A man sits at a hotel dining room table. The name of the hotel, which is written in black paint on the wall that separates the building from the dusty street, is Omashare Lodge, but it is not a lodge, this is a hotel where travelling salesmen and soldiers for hire stay when they are far from their homes, a hotel, a motel on an highway road where steel skeletons that once were cars, still, do not move.

It is five o’clock in the evening, almost twilight, the circular sun is moving downwards towards the west, moving across the river to another country, lighting another stage, another heavenly moment, a performance. It is not yet time for the hotel staff to serve dinner for the hours are not dark and the evening meal is only served once it becomes dark, death and light do not go together, the taste of meat is dark, nourishment is hidden. But in the twilight, in the dazzling midday, in the cool of the morning, the hotel staff serve drinks, any kind of drinks, for the patrons of this hotel are known to drink anything at anytime of the day, thirst is not hidden by the dark, only its satiation.

The dining room table at which the man sits is covered with a black and white checked table cloth, there is a small stain in the right hand corner of the cloth, a red mark, a wine stain, sacrificial blood, but the stain is only visible when the corners of the cloth are blown upwards by the wind as the cloth hangs downwards, it does not sit flat on the table, it covers the corners and points towards the floor. Opposite him, across the length of a wall, is a mirror, it is surrounded by a rococo gilt frame, a troupe of Cupid’s are replicated thirteen times, the sons of Venus hold bows and arrows in baby hands, Cupid destroys love with lead and crafts love with gold, the mutilated body of a Valentine. The man beats his fingers on the table cloth, his heart beats to the movement of the seconds.

The man watches himself in the mirror, his lips support a kiss. Three women multiplied ten times, all wearing the same light blue, almost turquoise, dress, a pink apron to catch a falling stain that may drop onto the cotton material, a white head scarf to show respect, hotel waitresses frame his face. He watches himself watching the women, a man in the background, there is no man but himself, a halo of women.

The walls of the dining room, except for one wall behind him that has wall paper on it, are painted white, but it is not an intense white, it is a shady, murky, dust from the sandy road outside the hotel, white, the grease from dead flesh has also made its point on the walls, coated the walls, patches of brown mingle with what may once have been the intensity of white. Behind the dining room table at which the man sits is a long table, a sideboard, on it are stainless steel heating dishes, containers for the food that will be served once it has become dark, dark enough for gratification. The wall above the sideboard is covered in wallpaper, gold fleur de lis on a charcoal background, contrasting colours, faith wisdom and chivalry, lead charcoal blends into the gold of the lily, love and hate on crimson velvet, a holy trinity. The wallpaper looks old, embroidered with history, royalty and the guillotine, the grease of fried food has splattered the fair fleur de lis, a razor cut across a flower.

Above and to the right of the table at which the man sits is a picture, not a painting but the reproduction of a painting, a faraway seascape, not the grey dusty streets of the town in which the hotel is situated, not the rushing Zambezi River which he does not look at as he picks at the crumbs on the side plate that is lying next to him on the table, but a seascape, the rocks in the sea appear and disappear into the waves, wreckers’ rocks,  jagged. To the right of the rocks, which serves to confirm this image of destruction, is a shadow cast by a candle in a glass covered lantern, it is held aloft by a tiny figure, it washes a thin line of excitement across the dark silken sea, a wrecker’s light, the man that holds the fire is a wrecker, he wears dark clothes so as not to stand out in the dim night, on his head is a black cap, he makes a fire sign to entice a boat onto the rocks, he waits for a boat to shatter and from those that die in the waves he will plunder the unseen goods, guns, diamonds, salt and spices. A seascape, the picture has no name, there are no words on it.

