The boy who had no name ran the edge of the cutlass along the grainy surface of the sharpening stone.
He raised it towards the brightening sky to look it. The entire length of the blade was filed and a silvery whiteness lay at the sharp edge. He rubbed his calloused thumb on it and it scraped across smoothly and it sounded right. He could cut his fingernails with the cutlass and could cut hair with it.
He got up from his stool in the back of the yard, facing rows of ridges of sprouting maize that had old dried stalks jutting out of them. He picked up the stool and the two cutlasses he had sharpened and took them into his shack.
He came out without them and stopped beside a large clay pot directly under the eaves. It was there to collect rainwater so it was uncovered.
He reached into the pot and grabbed a small plastic bowl and dipped it into the water. Chills ran up his hand and shivers down his back.
He washed his face with the water and cleaned the sleeping rheum out of his eyes.
A breeze swept down the sides of the shack. He grimaced as his face turned stiff. He worked his jaw and opened his mouth to get his circulation going. He yawned. It was quite early.
He went back into the shack and came out with the cutlasses held together in his right hand. A roped mostly-empty knapsack hung on his shoulder, across his chest. He was in a large yard but the cultivated plot at the back took up most of the space. The rest of it was dotted by three wide canopy trees housing birdnests and now he paid attention to the birdsong and the chirruping of critters from all over.
There was another building near the front of the yard and it was made of red clay and had a corrugated roof. It was a hut that had an uneven square window on the side. It was shuttered by a panel of thick araba wood.
He went to the hut and stopped by the window. They were already late for the day's work on the farm. He called out loudly to the old man who was his father.
'Baba, the sun is soon to be up. We better soon get to it.'
'I'm also up but I cannot find my cutlass here where I kept it.'
'It's here. I put it to the stone.'
Then the sounds of movement came from within the hut. The boy went to the door of the hut, he sat on the floor, rested his back on the wall beside the door. Looking around the yard, he saw the gap in the wooden fence the old man had been wanting to fix for weeks now, ever since after loose oxen crashed into it.
The door swung open, and the old man came out of the hut. He was bent as he stepped out and then he straightened up and his head came up to the corrugated eaves.
The old man stretched his hand towards the boy.
'Let me have it.'
The boy handed the cutlass over to the old man handle first. He picked up his own cutlass and pushed himself to his feet.
The old man spoke as he took the cutlass. 'Why is my cutlass with you?'
'You gave it to me last night to clean and sharpen.'
'Of course. I remember. Of course. You should have returned it earlier.'
'It is my mistake.'
'The sun is rising. Let us be on our way.'
The old man was already throwing his feet ahead of himself, trudging off to the farm where they had several plots of land to clear in preparation for the planting season.
The boy followed.
They passed the headman's compound and came upon a crowd beside a pye tree. The boy had been dozens of steps behind the old man but now he caught up behind the crowd. Everyone was headed out to the farms, hefting machetes and hoes and scythes and sickles and anything with an edge to clear bushes with.
The crowd was talking while eyeing an object on the tree.
'It does not look good.'
'What foolishness have this people got up to again?'
'And the Headman is not around to tell us what it means.'
The crowd was muttering to one another. The old man greeted loudly and they all turned to exchange greetings. The men shook hands. The boy was behind the old man and only shook hands with the boys of his age group and bowed to the older men and women.
The boy remained at the back as the old man pushed his way to the front of the massed crowd, but the boy peered easily above the heads of the crowd to see a postbill slapped on the mottled bark of the pye tree. There was no drawing on it. The boys of his age group were messing around, trying to spell out the information on the parchment, and wound up snickering at one another.
The old man was talking with an old woman.
'It is good that you are here,' the old woman spoke loudly for all who was present to hear. 'It is very good.'
'I know what you mean,' the old man replied
'Borrow us your wisdom then.'
'I know we have a headman in this village but where is he and where was he when they came to put this thing up beside his house? That is my curiosity.'
'He is at our sister village.' Another man, the only other one who was as elderly, replied.
'When he is back he must tell us of the meaning. We have work to do on the land.'
'Should we leave it or take it off?' The old woman asked
'We should leave it. But only because it is not my own house and I do not know what it says.' The old man said.
'As an elder, you have spoken well. We came to the same conclusions ourselves.' The old woman said.
'And where three elders decide on the same thing there must be wisdom.' The other old man said.
'Let us go and get some work done. I greet you all.'
The old man left the crowd first and then some people lingered and finally the crowd dispersed along the main thoroughfares of the village.
The boy and the old man continued on their way to the old man's share of the land.
The old man started talking.
'You'll see that it is another way for those greedy people to collect from us. I have said it and you will see. Nothing good ever comes from them. They only ever take.'
The boy did not respond and instead set the pace for their hour-long journey to the farm. They passed the market that was empty and came out on the other side where, on a jagged tree, another yellow postbill that looked exactly like the first one faced the road.
The old man stopped when he saw it.
'You see what I am saying. Just look at it.'
The boy turned around and noticed the postbill.
The old man hurried towards it and ripped it off the tree that had once been zapped by lightning and flung it to the floor. He stomped on it and ground it into the dust and spat on it. Then he brushed past the boy and continued on the road.
The boy went to look at the torn postbill, ornate markings he could not decipher filled it from end to end.
He sat on his haunches and saw that the ink markings were very uniform. From them he got a sense of clear intention. He knew the markings had meaning.
He felt a simple pity that the old man had treated it so roughly. He picked it up, dusted it, folded it neatly and kept it away in his knapsack.
The old man was looking at him. 'What are you doing?'
'Nothing.'
'We are losing time.'
They continued to the farm, their footsteps sounding against the silence of the bushes and the trees and the wind while the sun cliimbed at its own pace.
Later on, the day broke.
The headman of the village returned to an empty village, inhabited by wild dogs and other domestic animals. Everyone had gone off to work on the land to prepare for the planting season before the first rains come around.
The headman passed through the marketplace and he came upon the postbill beside his house where some wild goats had decided to take refuge from the sweltering heat of the day.
The headman read the words and looked around to see if he was being watched but there were only fowls and lizards dashing across the street. He peeled the postbill off the bark of the pye tree.
Some tree ants were on the parchment as he peeled it off but he did not see them. One of them bit hard into the skin on the back of his hand and then another one did the same.
The headman slapped at them with his other palm and squashed them. The postbill dropped to the ground. He picked it up and harrumphed.
The headman went into his house and threw the paper into his hearth and watched as it curled to black and then it turned to ashes, righteous anger was also burning in his mind.