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The dirt roads between the wooden houses of Sakatan resembled a circus show. Nearly every man was paired up with some wild animal. You could see a proud, gray-bearded man riding a hippo. An athletic, bare-chested teenager walking a giraffe. A scrawny, leathery-faced oldtimer strolling with a vulture on his shoulder. A fat guy carrying a cigar-smoking chimpanzee. An effeminate man with a leashed coyote. A wild-eyed tall fellow, black as the night, wearing a wriggling boa constrictor as a fancy necklace.

Donkey carts darted through the crowd of animal-parading menfolk, transporting cargo and people. The cart drivers all carried big sticks and continually used them to beat the laziness and stubbornness out of their donkeys.

Sometimes you could see two elephants pulling a big flat cart with a whole house on top of it. All Sakatan houses were built on stilts because of the yearly river flood. This made it easy to move them. Just shove an elephant cart underneath, disconnect the water and sewer pipes, disassemble the stilts, and off you go.

The roads’ yellow sand was speckled with animal droppings of all shapes and sizes. Their smells blended with urine and adrenaline-fueled sweat fragrances and wafts of grilled meat and herb aromas escaping from kitchen windows. The air vibrated with animal shrieks and grunts and human shouting.

Mosi Croc Man walked home from his last day at work. He had been a carpenter since he was a teenager. His smile radiating with the joy of new-found freedom, he carried a young crocodile that was already almost as tall as him. As Mosi grew frailer with old age, the crocodile kept growing bigger. It wouldn’t be long before he could no longer carry him. He’d have to put him on a leash. But Mosi loved carrying him. And it was obvious the crocodile loved being carried. Their embrace was so tender, you’d almost think they were a married couple.

Mosi’s wife had died not long ago. They never had children. Now, the crocodile was his only family. 

Mosi passed Buji Lion Man. “Hey Buji, your lion hasn’t eaten you yet? Must be because you smell like spoiled armadillo milk.” “Mosi, my man! Good to see your boss let you go free! If it were me, I would have sold you to the antique shop, you dried up mummy!”

A man rode by on an ostrich, almost hitting Buji’s lion. The lion roared and snapped its jaws at the ostrich but missed. “Watch where you’re going, you demented bird boy!” Buji shouted.

Having a wild animal was a matter of pride for the Saka people. The more dangerous the animal, the more it elevated your social standing. Having more than one wild animal was seen as showboating, however. And for a man to be animal-less was as shameful as being barenaked. 

A man’s nickname was derived from the animal he traveled with. On an average Sakatan day, several men were killed by their animals. 

For women, it was different. They carried small animals called guckets. Guckets were extremely fragile, clumsy, weasel-like creatures that had a distaste for any kind of food. It was incredibly hard to keep them fed and alive. The only thing they were really any good at was dying. Some women carried two or even three guckets. At the very most four. It was simply not humanly possible, even with the help of a gucket maid, to keep more than four of them alive. 

Mosi glanced lovingly at the little girls playing by the side of the road, pretend-feeding their plush toy guckets. His childlessness was not because of a lack of trying. Their bedroom was the scenery of many happy memories but no new life ever managed to sprout from it. Now and then, he allowed himself to briefly ponder what it would be like to have children and grandchildren. But he stopped himself before his eyes started leaking like a girly parakeet man.

As they entered his garden, Mosi put down the crocodile. “Mumu bathtime?” he said, speaking in baby tones. He called him Mumu, when no one was around to hear it. “Mumy bathy bathy!” Mumu climbed into the small pond, eager for his daily water ritual. Mosi sprayed him with the hose while brushing his back. Mumu raised his nose and closed his eyes in ecstasy.

That night, Mosi slept with a remarkable lightness of heart, as if his retirement had lifted a weight off of his chest that had been crushing him since forever. Mumu lying next to him, snoring, with his head on a pillow.

The next day, Mosi needed some groceries. Usually he would carry Mumu with him but he had gotten so heavy, Mosi didn’t think he could carry both him and the groceries anymore. He added “leash” to his shopping list so that the next time, he could take Mumu with him again. He left Mumu inside and locked the door. With his head hung in shame, Mosi walked to the store, animal-less.

The storekeeper and his wife kept talking to Mosi, telling him all about their grandkids. One of the grandsons had gotten a wild boar and they were very proud. After what seemed like ages, Mosi could finally pry himself loose from the conversation.

