A Strange Disappearance

A Strange Disappearance

  

          
          ‘Have you heard the latest?’ asked Kupela. ‘Michael seems to have disappeared again.’

          ‘Are you saying he has completely evaporated?’ Sara wondered. ‘Or that he disappeared from one place in order to re-appear somewhere else?’

          ‘Obviously I mean that he seems to have disappeared from Zambia,’ Kupela retorted. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.’

          ‘So where has he reappeared?’ asked Sara.

          ‘I didn’t say that I knew where he had gone. All I’m saying is that nobody has seen him since he was supposed to have come back from Brussels last Friday.’

          ‘But how can you possibly know that nobody has seen him? Or do you just mean that you haven’t seen him? Were you supposed to have lunch with him or what?’

‘Your mother has got a point,’ I said. ‘I mean, taking another example, you haven’t seen us for a couple of weeks, but did you suspect that we had disappeared? Luckily lots of other people have seen us during the past two weeks, so we haven’t been worried that we had disappeared.’

‘Look,’ said Kupela irritably, ‘I’m not talking about two retirees in Chainda not being seen. I’m talking about the president, who we expect to see on TV or facebook. Why didn’t we see him being greeted at the airport when he got back from Brussels? Why has there been nothing on George Chellah’s facebook page, leaving ZNBC without any news to report? Without the latest news on Michael murdering the constitution we have had to listen to the latest news on Oscar Pistorius murdering his girlfriend. And this is not the first time.’

‘Not the first time Oscar has murdered his girlfriend?’

‘Not the first time Michael has disappeared after attending a conference. ’

‘After the previous conference he didn’t disappear,’ laughed Sara, ‘he was seen by Zambian doctors in London. Being a patriotic fellow, he didn’t want to be seen by foreign doctors, so he had to go to London.’

‘Look,’ I said, ‘even if Michael has disappeared from George Chellah’s facebook page it doesn’t mean that he has disappeared from Zambia. And even if Michael had departed to some secret destination, Chellah could easily have written a few lies about Michael being in Zambia, busy consulting with his advisers, or whatever.’

‘That’s exactly why I think he has disappeared!’ replied Kupela. ‘If Chellah actually knew where Michael really was, he could easily have made up a plausible lie. But to tell a good lie you need to know what the truth actually is. So the absence of any story on facebook means that he doesn’t know the truth either! That’s why I say Michael has disappeared.’

‘So what’s your theory about what has happened to him?’ I asked.

‘The last report we have from Michael was on the Real Michael Sata facebook page on Friday, when Michael reported that he was stranded at Amsterdam airport after George Chellah ran off with an air hostess, accidentally taking with him all the tickets for the entire entourage. After that, all was silence. And then, later in the day, it was reported that flight MS370 from Amsterdam to Johannesburg had disappeared from radar screens and was last seen headed for the Indian Ocean.’

‘Ha ha,’ I laughed. ‘Now we have an even less believable version of Michael’s disappearance story. If I am not on a radar screen, does it mean I have disappeared?’

‘And if he disappeared from Chellah’s facebook page,’ laughed Sara, ‘that was more likely because Chellah was fired after running off with the tickets.’

‘If that were the case,’ persisted Kupela. ‘Why haven’t we been given the TV entertainment of Michael firing Chellah? And why no questions in the media about Michael’s strange disappearance? What’s going on?’

‘If there were any mystery about his whereabouts,’ I said, ‘Watchdog would tell us where he really is.’

‘That concludes my argument,’ declared Kupela triumphantly. ‘He has disappeared so completely that even Watchdog doesn’t know where he is!’

‘You are suffering from a lack of logic,’ I laughed. ‘It is always impossible to prove a negative proposition. Just because Michael is not seen does not prove that he has disappeared. It just means that nobody has seen him.’

‘So what’s your explanation for nobody seeing him?’ asked Kupela.

‘There’s an infinite number of possible explanations,’ I said. ‘It may be that he is being hidden for reasons of economic and political stability.  For example, every time he opens his mouth the value of the kwacha goes down. Every time he fires a few ministers, investors say the government is unstable. Every time he threatens a bishop he loses more votes from the Catholics. Every time he campaigns at a by-election his party loses the seat. So perhaps his handlers have finally realized that it is better to lock him up in a cellar in State House where he can’t cause any more trouble.’

‘We’re missing the news,’ I said, as I turned on the TV, ‘Perhaps he’s back.’

And sure enough, there he stood, his angry eyes fixed upon the nation, saying ‘Those demanding for the constitution are just yapping. Let them yap!’

‘It’s him that does all the yapping,’ Sara laughed. ‘Our job is just to listen to him yap.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said, ‘the kwacha is going to sink again.’

‘I’m so disappointed,’ said Kupela, ‘I really thought he was gone for good.’

‘Never mind,’ said Sara, ‘at least we all had a nice little holiday.’