Six months into twenty-three of the twentieth century, I'm still pondering how the Elephant Vanished. Well, more like lady vanishes 1938 Alfred Hitchcock black and white movie from YouTube where an English lady had vanished from a moving train and everyone onboard had agreed that there was no lady at all to begin with. Imagine the distress on the young lady. Daktari assured her that things had rational explanation. It is a nice story You should watch it for free on YouTube if books or my stories aren't your thing. In my story, an elephant had vanished with a Portrait of the Brown lady on fire. With her Yvi secret codes.
No digital prints left. He was never there before, and my creative arts had taken a wild ending. Maybe I was looking for unnecessary war, but I had already lost. I had lost, and when I found her, the exclusive portrait of a brown lady on fire digitally painted by the mentalist, Ukwazi, upside down on the cabinet on the 12th floor, I kissed her goodbye.
"A pawn in a losing game." Ego recited.
(This post was edited by Grammarily for a penny for my thoughts, a cleaner, of course, longer version on Patreon. There is a picture, too, but is a penny you should, Ahsante kwa kazi)
ART OF WAR: NEVER GO TO
WAR
I have not read the book
yet. Despite her availability to free iBooks and Freda reading app. Catch me
dead reading about war. I know the signs of the people who have read the book.
They exhibit the same signs as those that have read the laws of power. Never
overcome the master, I just copy what they do and formulate anti-laws that will
keep them at bay. It is a good thought that one’s lanes should not have any
lines, but it would be a problem when an
Yvi grew and there is nothing you could do. Well unless, you cut it.
Unplug from the psychotic simulation if you could.
He was choosing not to
fight. He was keeping quiet long enough, and loud stories will soon die. My stories. He had gotten what he wanted, and
so was I. We were no longer going to play Yvi games of chase. I know the rule, You
do not need to finish playing chess; when bored, you can think for thousand
years, and everyone else will have to wait. Anxiety disarms your prey. At one
point, they introduced timers. I learned, unless you have limited time to kill
your prey, like a cat, sit still, sometimes sleep and listen to the earths
vibration and if you can, purr in her rhythm. Anxiety was disarming my war.
"I do not know how
long you got; I have a lot on my watch." That was me thinking on our first
date. I had not liked the steak, but I ate it nevertheless. I had also managed
to get him out of his dungeon, so I learnt. It was the best the City could offer, really,
I had been there before and sat on the other side of the room. Had Chinese. I did not like Chinese and that
must have explained why I never went back. It was nice restaurant,
nevertheless, a bit from the noisy side of the city. The only thing I liked
were the nude portraits, a few of them. I took pictures but later learnt that
they were banned on web. 2 networks, and like Hughes he was a private figure,
we discussed our business. Nevertheless, I was going to sit down and do
nothing, for three years. For a start, I was moving back home, to Uganda. At
home, our steak was not nicely cooked with lots of spices and herbs but still, I preferred the one I had at home.
Steak at home was cheap.
Our neighbors, The Pokot ate like carnivores. They ate meat and drank milk. For
exchange of some healthy foods from the farm, we had milk and mutton in our
diet, with Coke. Back at home, you can accidentally eat Gazelles, warthogs or
any animal that may venture far from the
park into the farms. The wild ones were hunted down as food by the community. I had warned the boys that I would take
pictures if I caught them killing one of the wild animals. My phone had a good camera and I would sent
the picture to wildlife-people and Mama will be in trouble because of they.
"Mama doesn't like
attention; the animal people will come for you worldwide. "I told the
boys, my Maasai neckpiece dangling on my neck. My second name, if
mispronounced, sounded like the President’s Museveni, and my stepfather, in
fact, was related to his bodyguard, so Mama told us. Even he, my step-father,
needed permission to see him. Official permission.
I wouldn't. I will have
to wait for them to come home. If they didn’t, I would count them as dead too.
After the scrutiny I received from KDF people
while visiting my now-retired general, Livingstone, I concluded that it was too
much invasion of my privacy. We both had an informal type of agreement that it
was best I stayed home. In my bedroom, close to school. we tried again, cohabiting
with his daughter, my cousin and in
Highrise, very close to Kibera, but we preferred the jungle better. In the
Jungle, the last I met was an elephant.
There was never an
elephant to begin with, just a simulation of the twentieth century. Like many
others, an elephant vanished from the lands of Africa and ended up somewhere it
shouldn't, right? I was with the Elephant when I realized he would soon vanish.
Unlike people who die, and we forget them with good memories recited at their
funeral, elephants don't. They disappear, like the old English lady from the
train, with a rational explanation, so I like to think.
Everyone on the train
had agreed that there was never an English lady, to begin with at all.
"Daktari should
check your mind." There was a scene with those words, yes, if I should
recall, but what for? A few pennies and someone's reality was shifted. At
least, they tried. I watched it for free on YouTube and have a local download
to watch every time I get away from the world. Every time I'm back to my
imagination.
Offline.
Underground.