The man’s face is brown, brown as it once was pale, now it is coated with the sun, sun burnt, sun blackened. His checked shirt is covered by shadows, patterns in blue and white, a shirt of many patterns, many colours, sweat stained, salt circles his nipples, it tastes of Lot’s wife as she turns to watch Sodom burn and scream, but the man does not turn, he burns and screams wordlessly. A shadow from the low slung chandelier twinkles across the dark green buttons on the shirt, an insect crawls, life on a checked patterned shirt, a life of its own. The wind blows the chandelier, and simultaneously it blows his shirt, it opens the collar so that the shadows crawl across his chest, spider trails, his chest  has hair on it, grey hair, dust coated hair, or the hair of the prematurely old for his face is not old, he must be about thirty, he cannot be more than this, and yet his hair is grey, streaked on his head, shadowed stripes cast by the chandelier, shadowy veins cast by the spider web that stretches across from a wall to the roof, from a corner to a corner, the spider’s web is also grey, grey from the dust, grey because spiders spin a silken grey web, disguised against the off white wall that is grey from dust and smoke and years in a dusty town.

The man looks upwards at the web that makes a shadow over his head, he looks up at the chandelier that has three bulbs in it although there is space for six, they must have run out of bulbs in the hotel or else the dining room is bright enough, it does not need six bulbs to light it, it does not need light for the fire has already been stolen, the bulbs are not switched on now as it is still almost daylight, not yet dark enough for the abandonment of god.

The man does not move, but he is not entirely still, every now and again he lifts the cigarette from his lips and replaces it with a glass, then the tight chest muscles under the shirt undulate, they grab hold of the sweat and clasp it close to him, diamond water drips downwards towards the waist band of his khaki trousers, the right colour for this dusty town, they are already not white they are a dusty colour, an almost dirty colour, but dust is not dirty is just appears as if it is dirty for it is brown and grey and coats everything as if it is dirt, the clean sand of the open blue sky that is always there, above, on top of a world.

The man does not watch the shadows on the walls, he watches himself, but they are there, the sun is angled in such a way as to make everything appear elongated, exceptionally tall glasses, a knife thrown at the walls, it stabs a woman’s passing arm, then a shoulder, a thigh. To his left, a little above his head is a wooden wall clock, occasionally he turns his head and looks at the hands of the clock as they circle from the figure two towards the figure three. The clock has black Roman numerals on it, a symbol, a number, the hands circle from the number two towards the number three, II, III and IV, he is waiting, counting the time. He waits for a minute and the long hand clicks downwards, he waits for someone, as timeless as time, as structured as the time in which he waits.

The face of the man is not young, the sun and the dust have hardened him, lines line his face and yet they are not the lines of the aged, the furrows of flames, etchings of sun drenched hours. His eyes are folded into lines for he squints into the harsh sunlight, the vivid sunlight that is intense and dazzling, around his mouth are creases, wrinkled lips tighten around a cigarette, around an unshaven chin, he smokes as he waits, a cigarette between his red thin lips, not a passionate red, they are the red of burnt skin, blistered. Smoke trickles from between his lips, his lips are pursed for he clasps the cigarette tightly so that it does not fall onto the dining room table at which he sits. The cigarette has burnt for a long time, the ash on its end is long and grey, as grey as the dust on the walls that once were white. The man removes the cigarette from his mouth, from between his red thin lips, he holds it between his index finger and the third finger of his right hand and tips the grey dust ash into the ashtray that is just in front of opaque white china salt and pepper cellars that stand in the centre of the checked black and white table cloth on the dining room table. The ashtray is filled with grey spirals of ash, it holds five white cigarette butts, they do not smoke, the glowing tip of coal has long since died, stamped out by the man who sits at the table and smokes, embers no longer smoulder, dismissed from heaven. The man takes the cigarette from his mouth and tips the ash into the ashtray, and then returns it to its destination, to between his thin red lips.

