Boss's belly

The rich man of the village had an anthill of a belly. It jutted out with such unbelievable prominence that the pair of legs on which it patched would have caved in had he no extra 'leg' -- a mahogany walking stick without which he was helpless. 

His mansion nestled on top of a hill surrounded by stretches of fenced valleys on which pastured hundreds of his herds of exotic cattle and sheep. It was the only house with glass windows and a corrugated iron roof that could be seen gleaming from any spot in the village day and night.

 I was the boy that fed his dogs everyday after school and so I had the opportunity to watch him up close especially at 5pm when the incessant mooing of cows signalled milking time. Boss would recline heavily into the balcony sofa, a pipe in his mouth, and watch with eagle-alert eyes as the milkmen staggered in with buckets of milk.

After his Tata lorry left heaving with gigantic cans of milk, Boss would devour his dinner. I used to watch him hog himself on skewers of chicken and pastry pork washed down with mug after mug of beer which did little to satisfy my curiosity. I just wanted to know what was in Boss's belly. 

One of the milkmen said the secret of Boss's belly was "money and power", another said it was "a nicotine, chicken and beer belly" that Boss had, but I refused to believe that all that protrusion was caused by the chicken and beer.

One day my best friend Junior came running and said the old cleaner at her mother's clinic had told him Boss's belly was bursting with maggots that had nipped themselves fat on his excessive flab and multiplied to billions causing that grotesque bulge. I laughed incredulously saying Boss was no walking pit-latrine that maggots should indwell him. But Junior looked at me with sadness and added, "The old cleaner also said Boss doesn't have much time to live. The maggots in his belly will kill him soon."