The Rust of Words ( a Novel )
5 min readBy David Aoloch Bion
Chapter one
At last, the killings stopped. All kinds of tragedies ended. No more bombs dropping from planes on innocent women, children in the rebel held areas. No more indiscriminate artillery shelling, rifle assault on cities, towns at government sides. No more ambushes, battles, raids in forests, mountains, hills, on roads and bridges across the province.
The Kingdom of Kush shakes the hands with rebels in the Province of Sudd. In the greenest olive ink, the two archenemies had washed the stain of blood in their palms after the two decade of negative propaganda, hatred, and bloodbath. The leaders of the two sides gave the hopeful messages to reassure their people,
In gracing the ceremony, a poet wrote this stanza:
‘’The stem of war is cut.
The tied branches of peace are unfastened.
The nation is enjoying the shadow of peace’’
The Kingdom had willingly agreed to give the rebels the right of self-rule. This is to be followed by referendum after six years, the vote would determine whether the people in the province should secede, create new independent state or remain in the unification.
The news of peace broke out. The celebration began in the province where the rebels inhabited. The guns were fired in the air, trumpets blown, the dances performed, drum beaten, thanksgiving prayers were conducted in the temples. Millions of people had overwhelming, infinite laughter, they laughed until they fainted. One pregnant woman laughed until she miscarriages a five month old baby. This fulfilled a prophecy that “by the time, we shall liberate our fatherland, some will die of laughter”.
During the war, the people in province had been eating the rust infected leaves of trees and drinking viral, bacterial contaminated water that caused malaria, typhoid, tuberculosis, dementia and other mental illness like depression, madness. On the other hand, the soldiers had been shockingly exposed to dust, blood, chemicals and all stenches in battlefield. Such circumstances created unspeakable impacts on the spectrum of life in the province. These conditioning infuse social immorality, mental distortion and political corruption in heart of the society. The leaders made decision tinted with dim colours of fraud. All their actions were racketeering.
Above all, in the language spoken, there existed tremendous, indescribable, syphilitic Rust of Words in the intellect of everyone in this land of Big Udder.
In the bush, the Rebels had dropped their surnames, adopted the coded ones, the leader ciphered as the ‘’Uncle, the Aggrieved with all Justices’’. The rest of leaders were referred as the ‘’Boys, the Living Martyrs’’. And slogan of the Movement was ‘’Death or our Right’’. The names appeared in writing as Uncle, 1st Boy, 2nd Boy, 3rd Boy, 4th Boy, 5th Boy, 13th Boy, and 17th Boy and so the sequence continues.
After, the war declared over, Uncle, the leader of the Rebels toured the province, he briefed the populace about the peace and it implementation. In one of the district of the war torn region, he gave a fascinating speech, he explained to them what he signed in the peace with His Majesty, he said:
“The life will change for the best. The life will be happiest within short time, from now, start to count days, weeks, months, years and exactly after ten years, from now, this province will succeed phenomenally like Japan after Second World War in science and technology. We shall not start where the world began 200 or 300 years ago, it is obsolete now in our situation. We shall begin in their present, advance stage of technology and science of the Western world”,
The crowd applauded a resounding clap of hands and ululation of women whirled up like elephant cry in distance forest.
The Rust of Words is the story of reforms and transformation from bad governance to good governance in the Republic of Sudd. It is the story of poet James Majok , who inspired Uncle Josef , the Chief Servant of the Republic , to reform and transform his corrupted, dysfunctional system of governance.
Billions of dollars from oil revenues were stolen by 75 servants from public funds in the period of six years.
As the result of such embezzlement of fund, there were no roads, schools, hospitals across the country. Worse of, the country imported food from neighbouring countries.
An inspiration of reform comes to Uncle Josef, when Majok reads the poem on the 7th anniversary of independence. The poem indicted Uncle Josef and his Administration
In his response to the poem, Uncle Josef begins the needed reforms. In the series of reforms, the corrupt ministers in the government were arrested, tried and executed for corruption.
Uncle Josef justified his action by saying he was following what is written in the book , a book which was not seen by anyone since it publication but he harangues that every citizen must read it .
In order to purified the rusted thought of the people. He formed a committee of 600 intellectuals, led by the state Philosopher Peter Gatluak, to modify the language, they invent new words to purify the language in order to purify the thought of the people and many rusted words in the language were destroyed.
70 years later, after the radical reforms, the society becomes just, prosperous. There was no man or woman committing a crime,
As the result, the Republic abolished department of police and the faculties of Law at all Universities across the country because they become irrelevant in the just society.
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