There is a fork and knife on the table, the table has been set with a fork and a knife and a spoon, although there is no food served in the dining room at this time, but the place settings are there, as if the food will soon be arriving, although it will not as it is only served once it becomes dark. To the left of the fork is a side plate. It is blue, as blue as the sky above the roof of the building, around its rim are birds, birds of all colours, red ones and purple ones but they are not birds that are found in a bird book, they are birds that have been painted by an artists memory, birds of colour, purple birds with red beaks and yellow legs, red birds with purple beaks and orange legs, china feathered birds. On the plate lie the remains of a bread roll, its crumbs are solid now as it has lain there for a long time, time enough for the crumbs to become hardened by the dry air, crumbs to feed the lifeless birds. There is a smear of golden butter on the edge of the plate, it obscures the eyes of one of the birds so that it can no longer see, it can no longer see outside of a blue china plate. A bread knife is on the side plate, it too is covered by yellow melted butter, liquid, oily. The roll has been broken by the man’s hands as a few pieces still lie on the plate, they are not evenly cut or sliced, but broken into pieces, broken by his long strong fingers that now curl around the glass of coke that he holds to his lips, he licks the sugary rim of the glass, an elegant taste, a ubiquitous memory, the flavour of wealth. He takes the cigarette from his lips, then he holds the glass to his mouth, his lips curl upwards as he drinks the dark black liquid, it is victorious.

The man stares at his reflection for he knows no-one but himself, brown hair, an unoriginal colour streaked with grey, the grey dust streaks, prematurely grey for the grey of his hair does not match the middle years of his face, he could be thirty, he could be younger, his eyes squint against the fading sun, old eyes that are cold, colder than the cloudless sky. He barely moves, stagnant, only his pale blue lined eyes move from the reflection in the mirror in front of him to the people and cars and buildings across the river. His eyes shift across the river, he watches the cars and the people, he cannot hear them speak for they are too far away, he cannot hear them speak for he cannot listen, the voices sound to him as if they are not voices, a foreign language, no language, the unspoken words of the other, he does not hear his voice.

The table to his left is empty, so too the table in front of him, but at the table on his right there are five people, a family, an older man and woman, three children, two girls and one boy, the children, who are not really children, they are adolescents, appear to range in age from about ten to sixteen years. The table is so close to the one that the man sits at that he could, should he choose, reach out and touch one of the pretty young girls, but he does not choose to reach out and touch her, he cannot make this choice as he knows only an echo in a mirror of unrequited love, she does not sit close enough to him. The family is a foreign family, black, blacker than his skin, for although he is covered in dust, although it coats him in a carapace and is muddied by his sweat, he is not black, they are black, he is beige, their skins gleam for they too are sweating in the heat, this heat of the border town. For a moment he takes his eyes from the imitation in the mirror, from the dust motes that move before his face and stares at this family, but he does not see them, they are not there, the look on his face is distracted, he does not see them at all for they are not here to meet him, they are not him, they are not here to pick up the briefcase, or even the contents of the briefcase, that lies on the floor next to his feet.

A briefcase lies on the floor between is feet, he clasps it to him, he holds it between khaki coloured sand dust shoes as if it were a lover, he holds it close with his ankles. It is not a new briefcase, but it is not battered, it is the kind of briefcase that has carried many things in it and yet it has never been faraway, it has only been over the border and back to this town, in the back of cars, under seats, clasped between sweat stained thighs, sweat stained hands, sweat stained feet. Occasionally the man moves his feet and looks at the briefcase, reaches down and touches it, caresses it, as if it has curves, modulated breasts and voluptuous thighs, sacred, a sacred god that could, at any moment, take wing and fly away, Cupid has dominion over the dead, the creatures of the sea, gods in the blue sky, he must hold on to it,  no-one can take this briefcase away, for it is his, he bought it from the market place where cloth is decorated with mobile phones and Virgin Mary’s and Cessna airplanes that clog the sky, the market where light bulbs distort the sun and god is dead.

The man looks at his watch, this must be the third or fourth time that he looks at his watch in the time that he has been sitting on the chair in front of the table, he looks at his watch and counts the minutes that have elapsed, time slips away as he watches his mirrored self, as he waits and dies thirsty, it is hot in this dusty town.

