Storm on the islands

Author's name: Ahmed Munawar

In Mutsamudu, the island's capital, the rebellious youths had removed the entire contents of the town hall: documents, old archives, and everything inscribed with letters, numbers, or symbols. They threw them all into the square outside the town hall. Not even the large marble plaque atop the building, beneath the large clock, which had stopped ticking after the departure of the colonialists three years earlier, its two hands still pointing to 12:00. The plaque had bore the name of the municipality since the previous era, so they threw it from the heights, causing it to shatter onto the asphalt, scattering into fragments and debris. Then they set fire to the contents of the town hall they had gathered in the square: papers, files, records, seals, cabinet drawers, and wooden benches, amidst the shouts of jubilation that rose from their throats into the sky. When the fire flames grew intense, they began to dance around it in a pagan-like manner, to the tunes of hymns that came from the loudspeakers they had hung on the balcony of the municipal building.