Kambangane sniffed the boiling stew from three-legged pots and sneaked out of the graveyard. Minutes later, the crocodile-tearful men had buried Kambaikiha, who had left behind as many cows as the autumn’s leaves. 

“Not one of his red-berried cows could save him from choking on a housefly,” said Kahozu, rubbing vicks under his eyes. “Who can remember Kambaikiha’s last wish that one of us would die with him?” asked Kangune, numbering the tearstained cows. Strangely, the graveyard’s dust had stuck to Kambangane’s heels like butter lotion. “Who’s next?” queried Kambangane, moving his jaws on chunks of meat. 

Then he pulled a fist-sized piece stuck between his teeth with a twig. Kahozu pressed his eyes at a winged ant trapped in a spider’s web, as it swung over Kambangane’s head. The beer-tummy men slurped the bone marrow while betting. “Who has the cloud-clapping burp amongst us?” asked Kaparua, burping. 

Next to the men picking their teeth, the dogs sniffed Kambangane’s dog that had dropped to the ground and faked lifelessness. Suddenly, a chameleon crawled towards the men and changed its colour to Kambangane’s orange shirt. 

Kambangane licked the fat dripping from his elbow, while the men whispered his name in a death’s riddle. By now,  Kambangane saw death coming toward him and ran to his hut. He stepped on white ants crawling into his hut. Then, he spotted twin tortoises, and an owl hooted his name before he blocked his ears with both hands. 

Afterwards, he squatted at the yellow-red fire and whined to the ancestors to delay his death.

 Later, he shot a guinea fowl with a catapult and sizzled it into the grapefruit-coloured fire to please the dead. His fear of death tickled the gods, and a spark from the yellow flame set his hut on fire. Upon this, he removed his sandals and stoked the fire. Afraid that if the flickers die, he might stop breathing, he hunched over and puffed the ember coals to ignite another holy flame.  

This angered the gods, and soon tiny red ants followed his footprint up until the holy fire. “I’m dead!” he cried, begging Kambaikiha’s spirit to stop strangling him. That night, he snorted with one eye open to watch out for death. Only now, he touched his pocket and felt something soft.  

A leaf from a brandy tree next to Kambaikiha’s grave was inside his pocket. Before the sun rose, he ran to the graveyard and threw away the bad luck leaf. 

As soon as he popped out of the graveyard, the crowd flogged him with horsewhips, blaming his charms for Kambaikiha’s death.