Outside, but not outside across the river, outside in the garden of the hotel, outside on the green grass for it is not dusty this grass, it is green, it is watered regularly, there are paths that lead down to the river. Unnamed people walk across the grass, on the paths, paths slippery with the wet water that is used to make it green, unknown people, a nameless corpus. A peacock walks on the green grass outside the dining room, it crosses a path, a male peacock, a fanned tail, a painting of a peacock in India, the green grass of India. The peacocks on the grass of the hotel are emerald and gold and blue, they wander freely, they cry out harshly, they fan their tails to display their beauty to the tired peahens that are dowdy and brown, they display their prosperity to the uninterested people who walk the paths where there is no beauty. The man looks at the peacocks, but he is not thinking of India or peacocks or that birds in India are always given to a loved one, a sign of love, he is not thinking of this bird of love for this he only needs to look in the mirror, he is imagining that sometime soon someone will arrive to take away the contents of the briefcase.

The shadows of the chandelier reach out and cover the table, they reach out and cut the cross paths of the walk ways in two, a double peacock. The shadow of the chandelier makes the same path across the table, now because the shadows have lengthened they make a path across the man’s face, bend down towards his eyes, link up to the corner of his mouth, blend in with the curling of the smoke of his cigarette.

Above him next to the spider web is a black mark, the mark of Cain, the man looks at it for a minute, the mark is dead, a wasp, its sting embedded into the off white plaster of the wall, a dusty mark, the shape of a gravestone, dried yellow mucus oozes from the insect’s mouth, it is flat, two dimensions of mortality. The man stands up, he reaches up and almost touches the black and yellow mark of the squashed insect, the compressed wasp that has yellow oozing from its tails and its mouth, he cannot reach it, it has been squeezed against the wall by something, someone else has left a symbol, a sign to decorate the shadow of a chandelier.

“Are you X,” the man hears the voice above him.

“Yes,” he replies, but he does not look up, he has no need to for he knows the voice, it is a familiar voice, not the known voice of a specific person, but a known voice, a soft accent from nowhere, harsh tonality. “Yes,” he replies again, “I have what you want, where shall I leave it?”

Still he does not look at the voice, it is a sound wave.

“Pay your bill and take a short walk to the baobab tree that is on the river’s edge,” the voice says, “put the contents of the briefcase in this paper bag.” The man feels the paper slide onto the table and hears the sound it makes, a white crunching paper bag, a moment of truth. “Put the bag between the two forked branches of the tree,” the voice continues, “replace the bag that you find there with this one, in the old bag will be the money and in yours?”

“In mine is what you want,” the man replies, “I can show you.”

“Show me, but do it so that it looks as if you are just bending down to open the briefcase so that you can take a pen, or paper, or whatever, out of it, drop the thing, I will lean down and pick it up, in your hand you must hold them so that I can see them.”

The man bends down, he opens the briefcase with his left hand, he appears to be searching in it for a piece of paper, anything, then his right hand, which has remained on the table, brushes the knife that lies on the side plate, it falls to the floor, there is no sound for the floor is carpeted, a dark carpet, the colour of the charcoal crimson wallpaper, it never shows a stain, mud, blood, the wall paper with the patterned golden fleur de lis, crimson does not show muck, it absorbs it, holds the dirt in its fibres, colours it red. The familiar voice bends down to pick up the knife.

The man opens the briefcase and takes out the six stones that lie in it, there is nothing else in the briefcase except six stones, they are taped to its bottom with sticky tape so that they do not fall out of it or lodge in its folds, the man cannot find a pen or a piece of paper so he just holds the six stones, they lie on the palm of his left hand.

The voice of the stranger watches the palm of his hand, then the knife is lifted up and put back on the side plate that is next to the man, there is melted butter on the knife, there is liquid melted butter on the plate, there is greasy liquid melted butter on the briefcase, it is burning hot inside the dining room.

“Good,” the strange voice says, “now do it.”

A man looks up at the mirror that is in front of the table at which he sits, the face in front of him is fractured, misshapen, there is a tear in the mirror.