The Right Honourable Mr Himba, tenderpreneur extraordinaire, prolific LinkedIn essayist, TED Talk talker, God’s man, ladies’ man, married man, walks through the door. Hat over eyes, doors swinging behind him, protruding belly firmly guiding the way. The room goes quiet. Someone drops a chicken bone. Another picks it up. Slowly, Himba pushes his way across the room, his belly knocking into the oversized tables and people in torn shirts sitting on torn chairs. Farmers. Himba sneers down at them. Avoidant eyes. His patent crocodile-skin shoes catching the glare of the fluorescent white lights. He reaches the counter. Behind it a small man, bespectacled, stuttering, asks him, “How… how can I help you, S… Sir?” Himba looks at him with disgust and then ignores him. He leans his large frame against the counter, pushing aside a young mother with a child. The counter strains under his weight. Himba then pulls out a paper from his pocket and throws it at the bespectacled man. “Do this,” he says casually, when suddenly, “Oi!” a voice rings from far off, “get to the back of the queue, you idiot.”
Himba turns around with the surprising deftness of a hippo. “Who said that?” And from the very back of the long line steps out an anaemic-looking paleman. “Me,” says the writer of third-rate humour columns, irreverent extraordinaire, prolific liar, failed ladies’ man, married man (thank God), godless man (thank God), and hater of queues. After a moment, he adds, “You fat duck.”
Himba squints, quite unsure of what he is seeing. Is it a ghost? He starts waddling to the back of the queue and comes face-to-face with the paleman. Yes, it is true what they say about them. They look sick. Smell funny too. Doesn’t have a belly like me; must be a poorman. “What did you call me?” Himba demands.
“I’m sorry, I seem to have made a mistake. I meant to say ‘Me, you deaf, fat duck.’”
“Do you know who I am!?”
“A famous long-distance runner?”
“That’s enough! I won’t have you insult me.”
“I wasn’t insulting you. I genuinely thought you were a long-distance runner. And I genuinely want you to run to the back of the queue. You’re making a scene.” And indeed, everyone is now looking, gaping. Even the chewing has stopped.
“You think you’re smart, don’t you?”
“Oh well. You’ve put me on the spot. But yes, sometimes I do find myself quite smart.”
“Fine. If you want to play funny with me, then you’ll learn your lesson. I challenge you to a duel.”
“A duel?”
“Yes, old style.”
“I accept. I’ve never been in an old-style duel.”
“In my days, kid, all we did was duel.”
They walk together to the counter and hand in their phones. Himba speaks quickly to the teller, who disappears through a door. For five minutes nothing happens, no one speaks, no one looks at one another; a duel is a serious thing, after all. Eventually, a different man appears from the door, bearing a bulky briefcase. He lays it gently on the counter. “So, gentlemen, I hear we have a duel on our hands. Old style.” They both nod. “And you both know the consequences.” Again, they both nod. “Fine. Well, here are the forms,” he says, opening his briefcase. “You’ll go to those desks at the back there, and when I make the sign, you begin. First one to complete them wins.”
“What’s the sign?” the anaemic asks.
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
“And which forms are we filling out?”
“Ah, right, I almost forgot: firstly, Form 10A, Intention to Duel; Form 10B, Intention to Duel in a Government Building; Form 11C, Affidavit for a Government Employee to Administer a Duel; Form 13A, Permission for Use of Government Resources. Well, that’s the beginning. The rest is in the documents.”
The briefcaseman makes the sign of the Holy Order of the Red Tape over the valiant knights, but it is not even a contest: Himba wins comfortably, taking about 20 minutes. The anaemic is duly shot in the head. Better that way: put him out of his misery, etc. He is right: Himba is a long-distance runner, of sorts.