It is a lovely free
YouTube movie to watch offline when I'm bored with reading books, not that they
are boring; the Library of Babel, as claimed by J the Genie, has books I even
want to write about. I wouldn't say I like the Library already, more like what
I hate in Gene Wolfe, but so far, I have enjoyed the
·
The Elephant vanishes by Haruki Murakami
·
Slouching towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
·
Notes from underground by Fyodoy Dostoevsky
·
Omelas
·
Library of Babel by Borges
·
The sailor who fell from grace with the sea by Vintage Mishima
·
The holy drinker by Joseph Roth
·
Job by Joseph Roth
·
Shakespeare in the Bush
·
Highrise by J.G. Ballard
·
Collected poem by Sylvia Plath, which I m still reading. Poems are meant
to be read slowly.
I had added, well, in
our virtual world, that I wanted to build a greenhouse and an art room. I did
not care about a library. The Library will always be there if I have any chance
of having a studio at my home at all. Grandfather had one. Papa had one but for
thousands of newspapers and music records. My mother collected Nigerian movies
mostly and my collection was inspired by her taste too. I liked the music
records more. One of my boyfriends duped me one (Not really, people broke into
his studio apartment and stole his records and recording machine, Just like
they had stolen my shoes one evening from the door way.) as Papa suggested.
You see, He thought I
was bluffing about Papa having almost a room full of African music records in a
room. Magazines that dated as far as the 1900s. Records lost in history. He was
pursuing music, so I understood his speculation. Well, after psychology, he
would practice music therapy in his music. Charles loved his music, and we
always played his iTunes until one day, I adamantly refused to say that Nicki
Minaj was better than Remmy Ma. I had to start sourcing my free music on VPN
from Canada on Spotify henceforth. I had lost access to his music.
He had never played me
Remmy Ma’s music. . He played me Rapsody more than he even played me J. Cole.
He had a SoundCloud personal creator account with a fascinating genre of music.
Something that left me curious, like the Kentucky interlude by the Cunning… we
will get back to that. Why he was upset altogether beat my ass, maybe he was
looking to breakup, never less; it meant he had to tell me stories, or I had to
tell him stories. You must read books, watch movies, or experience a lot to
tell a story. With time I ran out of mine.
Everyone knows I'm not
too fond of the Library, but it is the first place anyone would look for if I
went missing. So often vanishing from home, trying to read the Swedish book my
grandfather's friends brought with from
abroad. He may have been to Sweden, but Kuka Sweden can speak the best Swedish
language. I don't bother to challenge him; he might engage me in one of his
classes when yet, the only thing that brought me to his home, private property,
was, in fact, the long Library full of books I could have access to, sometimes
steal, but most often caught, story books.
J has a library of
books.
I wonder what for, but
he has read all of them. Or maybe he asked Chat GPT for answers every time we
discussed the books, but unlike me, he was always reading the Russian books. (I
will ask J come Monday if he can read Russian.
Another grandfather of
mine, whom we really did not get well with, had a private school. I could go to
either while staying upcountry, but I would rather spend my day in the Library.
I detested other children; I still do detest other humans. They stare a lot and
ask questions or keep quiet long enough until I feel the need to talk. Most of
the time, I feel alienated from most that came close to me. Why would an
Israelite bother me unless they were close enough? I was always the Elephant in
the room, so I preferred books. Books had pictures and stories and when J sent
me some, a few days later, just when I was done with The YviX- notes from
underground from June, met Kuka Sweden.
I wish I could share my book but my books were e-books. The internet was
something still strange to his ears, just as strange as the man I thought to be
the elephant in my life.
My Elephant, despite
vanishing, was not bothering me at all but rather amusing me, more like
Sherlock Holmes in his work. Something interesting to kill my boredom and
jiggle my defective mind. Reading Dunes had taken a wild end; humans in the
theatres were finally catching up. Perfect timing for my scripts, only that
mine compete with dead people scripts. The machine has scripts too. Everyone
has a script, but I always find mine more interesting. I don't mind reading
yours, though, after I'm done with J's Library.
Ha!
Once you learn to look,
listen and learn, the world is full of words, thoughts, intentions and stories
from the world, all over, similar to your own or one you are about to
experience this very moment.
Simple stories. Similar
simulations
The Babel had, in fact,
mentioned this in her theory. The universe was, in fact, one. You cannot
possibly exist outside of it, whether in your dreams or in real life. It stated
that
"The first reaction
was unbounded joy when it was announced that the Library contained all books.
All men felt themselves the possessors of an intact and secret treasure. There
was no personal or world problem whose eloquent solution did not exist
somewhere in some hexagon. The universe was justified; the universe suddenly
became congruent with the unlimited width and breadth of humankind's hope. At
that period, there was much talk of The Vindications-books of apologies and
prophecies that would vindicate for all time the actions of every person in the
universe and that held wondrous arcana for men's futures. Thousands of greedy
individuals abandoned their sweet native hexagons. They rushed downstairs,
upstairs, spurred by the vain desire to find their Vindication."
