The Keepers (or The Momentum).

by Thabang Seepe

Interlude 4: The Keepers.

  On the day that Rikki killed himself.

  “A most interesting case. Now can you tell me what the hell just happened, Sir First?”

  “He committed suicide,” The First said trying to avoid difficult answers. “What else is there to it?”

  “You are being ignorant. Can’t you see the result? You saw them,” The First-rank-opp replied.

  “Nonetheless, he took the blade and cut himself. That’s all there is to it.”

  “F**kin amazing huh, Sir First,” The First-rank-opp said contemptuously. “The very guy who has evaded our attempts, kills himself. The guy we’ve all wanted to kill but just could not find the least minimal consequences to do so kills himself,” he said ironically.

  “He killed himself that’s that.”

  “No he did not. He did not kill himself. Something killed him. You know it.”

  “What do you want me to say huh?”

  The question went through the restricted room. The light was on but they were in front of a cabinet higher than their heads and the light was behind it and it made the side they were on dark. The First-rank-opp could not see the facial expression of The First but the sound of his voice when he asked the question revealed his uncertainty- the uncertainty of whether your life’s existence meant what you had been thinking it meant at all.

  “You want me to admit that something out there killed him? Who then?” He sighed “I thought we were the keepers. And now you want me to admit that there is something out there that might be keeping us?” He grumbled and hit the cabinet with his right fist. It tilted back a bit and the light shown on The First keeper’s face, momentarily before the cabinet returned to its original position, but that moment of light on The First keeper’s face was enough to show his panic, his distress and his destroyed self-importance through his eyes. “You want me to say it!” It was not a question.

  “Say it. You are The First” The First-rank-opp said. “Say it!” he said again more tenaciously.

  “We are not in charge then.” The First keeper said. “We the keepers, have been been kept.” A groan and a gritting of teeth then “The momentum is alive,” he said quietly.

  “That’s the answer I was expecting. How come we never saw it before? Funny, one would think that It has been hiding Itself. Huh?” he chuckled sardonically, but The First did not joined him. Then he thought about The First’s plan, about how he knew nothing, really about it, and about what would happen to it.

  “Now what of the orphan?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” The First said honestly. “I don’t know about the plan anymore and I don’t know about the new boss. I guess I am no longer The First. A demotion. Why It chose me to choose him, if I may say, I also don’t know. I know nothing now.”

  “Okay. The feeling is mutual, I assure you,” The First-rank-opp replied in an assuring matter-of-fact tone “but you had a plan. Tell me it.”

  “Might as well. The plan was simple. I was to have the orphan, raise him with the principles promoting the momentum and then give him beauty. Right now, he is just handsome. He keeps some of the principles to heart. I was so close, in a year or so I would have given him beauty and so solve the sexual problem.” He paused and took a deep breath followed by an equal sigh.

  “That’s what you meant when you said you know sex.”

  “Yes. The sex craze would follow Lysei’s beauty and we would use him to keep the momentum. But alas, after what we have seen, it is best to let the momentum keep itself...and us.”

  He felt pity for The First. “That was an excellent plan, Sir First. A solution that would have defined The First of this generation. It’s a pity.” He saluted The First.

  “On the bright side, it is our turn, now, to be kept. Let’s go tell the others the shortened version of these good news.” The First said sarcastically. After such a long time of thinking they were in charge, the discovery of the new boss turned them upside down. The First saluted back.