Nightmare!

Nightmare!

Monday

Oh Dear Diary, I’m very worried about my husband, he’s having nightmares. Sometimes he shouts in the middle of his dream, other times he sweats like a hippopotamus. Other times he holds me tight and weeps. And it’s always the same nightmare – he dreams that Muwelewele has come back to fix him.

This morning when he came down to breakfast I could see that he was not himself. Dark rings round his eyes, his face quite grey and his hand was shaking as he reached for the milk to spread over his cornflakes. Just imagine! Milk and cornflakes! It’s only a couple of years ago that he was having six T-bone steaks and a keg of beer for breakfast.

‘Sleep well dear?’ I asked.

‘Terrible,’ he replied. ‘I dreamt that Muwelewele visited me again.’

‘What was he saying this time, dear?’ I asked him.

‘Same sort of thing. Saying that I’ve messed up his legacy by messing up the Constitution, and I’m going to pay for it at the election.’

‘Nonsense, darling,’ I replied as I wiped the milk that he’d spilt all down his shirt, ‘It was that Muwelewele who messed up the Constitution, and he’s still pulling the strings, even from the grave.’

‘Your right dear,’ he admitted, attempting a smile. ‘What do I know about Constitutions? Even when I was at Namboard, I couldn’t understand the Balance Sheet.’

Tuesday

Dear Diary, I’m so worried about my husband, this morning he wouldn’t even get out of bed. I can’t call a priest, he’s petrified of them, he thinks they’re all homosexual. He has never talked to me about it, but I think he must have had a bad experience when he was a choirboy. Now, after all these years, the trauma is coming back to haunt him.

So I went to see the doctor, who reassured me that this sort of behaviour is quite normal in very old men, it’s called senile dementia. The patient has vivid dreams, sees things that aren’t there, and hears voices. Very often they also suffer paranoia, fearing that people are out to get him.

I asked the doctor what I should do, and he advised me that next time I should marry a younger man.

Wednesday

Last night he woke up in the middle of the night, screaming.

‘What’s the matter dear?’ I asked, as I stroked his bald head.

‘Spat Wellywelly hash bisited be a gun!’ he spluttered.

‘Calm down dear,’ I said, as I put his false teeth back in. ‘Now try again!’

‘That Muwelewele has visited me again!’ he shouted, ‘telling me that I have corrupted the judicial system and ruined his legacy by ordering that the case against Kafupi be dropped!’

‘Nonsense dear,’ I assured him, as I wiped the sweat off his brow, ‘That Muwelewele was the one who was always interfering with the judiciary, and you are just following his legacy.’

Thursday

This morning I phoned Foreign Affairs and pleaded with them to send my poor husband on a foreign visit. That’s what we usually do when he’s having one of his funny turns. They suggested I send him down to Swaziland, where the king has some young female masseurs who know how to give remedial exercises to aging gentlemen.

I think we’ll pack him off tomorrow, with an official announcement that he has to fulfil his official SADC duties by helping the King of Swaziland to choose his twenty-sixth wife.

Phew, thank God that’s settled. That’ll give me a rest, and I wish the Swazi girls the best of luck.

Friday

Oh Dear Diary, the trips off, we can’t let the public see him like this. This morning, right there at breakfast and in front of the staff, he had another screaming fit. ‘Mulwelewele visited me last night!’ he screamed, ‘and accused me of throwing away Eastern Province by allowing Dollar Sillier to build twenty high schools in her constituency, while there are none being built in Southern Province.’

‘Your just imagining all this,’ I tried to reassure him. ‘In fact Muwelewele was the very one who always used to say you’ll get no development if you don’t vote for me! So you’re just following his legacy!’

But he fell down on the floor screaming ‘He said that I’ve abandoned his legacy and nobody wants me!’ Then he burst into tears and pulled all the breakfast things off the table so that he could wipe away his tears with the table cloth. ‘I’m going to lose!’ he blubbered.

It was really embarrassing.

Saturday

Dear Diary, I phoned Lundazi this morning and spoke to Mum. ‘My poor old husband is in a terrible panic,’ I told her. ‘He keeps having fits of the screaming hab dabs. He’s at the end of his tether.’

‘I said right from the beginning,’ replied Mum, ‘that he wasn’t suitable for the job. But it’s our fault, we’re the ones that put him there, so now it’s our job to get him out. Don’t worry, dear, I’m telling everybody here to vote PF. It’s the only way to help him.’