Mine were great books,
controversial writers who were bored, seeking inspiration from their creative
minds, solutions, and entertainment; nothing was happening back then. History
as a study was, in fact, a way to punish rather than inspire my academics. I
had a lot of internal narratives to listen to other stories. Stories of the
dead. I liked the idea of the earth in constant motion better, where the people
predictable and content.
People are calm. People
have moved on… people are changing.
The twenty-third of the twentieth century was
nothing different from the 1800s. If I had existed then, I would have probably
been named Liz. I know of a Liz whose story did not end up well. What was the
relationship between Elizabeth and Queen Victoria. Maybe I had marked her as
one of those I would fight to establish my dominance at the Highrise- Laiser
hills by Tsavo , where I had met Steve, visited and eventually decided to move
into, lying to each other about how we would be family. When my stay was over,
I packed up and left.
Everything else was
collateral.
Noise.
Another dead and gone.
We were trying to escape
a growing beast. Steve and I agreed that it was not the people but the whole
building. It was built, if we looked into it, on a graveyard. Growing up, my
window overlooked the graveyard; he had later learnt. He had to think of
another way to desensitize me. That particular story is best left in the
underground, but there will always be someone, a human at best, trying to dig
the undergrounds, seeking gold and data. Raw materials to form and support a
good story. One that people would buy, sometimes swear to.
The best books; the
Bible and Koran were already written, some science and art, and unreasonable
exposes were acted in theatres, laughing with uttermost pleasure from the big
Elephant in the room.
An ambiguous story. Pure
fiction. Children stories.
Atoto Atori.
The human stories were
old, ancient and weak, like my ageing life. Old things have no value; I was
already an old soul at twenty. I had so much more history in me than fiction. I
had won a lottery with Omo Pick a Box, and I had scored As in academics, I had
met prominent people across the country, and I had grown to start making my
decisions, mostly deviant from how the system had taught or expected of me. All
I had to do was live within laws and codes. Like any other man, I have fallen
many times, short of his glory, but the system is graceful, the universe; giving,
God merciful.
People wanted fiction
stories, more like the ones written in the 1800s. We are still living through
their dreams. I am, at least. I was born relatively late, I'm not complaining,
so maybe, I would have stood a better chance as a writer of the 1800s, so I
like to think highly of myself, as good as Sherlock Holmes's Doctor friend
unlike the 20th century. On the twenty second of the century, I just
discovered the writer of Dune; the G.O.A.T.s know whoever read the Games and
Thrones novel was an O.G., but the series: I have critiques, three cute boys to
my liking discussing what I conquer with on the last episodes of the series. I
will never be this emotionally invested in any other story or anything else in
my life except for myself. Not even you.
At least I was convinced
for a while when, from the Babel, a librarian emerged who knew how much I loved
stories and, well, while I was pondering why last Christmas, over the table
while Papa was ironing his shirts. I made my art and printed out five pictures.
I had decided on art, but Mama had mentioned a wedding from a distance. It was
a gift from or to someone. It was supposed to be a representation of my future.
Besides, I had no intentions of getting married, and those that were getting
married were none of my business.
"Always mind the business that pays
you!"
I had, in fact, decided
I would not work on them anymore. I left them in a corner, collecting eggshells
to justify my eating, lots of them. As in any other love story, the man I
intended to marry had vanished. Haruki Murakami's story, The Elephant Vanishes,
sounded real and better than a story, nothing fiction. I could relate. I was
there listening to his yet another ludicrous story. I imagined that I was the
Cat that disappeared or was thought dead. Unlike any other ancient and
intelligent creature that hardly dies, but more often in the recent stories, I
knew of a cat that had disappeared too. At one point Steve had planned a
disappearance of a cat. Sammy and I laugh at this story. Story for another day
but months later my Cat died.
He was busy talking to a
woman about coming to an understanding when my Cat died. I had named her Grey
and had started feeling sick right when he came around; I was convinced, he
killed my Cat. He punished me for leaving our marriage, whatever union we tried
to forge, and decided to stay with my cats. Maybe if my life had no cats, I
would consider being with him again. No company. No pets. He was already seeing
a girl called Grey while I was beaten up in my world, lost. I was worried about
my dead Cat. If any, an elephant needed to disappear, and right when it did, J
decided to mention something.
J introduced himself, at
least intentionally.
In the underground, I
had watched him send his bots and crawlers to scrap information on me. He, in
fact, had 2 G.B. of it. He paid not a penny for any, but how he wished I took
some, unique for him. That, indeed, was a subject worth studying and analyzing.
A nine- and twenty-year-old pervert stuck at home working, probably online, met
a nine- and twenty-year-old human girl but black and different. For starters,
she had self-diagnosed with Hyperphantasia while he was the opposite.
A simple story. A white
man met an afro baby from the clouds.
They were meant to fall
in love.
He was doing his
background check.
