Animal Activities #26

INTRODUCTION

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Some animals come and go without leaving a trace. Others arrive out of nowhere and settle into your life like they’ve always belonged — not asking for much, just watching, waiting, holding space. Blue was that kind. A half-blind old donkey nobody owned, but somehow, he became part of us. This isn’t a story about livestock. It’s about memory, silence, and the kind of loss that doesn’t break you all at once — it just stays.

The Last Time We Saw Blue

Blue wasn’t really blue. He was this old, half-blind donkey with a back like a rusted wheelbarrow and a tail that barely swatted flies anymore. But my little brother, Tomi, called him Blue because “his eyes looked like the sky,” even though one was clouded white and the other looked more like gravel than anything blue. But that’s what stuck. Blue.

We didn’t own him. Nobody really did. He showed up one day, out of the bush, dragging a busted rope around his neck like someone had tried to tie him down and failed. That was maybe two dry seasons ago.
Mama didn’t want him near the house at first. “That animal’s got something bad in it,” she’d muttered, clutching her wrapper and eyeing it like it was a ghost that had crawled out of someone’s grave. But Papa, who always had a softer heart than sense, told her to leave it be. Said maybe it just needed a little rest.

Blue didn’t ask for much. He’d lay near the cassava shed in the shade, chew whatever scraps were left from the goats, and stare into nothing. That was the part that got to me — the way he stared. Like he’d already seen the ending of every story and wasn’t in a hurry to read through it again.

Tomi was obsessed. He'd sneak boiled yams out of the pot when Mama wasn’t looking, just to feed him. Blue would lean his head down like a giant bowing to a kid, and Tomi would laugh and run his small hand across that rough, bony forehead.

After a while, it became routine. The goats stopped bothering him. The chickens roosted closer to where he slept. Even the dogs — the useless kind we kept only for barking — stopped barking at him.

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Then came the dry season that didn’t end. The streams dried up. The ground cracked like old pottery. And the village got quiet in a way that made your ears ring. Everyone was too busy waiting for rain.

It was during that time that Blue started walking further. Not away, but out. Every morning, he’d disappear down the path toward the riverbed. We figured he was looking for water or shade. But he always came back.
Until one day, he didn’t.

Tomi cried for two days straight. Real, stomach-twisting sobs. Mama told him to stop acting like he lost a brother, but even her voice didn’t have that usual bite. She sat quieter than normal, twisting her fingers in the hem of her wrapper, eyes somewhere else.

Papa and I went looking. We didn’t expect much. That bush past the riverbed was thick and full of thorns, and if Blue had collapsed somewhere in there, the hyenas would’ve taken him by now. But still, we looked. Not because we thought we’d find him alive. More because it didn’t feel right to just let him vanish.

It was around sunset when we found what was left of him. Just bones mostly, and that busted rope, still wrapped around a tree trunk like he tried tying himself down one last time.

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Papa didn’t say anything. Just bent down, touched the rope, then stood up again. I remember the way the wind picked up right then — hot and sour, like it carried news from somewhere far off.

We didn’t bring anything back.
Tomi stopped asking questions after that. He still walked out toward the cassava shed every now and then, like maybe Blue would just be there again, lying in the dust, blinking his sky-gravel eyes. But he never was.
Some stories don’t have endings. They just slow down until they stop moving.

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