Komondjira needed a lift to visit his absentee father. He was born after his father’s contract of grading the bumpy gravel road had expired. 

Komoo, as his single mother tickled him, walked the thorn-infested footpath until the T-junction. Then he pinched his ears, fighting to separate the roaring wind from the vrooming cars. 

Suddenly, the mirage on the sun-baked gravel triggered his thirst. Secondly, his grumbling tummy begged for a tree gum. Afterwards, he spotted a sweet berry tree, but the wild snacks were as dry as autumn’s leaves. 

Anyway, he chewed the berries, but picked the sound of an approaching vehicle, but instantly he slumped his shoulders after realising it was a yellow grader levelling the road. 

The skew-tyre grader threw dust into his eyes as it passed. Meanwhile, inside the dusty whirlwind, a beige Toyota gravel-cruiser zoomed by. This time, the grader pushed a heap of loose rocks on the shoulders of the road like a dung beetle.

First, Komoo tore branches, and covered his ears from the eardrum-bursting noise. A blue-door Datsun with a missing tailgate drove past, and he cursed the grader for his bad luck. 

Afterwards, he picked human-like chats coming from he-goats that were quarrelling over mating rights. A puffed teat goat appeared to be his saviour. Komondjira chased after the goats, but came across a pit bull shepherding the goats. The dog smiled at him, as the orange sun dips behind the mountains. 

Thereafter, the lucky boy spotted readily chopped firewood. Suddenly, a lorry loaded with black cows approached from a distance. He smiled ear-to-ear, and waved for the truck moving at 40 km/hour to stop. Then he strolled towards the driver’s door. The windscreen was missing, and there was no soul inside the truck. 

The purring engine puzzled him, and the driver’s door swung wide open. He ignored the bloodied crosses on the door before the smell of rotten skin hit his nose. Suddenly, the engine purred louder as if about to move. 

Komondjira searched for the driver underneath the seats. Surprisingly, the sunhat and the walking stick over the steering wheel belonged to an uncle they had buried a week before. A fatherly whisper into his ears invited him into the passenger’s seat. Instantly, the tyres began to roll downhill, and soon the truck reached the speed of 100 km/h in two seconds.