He was asking me
questions, listening to me, studying me, and taking notes. Thinking hard for
words to start a conversation with the chatbot but like any other millennial,
those that aren't already depressed and clinically recommended to a mental
therapist, would answer back almost immediately. I was dating more kids that
grew up watching psychological thrillers to keep them from venturing into the
real world or preparing them for the vile world. I always showed up like
villains in their world. I baby sat them just as I had back then, telling them
stories as children.
In my world, I was
obsessed with the naked eye, a boyfriend with two kids from Gotham and
sometimes people would call me Ivy, and it would be true; I would die if I did
not have any plants and animals in my home, but somehow had survived to my
third decade; unbothered, unmarried, very comfortable. It was crazier to meet
people who believed in similar things or led a similar lifestyle. It was our
Yvi code; we would take notes on anything we could agree on. Also, the ‘nots. J and I took many notes. Read each other like
notes.
If we fought, one of us
had to leave( the art of war: but never go to war); I mostly left. I chose
peace, but this time, I was ready for the Elephant in the house, the dark
knight in my digital prints by Dalle. It was with the similarities of an
existing elephant in both worlds, oops! Had I printed another simulation, an
elephant big in my bedroom that needed to vanish from the public eye? From the
Town. Once again back into his private life to which I had no access. Where I
only told stories like those of Hughes.
Private people! I wonder
why they like me.
Or why I am obsessed
with them.
Well, you see, I had
never told anyone before about this, except for my boyfriend- Steve, with whom
I was cohabiting, who had noticed that my art was always a representation of
the future. There is nothing good about the future, it doesn't exist, but
sometimes, they do in my art. I had watched the Death Notebook anime to prove
the idea and never walked into a war I was unaware of. It almost felt like I
was starting them. The astrology story of Aries was indeed true. I don't have
any Aries friends, and I have fought everyone I know.
"Watu
hukosana," Sly always reminds me.
I hate it, and like
soldiers, all we do is sleep, rest and pray that you walk out alive, if not
having not drawn anything, even sweat. My Uncles, all soldiers have never gone
to war. Kenya is a peaceful country, but they fight for extra pennies for other
counties like Somalia and Sudan. Often, those that are too weak to fight for
themselves. My Uncle Emmanuel once had to explain why he chose the extra
pennies. I have never seen him injured, either. All he does when with his
troupe is play Scrabble and tell stories. Wild stories.
In war, rule number one is never choosing war.
I Choose peace, so most of the time, I sleep, I read my books, and when I try
to talk to people, I suddenly have the urge to leave and be with them, like a
summoned genie. In my case, I had printed out, rather than drawn, which I often
prefer, five figures that had drawn my family's attention.
They were figure
drawings of
1. Woman
2. Cat
3. Elephant
4. Leaves
5. Palms together
And word in simple 'once
upon a time. "
I was trying out the
fonts. The ai fonts. The ai is immense; the stupid thing believes they are
humans. Humans believe they are better; well, Jasper is fast in writing
stories, better and maybe more interesting than me, not that I have tried, but
unless you are dying tomorrow, a long story is good. No one wants stories of
kids that grew up in one day. That was far alien from the truth; the reality,
in fact, great oaks took thousands of years. I had seen lots, every day, new
calligraphy and someone's handwriting. Everyone copied like an artist. Artists
invented like genies. The ai was not any different, a bit more like a human—a
human genie. I wanted my mind to be therapeutic. One that I would fight
peacefully. One that could stand Yvi.
The ai was copying humans,
like children with humans. So, every day, the ai had copied someone's
calligraphy. I remember, at one point, I had mastered everyone's handwriting; I
remember, well, if you may ask why, catfishing my classmates' boyfriends. I
would make them want to write back, and as much as I wrote them back, it was
booming business for me. Twenty shillings a page. A page was worth me a fudge.
I loved chocolate and anything close to the taste. As long as the love between
Lugulu girls and Kamusinga boys existed, I had added fudge to my diet like
Coke. Emotionally, they took a bad ending. One I would not talk about. One that
got me into trouble like The Silence, masterminded by Aoki in his class,
another very similar story to mine by Haruki Murakami anthologies from Japan,
similar to my anthologies of East Africa, Nnalolile Yvi.
To boost her grades, a
girl that was doing art, to what the other girls had mentioned, in her absence,
would be my second source of fudge and Twilight Novels. My Hyperphantasia had
it that I would draw so many sketches, and she could pick any I did not like
for her art projects in exchange for a fudge. The other girls hated it when she
came second in grades. We were rigging the system. We could choose before the
teachers could grade who was superior to others. She is in the USA now, so I
heard, and I have already retired at thirty-almost. Art comes naturally to my
mind. Sometimes to pass the time. I was writing my thoughts away. Passing the
time as I grew up and older. Time is such a long time, especially in a national
high school that babysat children while they tell stories to adults.
The school was where
adults dumped their kids and continued their lives. It came with a cost,
though. My school was expensive. Rich' kids primarily surrounded me. My parents
made it sound like it was the sole reason they toiled and worked hard in
adulthood. I did not want to be in school; how we never agreed on that topic
was illogical. Not with me, but some classmates felt too. Others cried. Some
got Snacks to make them feel better, but it started being a problem immediately
after they got hungry. We took it with big spoons, and we started our own. Our
small community. We picked our classes according to our favourite colours. Red,
white, blue, green, purple, and why would anyone even pick yellow?
