Rino was born under a sunburned tree. Seconds later, the shadows journeyed under the trees, and a single-horn rhino showed up at the borehole. As a tot, he hunted grey pigeons with catapults, while nana tickled his upward-pointed nose. 

On his fourth birthday, he strangled a day-old calf suckling his cotton nappy. Later, Rino was expelled from school when campfire jokes blamed him for stealing fairy-tale rhino toys. Soon, a man selling biltong enrolled him at a midnight school. 

That night, the twinkling stars brightened the sky and set up a night shift. First, Rino hugged his gun and skipped into a car whose headlights looked like eye sockets. He pointed out where the rhinos strayed, while pressing his moon-sized eyes at the wind-dancing grass. By now, the moon acted like a spotlight, as the missing tailgate bakkie raked the rustling leaves. 

A cold wind massaged his cheeks, and he puffed dried rhino’s poo instead of tobacco. Soon, the worn-out tyres raced away from the bushfire ignited by a spark from Rino’s smoke pipe. Afterwards, they parked the faulty brakes car by pushing it into the sandy riverbed. 

The poachers’ twig-breaking footsteps tipped off the kudus, before the twisted-horn animals dodged the farting bullets. This time, the squad followed Rino with gun’s metal tubes poking his back. The aroma from the wildflowers soaked up the stink coming from their armpits.

 “I’ve squeezed life out of a rhino’s calf,” Rino said. Instantly, a T-shaped twig tripped him, and the gun went off, splitting his heart into pieces. 

The poachers carried the bloodied boy over their backs and rushed him to the missing headlights car. Rino’s blood drizzled the thirsty sand, but they couldn’t push the car buried in the red sand. So, they dragged his numbed body over the barbed thorns and hijacked a flashing lights van. In a blink, the nurses wheeled him to the surgery room, but the cost of a heart transplant ran into millions. 

Luckily, the manager of Ongava Hustlers, who was hot on the poachers’ heels, choked up the door and wagged a finger at Rino’s sleepy eyes. “I’ll donate a rhino’s heart for your transplant!” he said. 

“I’ll become a poacher of men,” said Rino, his eyes travelling towards eternity. 

Finally, Rino became an anti-poaching disciple and harvested countless wire snares. Every year, he donates his 13th cheque to print pamphlets and stickers in order to save the rhinos.