Our master has gone to learn how to greet

“Kei, where is your master?” “Our master has gone to learn how to greet”. The apprentice boys chorused in response to his query. I could not hold myself back but laugh out loud when the electrician who was diagnosing my car interpreted the conversation to me.

A shabbily dressed middle-aged man alighted from the driver’s seat of a black Toyota accompanied with a stick of cigarette hanging in between his thick black lips yesterday afternoon. One end of the cigarette was burning with fire while he inhales and puff the smoke from the other end that was sitting on his lips.

He staggered his way towards the front end of the car and rested his body on the frame just in front of the driver’s door, beside the tyre. He raised his left hand sluggishly to his mouth and ejected the cigarette from his lips, and tried to throw a junk of saliva off his mouth but it did not reach the ground. It instead landed on his big brown Kaftan.

He bowed his head down and looked at the junk of saliva on his clothe as it was soaking into him. He smiled sheepishly like a baby who had just seen her mum’s breast. The man returned his left hand still with the cigarette to his lips, inserted it and inhaled another round of the tobacco substance that was wrapped in the paper, zzzzzzzzzzzzh.

He withdrew his right hand under his butts where he placed them and was supporting his body on the frame of the car and robbed it on the saliva that was drying on his body and made sure the wetness was evenly distributed on his cloth.

He looked up towards to the direction of the boys after he was done and found them staring strangely at him. His eyes met theirs, and he shouted with his gaze on no one in particular, “Kei, where is your master?” referring to the mechanic. The boys unanimously answered… “Our master has gone to learn how to greet”.

Discussion: were the boys right or wrong in their response? Why?

First published on my Facebook