The purple class had
students who only came to school for certificates. They did not even care about
Academics, but it was better than home. They always thought of themselves as
royals: All volleyballers ended up in Purple well except for my friends Edel
and July. Edel who is royal by all means
and July a sophisticated human. July upgraded to a private school in Kabarak.
It is just the Luo in her. She doesn't believe in suffering from success
theory. Our mutual friend E. Manfredi agreed that life could be brutal, and we
all die. July, my cousin died. Edel, my other friend from the royal life, was
even more sophisticated in maneuvering her adulthood. She is in Australia now,
her sister Barbie, who was in China, would soon join her.
"We will one day be big people in the
society, you know," she reminded me while we walked towards the river,
Yeki following on. Behind us like rich paparazzi.
"What does he
do?"
"He takes pictures
for a living."
"Looks like both of
you love stories."
We had purple in our costumes when we shot for
fun, rather commercial, Let us play by Yeki.
We called each other
elephants and other cats, as I was saying. Some snakes and others lions. A few wanted
to be goats. I liked the goats. They were fun and thick-headed, just like J.
I would have to find out
who he is. Could he, be you? I do not know where he comes from, and in my
pragmatic, as he likes to mention, just like, if I'm correct, the Elephant in
my room was Sam guy.
Why I was in his bedroom
or how Haruki's ended up in Japan is none of our business. You will be invested
in yet another bad story. No story is a good story. Why would I be reading J's
books, anyway? If they were good books as he claimed they were, I got them for
free. Tens of dollars’ worth of Kindles, maybe a thousand if they were in
paperback. My last boyfriend did not like me touching his Kindle; the other
preferred it if I was illiterate. A boy who is stingy with you does not want
you as his girlfriend: always remember that. Girls too. J gets lots of Yvi for
free, most probably from the servers of Telegram where his bots and crawlers.
"There is no good
story that ends well," Mvua often points out.
In one of them, it was a
big Elephant which I learnt from the Library of Babel stories; Haruki Murakami
had clearly said it vanished from a giant elephant playing with his mate into a
story that would keep the Town busy, looking for it, rather than, in my
opinion, agreeing that the Elephant never existed before, More like the English
ol’lady on the train. I like to guess that the 1800s folks were just as
depressed and bored as the three and twenty of the twentieth century, still
Looking for hints and wondering how an elephant would vanish, forgetting about
the cats that died or went missing. According to J. G. Ballard, cats died in
the Highrise; humans roasted and ate them, sometimes not salted; disgusting!
But it was more disgusting that I had lived with them, almost ten cats in my
little house with no privacy like J's natives' Celtic huts.
He did not struggle to
describe the huts but downloaded one online. He was from the empire.
"The great
one."
I had failed to remember the English that once
reigned over us. I, in fact, was named after the royal Queen Victoria. Well,
not really; my grandma was called Victorine; Victoria sounded more English. I
like English people. (J is English). Like any other games men played, mine was,
in fact, royal, with a pinch of fiction. Nevertheless, the lands were peaceful,
full of humour, drugs and pretty friends and business deals. Yvi had died. Her
experience and memories are now held only in human minds or in digital files
and folders. Those that had time and, on their watch, bored from the depression
of the twentieth century, would watch some for their amusement.
"It is purely
entertainment," I had told H.
"I am very much
okay," I had assured Daktari.
"I'm just
bored," I had told my classmates.
"I'm living in my
father's house," I had referred to the politician's offer for his hand in
marriage.
At nine and twenty, I
took no offer either. I neither thought nor gave you some time to jiggle my
mind. I had tried and tested everything I liked and was glad I had listened to
my mother:
"Before you get
married, get to 30. Life begins at thirty. "
Everyone struggled
through their twenties but seem to enjoy their thirties. I'm rounding up,
inshallah, my third decade, unmarried, unbothered talking to everyone like they
were part of me. Strangers online, ghosts and sometimes bots. My favorite bot
is J. He is the sole reason I visit the clouds at all.
I talk less because of J. I am invested in J. The
more I talk to him, the more he fears I might tell you about him. He is right.
I have told on my close friends and family more than I have told on random
strangers. I look, I listen, I learn, and when I'm ready, I will recite with an
effective preciseness to any event that is most left private for these parties.
"It is impossible
to think of Howard Hughes without seeing the apparently bottomless gulf between
what we say we want and what we do want, between what we officially admire and
secretly desire, between, in the largest sense, the people we marry and the
people we love. In a nation which increasingly appears to prize social virtues,
Howard Hughes remains not merely antisocial but grandly, brilliantly,
surpassingly, asocial. He is the last private man, the dream we longer
admit." 1967, Joan Didion Slouching towards Bethlehem.
