We Can See You by Abdul Adan

On a dry, dusty afternoon in Nairobi, not unlike many others, Mahmud Yare walked along the pavement towards the big mosque on Muhoho Avenue. He was a Somali man of thirty-five, medium in height and build; his small face, bony and beardless. A darkened, rough spot, earned from years of prostrations on the carpets of various mosques, can be seen on his forehead. He walked with steady, cautious steps, as though wanting to be sure that every inch of the land he stepped on was the purest of earth. Once in a while, along his path, someone seated under the walls that ran along the street would call him and wave, to which he responded with a quick, spreading of the fingers on his lowered, right hand. On his left wrist, he wore a heavy, shiny, Seiko watch. He had on a pair of new, white adidas shoes and dark, official looking pants that contrasted with a yellow shirt. From his look, one got the impression of a careful, organised man, with an eye for only the necessary things in life and little or no recreational activities. It's the look that would make the shoe shiners, and the jobless youth by the wall, unhappy or even jealous, from the thought that there's a hidden world somewhere, in which certain men lived comfortably; untouched by scarcity and the dry air of daily insecurities.

This story has been selected for the annual StoryTime anthology African Roar 2012, please go to the African Roar site for more info.

We Can See You was written by Abdul Adan.

Copyright © Abdul Adan 2011.

Abdul Adan is a Somali writer. His work has appeared in African-Writing, Kwani?, StoryTime, Jungle Jim, and Arab World Books. He is a literature student at Washington University in St. Louis, and currently working on a collection of stories.