As the sound punches like a fist into the wind, the room gasps, and some jump. Tonderai smiles slightly, and continues. “This roar – it is Grandpa. He is angry for a plane has landed in his feast. Then two more land in his drink, and he roars again.” Tonderai thumps his voice upwards once more. “Grandpa pounds his fist and yells. Even the Favourites are frightened now. The youngest jump up to close the windows, but there is only one who comes back, for the others climb right out and are seen no more. Girl sees them go, and she laughs, for now Uncle’s carving has made the Table so low that everyone can see Grandpa and his Favourites. The People see Grandpa’s feasting and his rage, but they are not afraid, for they see that it is of no use, for the planes and their messages are still coming. As Girl watches she sees Grandpa narrow his crocodile eyes.”

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023