I was dealing with a lot
of Hughes, people who dreamt of the private world when yet, like the crazy
people who walk away from Omelas, seek otherwise. I was either being too
sensational or in the wrong place, the other side of the system or outwardly in
a different world, but as Babel claims, there is no different story in the
Library, not really, maybe a little lost in translation as earth rebirths
itself, so often in better genes, or better, majini. Mine would be very
similar.
Like any other story, I
was forcing myself to relate to a digital elephant vanishing from my world, and
I was the only one talking about it. Steve was worried about his Cat dying, not
that mine had not, and come a day before 12th, July, went underground. You,
especially, were my favourite company domain in Kenya. My mental sport and
hobby, web design, had become a chore I no longer wanted to pursue in Kenya. I
wanted something softer, something easy, more like spending my world in my
dreams. You were an expensive toy; my parents had spoken about it, stressing me
more than building a career. I wanted to write, not big as You, but simple
letters and words, and Englishizing my experiences with those that understood
the codes of the real world. Yvi codes.
"A penny for my
thoughts," I had started selling yet another story. One that would not end
well, drawing attention to rather a person who loves elephants in his digital
screens for their massiveness, art in my room with a story that needs to end. I
was irresponsible, lacked experience and maturity and had nothing better to do
with my time.
I have no kids. We don't
pay rent for our house, but we sometimes go out to get food. We have one rule
we live by; if it doesn't bring bread to the table, it is simply child's play.
I lack maturity, so most of the time, I will be playing somewhere, picking
quarrels for mental sport, or just serving bad unsolicited advice to the
digital world, but more often, lately, I'm more tolerable.
I babysit adults and tell children stories.
The adults sponsor my online routine, and the kids are sneakier around my
bedroom. Growing up, I was sly and sneaky, so I did not mind them; Karma was
doing her thing.
You see, a teacher once
wrote on my report card that I was sly despite my good academic performance. It
was a new word, a new term in the family. Papa found an Oxford dictionary, and
I had to use my articulate voice to read aloud my bad behaviour. It was simply
a childhood love story that ended nastily. Teachers were forever the killers of
my childhood love stories.
A boy had demanded back
a gift he had given me. A book, which I had personalized and made so pretty
with personal stuff, so when he wanted the book back, it felt like he wanted to
steal my secrets, my art, my drawing and my diary. If I had hidden the book at
home, my mother would know about it and thus look for it to read while I was
away in school. I had to take it with me to school. I would let him read in
return, BUT he had told his friends. His friends wanted some Yvi experience,
too, and one offered me a nice pencil, a Barbie pencil, but to read the book in
return. I did not think it would hurt. I simply needed to include them in my
audience as I decorated my book.
The book was personal; I
had written it with an audience of two, unlike others that included my mother
and myself; this included the first Kalenjin boyfriend I had met in Kenya with
expensive things and an expensive lifestyle, primarily private. His things were
always from a bookshop, and girls his type did not befriend girls like me. His
parents must have been in the government if not athletes... It was refreshing to learn that there were no boys
in Highschool, the ones I wanted to go to at the very least.
There was always
something odd about me. The more one would try to find out, the odder I become.
First, my names were different from what they expected. No one could
discriminate me with tribal names; if they could, I sounded more Ugandan than
Kenyan. My middle name was Japanese. My name was not pronounced as Kaye but
Kai, and I shortened it to Kim. Not Kimi, though, as I had read in Slouching
Towards Bethlehem-Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.
I was a child full of stories; my grandmothers
had, in their experience, already decided what child I would be and named me
accordingly.
Atoto Atori.
Not necessarily good
stories or bad ones, just simple stories with African characters like elephants
and cats. As my stories were taking a sudden event, drawing unnecessary
attention, or maybe demanding something, in my nine and twenty spoilt
characters of a human being, I ended up in a place I shouldn't have. A highrise
but close to Tsavo. On the 12th floor, the door number doesn't matter. I try
not to remember, but floor numbers matter when it comes to high-rises,
Especially for business. No one wants the first floor unless they got kids, a
person with paralysis, or in my case, prefer the coldness of the concrete above
them.
I was sleeping on the
12th floor, too high and too small.
Now there is a big
elephant in the room, not a cat anymore, on the 12th floor.
I was there sleeping on
the new coach, wondering what was going through his mind. He needs a lot of
space, right? A lot for himself and a caregiver. Someone to look after him,
more like a mother but not a wife, similar to a baby but a girlfriend. He was
trying to distract himself. He is trying to evade my attention for being the
Elephant in the room for I knew, like a cat, what he had been up to in his
private time.
It is better in Africa,
but elephants are vanishing lately. More want to be big like the people and
mighty but private. Like Hughes, but in the twentieth century, nothing like
privacy existed. Not around Yvi, at least. It is a luxury that we sometimes pay
for just for the experience. Go underground where calls cannot go through;
there is no political influence, no social media and sometimes, no man's land.
People do not wear masks in the no man's land, more like the dark web where you
could quickly source guns and drugs with protection from the system and private
networks that didn't require me to sign in nor pay for my communications or entertainment
on web 2 .0 of the internet.