When he got back home, it felt like reality had stopped being real. This couldn’t be true. His garden was empty. His house was gone. Mumu was gone. Mosi fainted.

In the days that followed, he stumbled all across the neighborhood. Still half in shock, he searched, knocked on doors, mumbled “Have you seen my house and my crocodile?” Different varieties of “no” and pitying looks were all he got. You’d think a house couldn’t be stolen unnoticed in broad daylight but apparently, in Sakatan’s cacophonous chaos, it could.

He widened his search until he had covered all of the city and the nearest villages. At night, he lay down on some musty hay in his bare garden. A lot of insomniatic stargazing, wondering where Mumu is and how he’s doing. Sometimes it seemed like the twinkling stars were his wife, speaking to him from the beyond. Saying “Don’t worry. It will be alright. Keep faith.”

Mosi got so accustomed to sleeping under the naked sky, he gave up the idea of building a new house. He started wandering, walking all day and sleeping in the fields. He continued his search in ever widening circles around the city. He fed himself by fishing and picking fruit.

One day, he arrived at the outskirts of Siloma, the second largest city in the region, after Sakatan. Night had already begun to fall and he should have been looking for a place to sleep, but in the distance, he heard two elephants trumpeting. He decided to check it out.

The elephants were chained in the garden of a narrow, wooden two storey house on stilts. Even in the dark, he immediately recognized the house as his own. Next to the elephants, he saw the silhouette of a crocodile. It looked just like Mumu, but bigger. Mosi crawled into the garden as quietly as possible.

Flickering candle light shone through windows on the first floor. The sound of a crying child emanated from the second floor. A female voice sounded from the candle light, saying “I’ll go.”

Mosi approached the crocodile. Its nose caught his scent and it sprung towards him as far as the chain around its neck allowed. “Mumu!” Mosi yelled with a whisper. “My God, you’ve grown!” Mosi scratched his head and back. Mumu affectionately put his head on Mosi’s shoulder. “Daddy is back. Daddy is back.” Mosi assured him.

Mosi and Mumu cuddled until they both fell asleep. At the first rays of the sun, Mosi woke up. He disentangled from Mumu and hid in the bushes surrounding the garden. From there, he took watch. Before he decided what to do, he’d assess the situation.

Mumu and the elephants were still asleep. The elephants lay huddled up, butt to butt. The rumble of their snores massaged the air periodically. A stray dog tiptoed around them, snacking on their freshest piles of dung.

Mosi’s carpenter’s eye was drawn to some serious damage to the wooden sidings of his house. It looked like the house had had some collisions on the way here. Nothing he couldn’t fix.

He must have dozed off again, because Mosi awoke to cheerfully shouting children’s voices. A little boy and girl were playing with Mumu, climbing on top of him, running around him, hugging his head lovingly. Mumu’s eyes beamed with delight.

A good-looking couple in their twenties came out of the house and sat down on the patio. The sleep not totally cleared from their eyes yet, they drank their morning coffee and gazed at their playing kids and crocodile contentedly. When the man thought his son climbed Mumu a little too roughly, he shouted “Watch it, son! Be gentle with Zamua!”

“What an amazing coincidence!” Mosi thought. “They named Mumu ‘Zamua’! Sounds like a more sophisticated version of ‘Mumu’. Sir Zamua of Sakatan.”

He wondered if the couple had stolen his home or bought it from the thief. And if the latter was the case, did they know it was stolen property? Should he confront them and try to get his house and Mumu back? The children would be devastated. 

Mosi decided to approach the matter delicately. He’d introduce himself as a retired, widowed carpenter offering his carpenting services in exchange for some food and company, because he felt lonely and missed his old craft.

The couple was elated with Mosi’s offer. “You are heaven-sent, dear sir. We are in need of a carpenter and we have food to spare. We are new to this city and hardly know anyone here. Neither of us have any other family left and it would be good for the kids to have a grandfatherly type like you coming to visit.”

Mosi started the repair work on his house. It took a few weeks, and by the time he was finished, he had become such a cherished friend of the family that they practically adopted him as their surrogate (grand)father. And they were amazed at how well Mosi and Zamua got along from the get-go.

Years passed and Mosi had built himself a house nearby. Every day he came over at his old house, playing with Mumu, taking care of the kids when the parents rode their elephants to the market to sell the traditional garments they crafted. Afterwards, he would stay for dinner. Mumu kept growing and growing until his length was almost three times that of Mosi’s. They all lived happily ever after, until one day, Mumu ate them all.