Read Online Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty by Alain Mabanckou - Free Book Online
Authors: Alain Mabanckou
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our Presidentâs a dictator because heâs a military man, but I donât agree. Iâm sure that in a lot of countries around the world there are dictators who arenât in the army. So I donât care if our Presidentâs a dictator, it just annoys me that he says heâs been sent personally by God. Now if God wanted to send someone to be president of our country He would have sent his son Jesus because Heâs already done that once to save men on earth. At least, thatâs what the priest says on Sundays in the church of Saint-Jean-Bosco.
When the President tells us heâs been personally sent by God, people believe him, without stopping to check if itâs true or not. And we learn his speeches at school, like the sheep down at the Grand Marché, because what he says is supposedly for our good, and comes directly from God. We learn about his glorious life story. How he defeated the enemies of the Revolution in the north of the country, how he single-handedly massacred his enemies who had stolen our armyâs tank and were preparing to bombard the north of the country, and thengo back down south and bombard the little villages down there, including animals and poor peasants. They had to find the tank again fast, it was the only one the French left behind for us after Independence. The French really liked us, and we liked them too. They still like us, in fact, because they go on looking after our oil for us, which is in the sea near Pointe-Noire, because if they donât weâll only go and waste it or sell it to the Americans, who need it to run their enormous cars.
And apparently, because he was born invincible, our Presidentâs the one who went into battle back when he was just a soldier and didnât know it was written on the lines of his right hand that he would become president after a battle against the enemies of the Revolution. So he just turned up in the north of the country on an old Vespa, so well disguised that no one could tell if he was a soldier or a bit of grass waving in the wind. He crawled, he swam, he climbed trees. He attacked hundreds of enemies of the revolution whoâd gathered by a river to work out how they could wipe us out in less than twenty-four hours. The future president let out a great war cry and began machine gunning them with his eyes closed. He was faster with a bullet than Lucky Luke himself. And when heâd run out of ammunition the spirits of our ancestors gave him heaps more. At one point even the spirits of our ancestors ran out of bullets too. The future president went and hid in a maize field, and there he met an old man of the Bembé tribe, who only had one tooth left in his head, and who told him to put maize kernels in his weapon. He was lying, and he didnât believe him, but he had no choice because the enemies were coming up behind him en masse. So he loaded his gun with maize kernels anyway. When he fired, the kernels exploded, like grenades in the first world war. He fired and he fired and he kept on firing while theenemies of the Nation fell, one after the other and died like rats. The future president finally discovered where they had hidden our lovely French tank. The tank still worked, the opponents of the Revolution hadnât used it. Then our future president came back with the tank, driving it himself, and the people cheered him and gave him flowers as he entered the national stadium with the tank.
As soon as he became President of the Republic, since he was by now a national hero, thanks to the tank, he wrote a big fat book that you have to read at middle school, high school and university. They only read us a few little bits because our brains are still too small, but when we get to middle school weâll read it all, from start to finish.
Itâs Saturday, and everyone out in the street is all dressed up, youâd think it was Independence Day. Some people always get dressed up like that on
When the President tells us heâs been personally sent by God, people believe him, without stopping to check if itâs true or not. And we learn his speeches at school, like the sheep down at the Grand Marché, because what he says is supposedly for our good, and comes directly from God. We learn about his glorious life story. How he defeated the enemies of the Revolution in the north of the country, how he single-handedly massacred his enemies who had stolen our armyâs tank and were preparing to bombard the north of the country, and thengo back down south and bombard the little villages down there, including animals and poor peasants. They had to find the tank again fast, it was the only one the French left behind for us after Independence. The French really liked us, and we liked them too. They still like us, in fact, because they go on looking after our oil for us, which is in the sea near Pointe-Noire, because if they donât weâll only go and waste it or sell it to the Americans, who need it to run their enormous cars.
And apparently, because he was born invincible, our Presidentâs the one who went into battle back when he was just a soldier and didnât know it was written on the lines of his right hand that he would become president after a battle against the enemies of the Revolution. So he just turned up in the north of the country on an old Vespa, so well disguised that no one could tell if he was a soldier or a bit of grass waving in the wind. He crawled, he swam, he climbed trees. He attacked hundreds of enemies of the revolution whoâd gathered by a river to work out how they could wipe us out in less than twenty-four hours. The future president let out a great war cry and began machine gunning them with his eyes closed. He was faster with a bullet than Lucky Luke himself. And when heâd run out of ammunition the spirits of our ancestors gave him heaps more. At one point even the spirits of our ancestors ran out of bullets too. The future president went and hid in a maize field, and there he met an old man of the Bembé tribe, who only had one tooth left in his head, and who told him to put maize kernels in his weapon. He was lying, and he didnât believe him, but he had no choice because the enemies were coming up behind him en masse. So he loaded his gun with maize kernels anyway. When he fired, the kernels exploded, like grenades in the first world war. He fired and he fired and he kept on firing while theenemies of the Nation fell, one after the other and died like rats. The future president finally discovered where they had hidden our lovely French tank. The tank still worked, the opponents of the Revolution hadnât used it. Then our future president came back with the tank, driving it himself, and the people cheered him and gave him flowers as he entered the national stadium with the tank.
As soon as he became President of the Republic, since he was by now a national hero, thanks to the tank, he wrote a big fat book that you have to read at middle school, high school and university. They only read us a few little bits because our brains are still too small, but when we get to middle school weâll read it all, from start to finish.
Itâs Saturday, and everyone out in the street is all dressed up, youâd think it was Independence Day. Some people always get dressed up like that on
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