Kitengela

Kitengela Melissa Burton

In the small town called Kitengela, there is a long road with busted white buses, men hanging from the doors, money gliding in the sky. Here, people are ashen and sit silently, unsmiling. The sun blazes overhead and the coming of the rain can be timed to the hour, sometimes the minute. Women stroll the streets in long skirts, hair braided each day. The children collect the rain to flush toilets.

These people die from disease, starvation, abandonment or the white bus smashing their faces. The mothers step on them. One future gone, and less to pay. Then a cloud comes along, turning their colorless faces. It brings the rain that everyone is praying for. Each day they fall in love with it. When it leaves, the sun comes.