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<p>“Behold; I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth, shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”</p>
<cite><strong>— Isaiah 43:19</strong></cite></blockquote>



<p>A blustering breeze burgled the geriatric hooch through the wooden window (which creaked clangorously) left unclosed. Rested on its pane was one skeletal structure with sunken sockets, inexpugnable on the desolate palm tree. Its flying fronds, with airy cages, wriggled to the mystic rhythm set on the sail by the abrasive wind. Galadima crouched on the pane, thick palms planking his cheeks. Clamouring on the nether background were bizarre sounds: hoarse chirps made by the incessant chatter of orthopteran crickets as they rubbed their wings against the hind combs, segregating the atmospheric equanimity of the arenaceous bourg.</p>



<p>“Vision 2020,” he bowwowed.</p>



<p>It was pellucid that he was swimming to and fro in cogitation; he had been mulling over the inchoate scheme for almost a decade in his cavernous hinterland.</p>



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<p>No matter the case; power cannot sway its heavy butt before the natural owner of the midnight – the occultic Cats and Birds. Ergo, currishly committed was a tragic hamartia against these cherubic creatures by Dima, and they showed him pricking peppers. Bathos. Firstly, they coerced him with inconspicuous force to abdicate his regal mantle as the Hakimi (District Head) of the rustic hamlet. Caesura. Not long after, he went into voluntary exile, turning himself into a vagabond hobo.</p>



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<p>He remembered Henry Ford’s quote he read in one senescent book that “failure is simply an opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently,” and turned himself into a grabby wolf who esuriently gobbled books as if he would die tomorrow.</p>



<p>A p(f)ulani Plato.</p>



<p>The whirling wind whispered his sagacious sapience in books, and plethoric eyes pleaded assertingly that he dabbled into politics. Like all misologists, he leapt pronto, and he was made the mayor of a state in his sod, UAR.</p>



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<p>Being an executive head of the current administration, he recalled the scheme as proposed by the gallant Umar Ya’Adua. “Largest world economy” was the main theme of the propounded plan. When the spavined pater crossed the line that barricaded Mother Earth from Father Heaven, the dream dribbled. “I need to heft this plain for a better UAR,” thought he.</p>



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<p>The United Africa Republic (UAR) is rife with cankerworms that ate shoal in her grand garb and soiled this does to her. Now that Galadima has risen again on the ladder of his zenith, can he create rivers in the desert?</p>



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<p class="has-text-align-right has-background" style="background-color:#f1f1f8">Mohammed Taoheed is a poet and freelance journalist affiliated with the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ Nigeria). Based in Northwest Nigeria, Mohammed enjoys reading books when he’s not engaged in research and shares his thoughts on Twitter via @MOTofMedia.</p>
 
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Rivers In the Desert | a short story by Mohammed Taoheed
Photo by Luca Galuzzi | galuzzi.it