Turtleneck Rattlemouth Revisited - Part One
 
By Baba Galleh Jallow
 
 
Turtleneck Rattlemouth, Managing Director of Maafimom Enterprises, was a great giant in our little town. Nay, not only a great giant, the greatest of giants. That is the truth and nothing but the truth. For wherever you mentioned the name of the great guy, heads would turn and tongues would wag, and everybody would say hey! That guy is a giant! And they would whistle a tune and shake their heads and roll their eyes and wonder at just how great Turtleneck Rattlemouth was! So great was he that wherever he passed, our common townsfolk would hail him Sir and children would shout Nyakadiss! And he would say, Lestek, making the G for Great signal with his mouth. He was even more popular with the ladies who always called him D.
          That he was a mighty giant of the greatest order was not lost to our gentle Turtleneck Rattlemouth himself. How could anyone else know him better than himself? But great he was. You just need to have a peep at his dazzling resume to know that Turtleneck Rattlemouth was no ordinary guy. A walking trunk of wisdom himself, Turtleneck Rattlemouth held a Bachelor of Pots Degree in Complex Procedures from the famous University of Mboyo, a Master of Fibs degree in Advanced Prating from the University of Cheat-Cheat and a Pull Him Down in Principles of Muted Heehaw from the world-renowned University of Dengatat. In addition, Turtleneck Rattlemouth held a long string of advanced diplomas in such complex fields as Rattism, Elbow Techs and Jujutics. Indeed, so propound was the great guy’s knowledge of the world that he was sometimes called Mountain. At other times, they simply called him Catfish, on account of the iron nature of his brain.
            It was Turtleneck Rattlemouth’s fecundity of mind and his laser-like brain that landed him his current esteemed position of Sole Proprietor, Absolute Founder and Managing Director of the famous Maafimom Enterprises. For in spite of the great heights to which he has climbed, Turtleneck Rattlemouth came from very humble backgrounds and could certainly not have made it to the top if he was not endowed with a diamond brain. 
           As a young man, Turtleneck Rattlemouth was widely touted as a tramp and a fool by both our common townsfolk and the beautiful ladies of our little town. Which made him always bit his lip and say just wait, I will show them who I am. In those days, poor Mr. Rattlemouth presented a sad and forlorn figure in our little town, much like the famous character Monty. It seemed that because people were jealous of his beautiful name and his handsome face, they always rejected his applications for a full time job and would not even consider granting him an interview. They wrongly accused him of being dull and stupid and claimed that he could not even write a correct sentence in English or differentiate between verbs and nouns. Which was why Turtleneck Rattlemouth always got so mad when somebody asked him what gnats were. Who did not know that gnats were bush fowls in Wollof? So he simply ignored all those jealous fools and stupid questions and from day to day, from week to week, from month to month and year to year, the gallant Turtleneck Rattlemouth stomped from office to office, from pillar to post, looking for a job that never seemed to come. It was then that he decided to go into withdrawal, to spend three days and three nights locked up in his room so as to meditate and think of how he could escape the failure that was following him like a bad smell.
           When eventually he emerged from his seclusion, Turtleneck Rattlemouth was radiant. His dry face was like the sun and his whole person shone with ecstasy. Everyone knew that the great guy had discovered the magic formula that would catapult him like a precious stone onto the dizzy heights of amazing success. It was in that frame of mind that he went out again in search of improvement, knowing this time, that he would succeed. Sure enough, with a combination of radiant smiles and sugared words, Turtleneck Rattlemouth was able to find a good Samaritan who would put him through the first motions on the path to success and greatness. Once he set foot on that path, the great guy was simply unstoppable. Within a few surprising years, he had earned all the qualifications mentioned above, had assumed the honorable title of Absolute Founder and Sole Owner of Maafimom Enterprises, and had achieved the status of Giant for which he became the most famous character in our little town. But more was yet to come for, in the near future, Turtleneck Rattlemouth planned to revisit the premises of his personal philosophy of Backside Down with a view to discarding its weak points and strengthening its strong points in line with his continuous climb to greater and greater power and glory.
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