I saw him — the Man of True Colour. I’m black, but it doesn’t really count as a notable colour, does it? I waved from my little hut down in the corner as he descended from the plane into my village. The plane wasn’t even ours; it was generously supplied by our friends who prefer turkey to chicken. The man says my airport is substandard, and just before I could shrug it off as a consequence of our ill-fate, he said he’d help me rebuild it, all for the low, low cost of reclaiming ownership if I cannot pay back. And reflexively, I shed tears — generosity at its peak.
I stayed in my hut all day. It’s not because I’m lazy, but really, what’s out there for me to do? I was eager to help in building my country’s new airport, but to my utmost surprise, the caring man didn’t want me to break a sweat, so he sent another plane and brought his friends. He said I should sit back, that they’ve got this, and again, I shed tears and wondered which angel chose to remember our “shithole” village this time.
I felt a little scared—it sounded too good to be true, and after all the last ones, we are a little brittle this time. So, I walked to the neighbouring village—The Cradle of Mankind— all the way down to my friend’s hut, to ask what he thought of this benevolent Man, and reassuringly, my people weren’t alone in their trust. My friend told me he had wanted to surprise me, but since I was already there, he’d just let the cat out of the bag. Soon, he wouldn’t need to walk to see me — the benevolent man was currently building tracks for them to swing by any village they wanted to go to. My friend, knowing my ears were ringing in awe, reassured me by mentioning that when the Man’s brothers — the Granary of the East — became too poor to maintain their port, the Man of Colour had stepped in as their knight in shining armour and decided to manage it on their behalf. And instantaneously, my friend and I wept in tongues of appreciation.
Back in my village, there was a little drawback. The Man needed protection from those who wanted to steal his pot of gold, and so he employed my village’s guards to protect him personally, never mind their duty to us. When the sun threatened to smite them, he also made sure to generously cover them each with 5000 ariaN umbrellas, whilst also teaching his children the fine art of being generous to men in uniform. After all, they also need to feed their children, don’t they? Watching this from my hut, I shed tears. What a generous man the great coloured one is!
I took my children out in our beautiful rags, hoping to catch a whiff of him, and the gods blessed our eyes with a view of the Benevolent Man and his friends outside his newly founded home. He wanted to converse with us. I could have sworn he did. He wanted to teach us his ways — sorry, learn our cultures and languages — but 500+ is just too many for one man. We couldn’t be that insensitive to our benefactor’s plights. There and then, a solution was concocted—he’d been nice to us, so we’d just learn his tongue instead. I cried due to the bustle of the day, but by the end, I was fluent in Red Dragonese.
Surely, he’s not after our national palm wine; he just wants to help. He has sworn he’s not like the rest. Not like the Croissant Man, who still collects flour and eggs from our brothers, and has still gotten our tongues twisted trying to converse with him. Not at all like the others who took our fathers to work on plantation farms. Not like the White Man flooding our Delta because he wants to help us source our palm wine. The rest of them were unwise to come with kolonia-li-zim when they could have easily improved to the neo-version.
He’s better, way better. He is the Messiah.