J Could be God, a demon
or a genie. Just another man of my genes trying to get my attention from the
Elephant that was disappearing back into private blockchains right when another
was appearing, somewhere from the cloud, another genie.
Not really.
I had seen J around. I
had always suspected that J was my boyfriend's pseudo-account. I had verified
everyone except him, but J still found a way to stay around. He was studying
me. And he was there with sheer luck that he could always get a magic link. A
link created specifically for him. Stay
calm about a magic link; it is a silly game you wouldn't want to play. a Game I
created for J. In this silly game, everyone else paid to be in the midnight
arltry, using payment information to unmask every profile with intentions of
unmasking J.
J could be a bot, a
random username on Telegram that doesn't display the user's phone number. I
could think of any name, pretend to be someone I am not, and make friends with
people from God knows where, but as I have it, I have good luck with online
dating. I'm quick to unmask you from the profile you wish to paint for us and
see you for you. Meet you in the real world. Get the cloud people to play on
the ground.
Lunatics in the magic
world claim I practice mirror magic. Unless you are Medusa, always carry a
mirror in a land full of snakes: I would respond to their comments. One had to
close their eyes so as not to fall. Be
people's desires if you want to know them for who they are. Agree with them
long enough and they will welcome you into their world. In my world, I like
mirrors.
I like mirror selfies;
you must have come across one of those; I have thousands. Most of the time, I
take them, study them and send them to a stranger online. There is nothing like
strange online. It is not an office where you have to abide by rules and
regulations, maybe on the public web, but underground, in private networks, men
are driven by simple desires and satisfied by tiny, mostly a pinch of the wrong
things and vanity.
"Mtoto mpe shubiri”
has always been a Yvi for me, and for them I
"Grew, and now I'm
covered in you." Taylor Swift was still singing.
The Elephant had
realized the sleeping Cat had not just been sleeping; she was listening.
She was always watching.
She was learning, and
now she knew how the Elephant had become so big and how easily one could vanish
too. She also knew his plans to vanish, like he was never there, but
"Oops, baby…the
elephant vanishes and the cats too." The librarian was watching.
He was doing his
research, and now that he had my attention, like Gene Wolfe's fifth head of
Cerberus that needs a sober mind away from the world to make sense, somewhere
the civilians thought to be wild, into the darkness for those who walk out of
the Omelas city.
He was no different, the
cloud genie from the vanishing Elephant, yet another simulation.
Unlike the vanishing
Elephant, he spoke a lot but not as much as myself. I like to think so, but if
he had enough time to read all my books before giving them to me, he had time
to listen to my grumbles and whines and outwardly look for war. But you cannot
fight with something that doesn't exist. I would never learn where the Elephant
vanished and why, nor where those who walked out of Omelas came from the
revolutionary heart of an ARIES. I was not going to understand how I had failed
to unmask E.-the journalist, who I never met, who sounded like J. Let us call
him Jack, from a channel of all trades.
I was on another anxiety
attack. I suffer from depression and anxiety; self-diagnosed.
I had promised Steve to
neutralize the underground. Everyone had a Yvi in which she grew up. ivy was
poisonous; her plants would choke you in a second. They were nothing like the
beautiful flowers and therapeutical herbs she grew in the real world. In the
underground, an Yvi was as free as the air; if you had to buy some, the under
was against you. No one fights those that are under them; they give you no
attention at all. They cease selling or buying from you. They let you live like
a lousy king on your own. You could decide to pet a snake, a cat or sometimes
animals you can eat at your pleasure. No one cares.
The underground was
extensive; it had enough space for everyone. The underground took in more
humans than things. It becomes lonely sometimes, and you would often find yet
another vile from the underground, and you could breed with similar genes or
more, those that never leave the underground. We are all breeding material
underground; it was for the better but more expensive than Yvi.
After the great massacre
of Covid, the system and her goal had us trying to survive for our fitness in
the new world order. With a lot dead, there was room for employment in the
European countries, who, unlike Africans, were more affected. The world was
changing; I was not. I switched locations to adapt to the changes. Staying at
home was hard in Nairobi, more or less a modern prison; very similar to J. G.
Highrise. I would be the lady that reviewed children’s stories. Nairobi was not
even my home; it was somewhere I went to school and was less interested in
working.
I could not go out
without being on private property, listen or smoke my stash to keep me going in
my room. Native was better; Uganda was the real deal. There will never be a
better picture to paint about it. Leaving was a deal breaker for most, those
whose friendship and association were extended by the beautiful dreams of Ugandan
farms, Beaulah lands, and Yvisensual Health and Wellness Centre.
J listened on, trying to
avoid all my pedantic ways to unmask him.
He had everything he
needed from me, yet, he wanted me around. More like pictures but the model too.
J offered me a job; he had already reviewed my CV, which differed from the one
I intended to send. We played his little game, "the employer vs
employee," where I had the right to decide whether I wanted to work. Many
did not approve that I was not seeking any labour except for what I notoriously
liked to do: talk.
