THE THREE DRIVERS
The sun hung directly overhead, casting a harsh white glare across the compound. The air at the Central Station was thick with red dust, the sharp scent of roasted maize, and a quiet, underlying dread. At the center sat the machine: a battered, rust-streaked transport truck. Its chassis groaned under the weight of its own history, yet it remained the only vehicle running.
Around it gathered the passengers—men with bags slung over their shoulders, women carrying children, old men leaning on sticks, and young men standing with the restless impatience of those who had nowhere else to go.
The station buzzed with low anxiety.
“Are we leaving today?”
“Of course we are.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
“Soon.”
Nobody knew precisely what “soon” meant, but everyone accepted it. At the edge of the crowd, a latecomer hurried in, balancing a mattress on his head. His wife followed with a tin basin, while their young boy cried as though he had already seen the road ahead.
They stopped beside the truck, breathing heavily. “Is this it?” the man asked.
An onlooker shrugged. “Relax, brother. You haven’t missed a thing. The drivers are still polishing the rust. They always take their time once you’re trapped.”
The man stared at the truck. He did not know that the tarmac ended in a hundred kilometers. He did not know another machine was waiting beyond the road. And he certainly did not know that the three men standing beside the truck were no longer just drivers. They had become an institution.
“Who’s taking us?” someone asked.
“The same three men.”
“The same three?”
“They’ve driven this exact route since our grandfathers were boys. They act like the steering wheel is written on their birth certificates.”
The Three Drivers stood beside the vehicle. The First Driver inspected the front wheel. The Second Driver examined the engine. The Third Driver poked at the rear axle with an air of mysterious importance. They had been driving so long that their presence felt permanent. The passengers did not merely expect them to drive; they expected these men to drive. The Drivers, for their part, were expert at looking calm whenever everyone else had reason to worry.
There was something reassuring about being the only truck on the road. It was ancient, unreliable, and visibly held together by wire and prayer, but without an alternative, its defects were easily mistaken for endurance. The truck was known. The road was known. The drivers were known. And familiarity was close enough to safety.
The First Driver climbed into the cab. The Second checked the side mirror. The Third struck the side panel twice with his open palm.
The engine coughed. Everyone waited. It coughed again. A child began to laugh. Then, with a violent shudder, the engine came alive. A cheer rose from the crowd. For a moment, nobody asked where the road went. The old truck pulled clean away from the station, and a fragile sort of jubilation settled over the passengers. They were moving. That was enough.
For the first few kilometers, the journey felt almost respectable. The road stretched smoothly, the engine settled into a steady hum, and the countryside opened around them under the afternoon sky. Passengers passed water from hand to hand, children pressed their faces against the glass, and someone began to sing.
Vast fields rolled toward the horizon. Herds of camels drifted in the middle distance, and groups of sheep scattered away from the roadside like white stones across a green carpet.
“Look at that,” said Hodan, smiling from her seat. “The spring rains gave this earth a new soul.”
Several passengers leaned toward the windows. Even the old men smiled.
But among them sat a seasoned traveler who had made the journey before. He watched the horizon in silence before speaking.
“Enjoy the tarmac while you can.”
“What do you mean?”
“It ends in a hundred kilometers.”
“And then?”
“Then the road changes. Deep ruts. Mud. Stretches that break an axle.”
Warsame, sitting near the front, waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t be a pessimist! We’ve barely started; let’s not borrow trouble.”
The traveler said nothing. He reached down, picked up an empty plastic jerrycan wedged between his feet, and tapped its hollow belly with a dry, rhythmic thud.
The truck pushed on into the lowering sun. The green plains rolled past. The passengers fell quiet, and a few began to pray.
By nightfall, the truck reached a remote desert camp. The passengers were told to rest. They ate what food they had brought, spread blankets upon the cold earth, and settled beneath the clear night sky.
They had been told the easy road ended here. Beyond the camp lay the rough terrain, where another machine had been kept ready. Everyone knew it was there—a modern transport built for the mud ahead. The keys belonged to the Three Drivers, and the choice to use it was theirs.
While the passengers slept, the Drivers walked beyond a line of thorn bushes into a pitch-black clearing. When their flashlight beam cut through the gloom, it revealed smooth silver panels, mirrored glass, and deep, aggressive wheel treads built for heavy terrain.
It was sleek, modern, and clean.
The First Driver walked around it, opened the door, and stared at the dashboard.
“Which one starts it?”
The Second Driver climbed in beside him. “That button.”
The First Driver pressed it. A light flashed.
“Is that it?”
“I don’t think so.”
The Second Driver pressed another button. A sharp warning chime echoed through the cab. He pulled his hand back instantly. “Don’t touch that one.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
The Third Driver rummaged through the glove box. “Where is the key?”
They checked under the seats and probed every pocket. Nothing. The First Driver pressed a final switch, and the horn blared into the night air. All three jumped.
“Turn it off!” whispered the Third Driver.
They stood around the machine in silence. The superior vehicle had defeated them without moving an inch.
The Second Driver glanced back toward the sleeping camp. “We can’t take this one.”
