DEAD MEN'S PATH
A parody to the story of the same name with the same names by Chinua Achebe
The vuvuzela's moment of fame came about much earlier than expected. South Africa had shown the world their new weapon. Now they were suddenly a superpower- they could easily win World War 3 single handedly.
Michael Obi would know the power of the vuvuzela. He had been promoted to designer of the Games village. Obi accepted this with zeal; he had common sense, designating him as a pivotal designer. He was ruthless in his devastation of these older beliefs. Who had ever heard of cheerleaders in jumpers tickling the crowd? It was absurd. If the crowd wanted to be tickled, they jolly well could do it themselves.
"We shall do a fine job of it, shan't we?" Obi asked his wife
"Yes of course we shall. It will be sickeningly modern, disastrously slow and all the athletes will get swine flu. Also, the cheerleaders we shall call will be Al Qaeda in disguise. Come on, Obi! Of course it will be great." Replied Nancy, sarcastically.
All this while, Nancy was formulating plans. She would be popular in the village. Then she'd show that priest of Emboli's wife. Pushing her by 100,000,000 nanometers! How dare her! 3 nanometers was okay. 100,000,000! She would do it to her and add not one, not two, not three but four zeroes!
The World Cup was going on perfectly. The Cup Village had been pillaged by robbers twice but now there was an army of villagers guarding the village of Emboli so no problems there. The gardens were beautiful as hell, with only one problem. The periwinkle garden had periwinkles replaced by rafflesia by the foolish gardener, who had been demoted to fake beggar.
The night one week before the cup, as Obi surmised his work of beauty, he noticed something. There were some markings on the trees. To his horror they were abuses, hurled at the cheerleaders because they refused to marry a crazy youngster gang. He tried to wipe them only to realize they were in permanent marker. The next day Obi cut off those trees and placed guards on the new trees.
Three days later, the Priest of Emboli came to visit. He had a stout Barbie doll which he tapped on the head on which that irritating song came up. The priest sang in tune, a fine contrast created between Barbie's squeaks and the priest's hoarse voice.
After the usual exchange of cordialities, he said, " I have heard our lads have been banned from attempting to win over these… beautiful cheerleaders."
"Yes," replied Mr. Obi. "We cannot allow our cheerleaders to be distracted from their dance practice. The dance routines are very complex with a different move for various kinds of shots."
"Look here my son, this concept has been here before you were born. Our tribe has very ugly women. We all seek the beautiful women of the West. The whole life of the village depends on it. The new children are beautiful and bring high dowries to our families. But most important, it is the source of income for many of us…"
Mr. Obi listened with a satisfied smile on his face. "The whole purpose of such events is to learn about such cultures. Beautiful women do not marry men. They play about with them and chuck them as soon as they find a new toy to play with."
"What you say may be true," replied the priest," but we follow the practices of our fathers. If you allow our children to flirt with these beautiful women, we shall have nothing to quarrel about. What I always say is: let the charming prince flirt and let the spotted toad flirt. So there." He rose to go, with Barbie singing "I'm a Barbie girl, In a Barbie world, I'm made of plastic, I'm not elastic, I'm dumb as hell, that's why I sell"
"I am sorry", said Obi, "But the cheerleaders cannot flirt with our lads. If word were to come to the media, I would be sacked. I would suggest you import some more girls for our lads to marry. We can even get our workers to search for them on the internet. That's why they invented Orkut. I don't the lads would find the delay problematic; in fact, they can get to know their bride's character better."
"I have nothing to say. I am as dumb as a bell" said the priest, already outside.
Two days later a young lad from the village got hospitalized after he fell, trying to get into the cheerleader's compound. A plant geneticist (also lawyer), wise in all respects, was consulted.
Obi woke up the next day among the ruins of his work. The cheerleaders had been kidnapped by the locals, hungry for beautiful women; Brazilian footballers had been arrested for paedophilia of Barbie dolls by the local police.
Worst were the "fans" though; as the match was about to begin, a horde of people from all the villages around came in. Ten thousand in number they began playing. Hell broke loose. The vuvuzela, worse than a nuke missile, fired it cannons high into the air. It was impossible to escape. All the spectators within close range were deafened, including the villagers. The footballers begged for mercy from God; but he was busy on another call (turned out to be insurance; they evidently thought there was a threat to God's life, offering him an expensive package.). Finally after 15 minutes they went away.
That day, the media were nasty, writing that "the misdirected action of the designer toppled the World Cup. The next one is going to be in Afghanistan, in the Jaffrey Hills, next to the suspected Osama hideout. We wait for the next failure in 3 months. Our thumbs are down…."