Later he sat in the light of a solar powered lamp and stared at the bill again. He ran his fingers through his greying hair. How on earth could he have been expected to find the money? Perhaps he should have lied about the live birth rate. Hidden some of the young shigs in the bush or slaughtered them immediately.
With Ajuke and the children silent now there was no sound except the bleating of the shigs. Dirty, greedy things! Like the company which produced them. The house was a mess: blood everywhere. It was a shigstye. He shook his head and sighed as he went outside to fetch the can of petrol he had siphoned out of the Landrover. He splashed some around the house and struck a match.
The house was already blazing fiercely as he splashed some more petrol around the Landrover.
Two fires were already blazing fiercely as he splashed the rest of the petrol around the shig shed and lit it.
At first he could hear the frantic bleating of the shigs. Then there was a gun shot and he heard nothing. He didn't even hear the gunshot.