Excerpt from THE REAL PRESIDENT II

Chapter 1 

“CONGRATULATIONS!” Moses said as he shook her sweaty hands. He leaned forward, whispered into her ear and embraced her. He turned to the crowd, waved four times and as all hands frantically waved back, he bowed; then walked down the platform. Delilah posed, a gentle head bow in his direction, turned around and looked at the hundreds of thousands of people gathered. She wondered whether they were here to witness her inauguration or to bid President Moses Kamawu farewell. There was hardly a smile, many cheeks shining with uncontrollable tears, that physical evidence of the heart’s unseen emotions. Delilah knew exactly what those tears meant. She hesitantly raised her right hand, waved to the crowd but only a few of the hands waved back. Another lesson. She knew she had a challenge, to lift a heavy cloud of sadness and turn it into joy.

‘It appears human beings are not good at mixing feelings of sadness and joy in one heart at the same time; it is more tolerable if they come in a sequence of time,’ she thought. ‘What emotion do you get out of this compound?’ No time to philosophise; the only relevant philosophy right now is that of survival. Her presidency cannot collapse on the first day. Instinctively, she burst into the party song which had become the second national anthem for Lubanda. She bellowed it with passion and excellence like the last performance for a singing competition. The audience joined in, sang along, clapped and appeared to have been temporarily consoled and charmed.