“So what do we do?”
“We bring the old truck back.”
The First Driver looked toward the rusted relic. Its paint was oxidized, its grille missing half its teeth, and a rear panel held together with wire.
The Second Driver nodded slowly. “We make it look different.”
By dawn, the old truck had been repainted a bright, brilliant green.
When the passengers woke to the morning light, they gathered around the vehicle in surprise.
“Look at it!” Warsame exclaimed. “Now that is a proper machine.”
Hodan smiled. “You see? The Drivers know what they are doing.”
The Three Drivers accepted the praise with modest nods, having learned that appearance often requires far less work than substance.
Only Guleid walked slowly around the back. He stopped beside a freshly painted panel, extended a thumbnail, and scratched the surface. A strip of wet green paint peeled away, exposing raw, pitted rust. He scratched deeper until his finger caught on a jagged indentation.
“Bullet hole,” he muttered.
Osman looked at the truck and shook his head. “You can dress a graveyard in velvet, brother, but it’s still full of bones.”
The passengers laughed nervously. The Drivers did not.
The green truck departed early in the day. For an hour, the ride held a deceptive smoothness. Then, around noon, the tarmac ended. The tires slammed off the asphalt lip and plunged directly into a narrow, unpaved track.
Thorn bushes scraped violently against the new green paint. The engine strained as the tires dropped into deep, bone-jarring ruts. A thick plume of red dust erupted behind them, coating the passengers in a choke of dry earth.
By mid-afternoon, dark clouds gathered overhead, and the rain came down.
At first it was a drizzle, then a downpour. The ground softened into thick red clay. The tires spun uselessly, spraying mud as the engine roared and whined.
The First Driver opened his door and stepped down into the sludge. “Everyone out.”
Silence fell over the truck bed.
“What?” someone asked.
“Out. We need to lighten the load.”
The passengers clambered down into the rain. Women lifted children; old men leaned heavily on their sticks.
“Just walk a little,” Warsame said, trying to steady the crowd. “It’ll help the truck get through.”
“How far?”
“Not far. Just until the ground firms up.”
They walked. At first, the men helped push, laying branches beneath the spinning tires until the truck lurched forward a few meters. But as the rain eased into a humid haze, the road remained a thick river of mud. The truck stayed behind, struggling with a flat tire, while the passengers marched ahead on foot.
They expected the vehicle to catch up at the next bend. It didn't. They walked past another bend, then another.
Seven grueling kilometers passed into the late afternoon.
The children grew silent, their legs weighed down by caked mud. The women dragged their feet in exhaustion, while the old men moved like statues of dry earth. By the roadside, a single rain-soaked sandal lay abandoned in a rut.
Arguments broke out among the men.
“Did we take a wrong turn?”
“We keep going forward!”
“Forward isn’t a direction if you’re lost!”
“Better to go three kilometers back than thirty into nowhere!”
The Latecomer, still balancing his mattress, looked at the empty expanse. “Maybe we’re abandoned.”
No one answered him. Exhausted, several women sat directly in the dirt beneath the thorn trees as the afternoon shadows lengthened, too broken to keep arguing.
As sunset approached, the travelers finally crested a dry rise. They saw the stone clearings of a small village ahead. Beneath the wide canopy of an ancient acacia tree sat the green truck.
Beside it sat the Three Drivers.
They had arrived hours earlier, having taken a drier bypass known only to them. They had eaten, rested, washed the red mud from their boots, and were now sipping comfortably from clean water gourds in the shade. Not a smudge of the journey clung to them.
For a long moment, the crowd stood frozen.
Then a young man stepped out from the group. “You left us.”
The First Driver looked up, unbothered. “You were told to walk.”
“We walked seven kilometers!”
The Second Driver shrugged. “What did you expect us to do? Carry the truck?”
The crowd erupted into shouting.
“You lied to us!”
“You left the children in the mud!”
Two young men charged forward. Warsame grabbed one by the arm, holding him back. “Stop! What are you going to do?”
“Whatever he deserves!”
Hodan stepped between them, pointing back toward the vast, darkening wilderness behind them. “And then what? Look where we are.”
The anger faltered. There was no other road. There was no other truck. There were no other drivers.
A man at the back spoke quietly into the gathering twilight. “So what now?”
The Drivers didn't answer the question. The First Driver simply stood up, tossed his water gourd aside, and gestured toward the truck bed.
“Get in.”
Nobody moved.
“You heard him,” the Second Driver added, checking his watch. “Get in.”
Hodan looked at the crowd, her voice flat. “Unless someone here knows how to drive that thing, what choice do we have?”
In a slow, quiet retreat, the passengers dragged themselves back to the vehicle. They climbed up the rusted ladder one by one. The women lifted their silent children. The Latecomer adjusted his mattress. The crying boy said nothing at all.
Night fell quickly, swallowing the landscape in total blackness.
The driver turned the key. The engine coughed, rattled, and shuddered alive. Up front, two weak yellow headlights flickered on, casting pale, trembling beams into the endless dark ahead.
No one spoke. And the truck moved forward, disappearing into the night.
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