Long ago, clouds of flirting soared over Omusarakuumba for years.  For now, toothpick-thin children missed circling red spider mites or building sandcastles; therefore, they roasted flying termites. 

The only full-tummy creatures were the spotted hyenas that giggled over the cows’ skins littering the mud cakes’ waterholes. 

Kambangane joked that he didn’t care about the rain, for he owned no red-berried cows. However, his lips twitched after spotting museum-destined bones of guinea fowls and fluttered his eyes at the sand-archived jackals’ skulls.  Soon, he ran to the nearby village to steal the rain from a rain-filled waterhole. The rainmaker was desperate because the termite eaten logs looked like firewood piled at the back of a lorry. Before he could dip the bucket into the rippling water, the lightning fireworks warned him that stealing the rain was uncultured.  Instantly, the lightning sparks blinked every time he lowered the bucket into the python stirred water.  As he returned to the baldheads-baking sun in Omusarakuumba, he whispered into the chief’s rabbit-like ears that it had been raining elsewhere.  This time, he took out a rain-soaked mud cake from his pocket and pressed it into the chief’s swishing hands.  “I’ll block the rain-peeing clouds from passing by,” said Kambangane, pounding his chest like a baboon.  Immediately, the whip-carrying chief flogged the commoners to build a cloud-touching ladder so Kambangane could stab the clouds with v-shaped thorns, in the hope the rain-tinkling clouds would piss showers. The next day, the sky-touching ladder was ready, and Kambangane knotted a bag of pin-sharp thorns to his hips and vowed that he would make the rain. The muscular villagers held the world-breaking record ladder upright. In a blink, a dark cloud had formed above his bald head,  its blanketing shadow gathering the guitar-like ribs of cows, as they sniffed the rain.  The smell of rain had perfumed the air as Kambangane climbed the ladder. He looked down, and the crowd beneath him was reduced to the size of ants. Afterwards, he shouted, but the commoners were as deaf as gravestones. Before he could give up, a cup-size raindrop fell and melted on his flaky lips. By now, he was about to stab the expecting clouds with needle-sharp thorns, but a spine-chilling wind blew away the floating cloud.  Below him, the microwaving sun had drained gallons of sweat from the villagers, and soon they let go of the ladder. 

The wingless Kambangane flapped his arms and dropped headfirst into a cave-tunnelled waterhole in the nearby village.  In the end, the drought continued, and the trees hardened into rocks.