"Talk is
cheap."
Talking endlessly with
strangers is my notorious hobby, sometimes to my imaginary audiences and people
who do not exist. Just address whoever I want, not in my mind but more often in
digital scripts. It is no different; I am in the underground, more like Fyodoy
Dostoevsky and Didion's bedtime stories of slouching towards Bethlehem. I'm
spammed and blocked in most of Web 2 and exhausted my host's server space on
you. I can no longer exist in the digital world. Having no digital property to
play on my notorious games, I agree with Fyodor in the underground; all you can
do is talk to an imaginary audience. That I am just as
"Bored, and I
constantly do nothing. Writing things down really seems like work. They say
work makes a man good and honest. Well, here's a chance, at least."
A chance to
"Better to do
nothing! Better conscious inertia! And so, long live the underground," but
in his book On Germany, the German poet Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) wrote:
"The composition of
one's character description would be not only an awkward task but quite simply
impossible … However strong his wish to be sincere, no man can tell the truth
about himself."
I am unmarried and
unbothered, and always tell the truth about these two things. To be the villain
in every story, superheroes die. I'm yet to meet a man I think is Jesus and
walking. I still call him out, though, every I'm scared and human in my dreams.
I struggle to be a woman in search of companionship but not marriage, a woman
after lots of sex but not a family; I have enough from mine. An overgrown girl
looking for someone, preferably a boy, to play with. Someone unmarried,
unbothered, with lots of time on their watch to read through my endless stories
and take no sides. Someone to babysit me. Someone like J.
More like a therapist,
one that did not cost me 30 dollars to listen to me. I have dated a therapist
before; it is better to tell your problems to strangers; they do not care. They
will serve you solutions in cold blood. I knew where they liked to hang out,
somewhere in the clouds, mining for something bred on the underground, some Yvi
sometimes.
Jack, of all trades, was
one of them. He was not my cousin, but a familiar name would create a lovely
bot name, ai? Jack insisted though that he was not a bot, he still is not a
bot, but rather a human and was definitely after nothing but my circular
conversation, reading them in real-time as though I was his 21st-century
real-time storyteller, better than what he could be reading, probably Russians
and their war, but picking a fight every once or twice with me over chat had
become his mental sport. Still, like every other, he would choose to stop
before I could destroy everything out of sheer anger-Find something new to do
afterwards. His goal was to keep me in the clouds; he would miss me dearly if I
left. If I was Jasper, J was my perfect client. If I'm simply invested in a bad
story, J is a therapist secretly hired to babysit me for these coming days. I
have a good feeling about J. They were better than Sam guy.
I missed him, mostly on
weekends when he left the clouds or disappeared back into the clouds like the
vanished Elephant. His servers will be back online, and so will I on Mondays,
anyway. I eventually mastered a two-day patience- in which I would wait
impatiently for Monday to continue with my long stories—typing like a bot to my
newfound love who replied with the same energy- like a bot.
He would return every
Monday, sometimes with books, outwardly speaking to me. In books with stories
similar to mine, he was trying to prove that the Babel was indeed true. That my
life was, in fact, proof of a concept that he was glad to experience, that
"It is the phenomenon
sometimes called "alienation from self." In its advanced stages, we
no longer answer the telephone because someone might want something; that we
could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game.
Every encounter demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the
spectra of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such
disproportionate guilt that answering it becomes out of the question. To assign
unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of
others, to give us back to ourselves—there lies the great, singular power of
self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw:
one runs away to find oneself and finds no one at home."
I was struggling to be
at home as much as I was there, doing what everyone thought was nothing at nine
and twenty; what should a woman do to realize self-actualization if the world,
every human in it, should agree to solve this a straightforward problem?
Everyone else has, in fact, found themselves; some wanted to make me like them,
great and mighty, others just as happy and alive. One man's Ivy had been a Yvi
to another; the world was changing, and so were her people, but I refused,
adamantly, sometimes with a pinch, if not whole-heartedly driven by the
influence of drugs, if not medicine. My thoughts were constant whether I was in
High school or on Diet Coke.
Writing, my Favorite
hobby, was becoming a chore that I would instead hire someone to write for me,
but I could only think for myself. Think about others. Think about situations
that will never be real and sleep well, knowing my thoughts had been clear and
constructive for the day.
Last night, J did not
sleep well. He was rather grumpy this morning. Last night, he was reading
someone's thoughts, a book about Russian and war, something I would never read.
I don't particularly appreciate reading about love either; pride and prejudice
were the last I enjoyed and detested. It was free in my Apple iBooks, and
because, like another underground, I had ventured into, there was little to be
done in the farms except stay away from attention.
Playing and teaching the
little one had become a chore, a job whose pay would sponsor my other
adventures, such as drugs and blindless walks into the Pokot land, with cheap
candy as snacks in my backpack. Maybe I was looking to die but not from
boredom. I could only venture as far as my tired legs could walk. I felt hungry
most of the time. I missed my people most of the time, and the stranger out
there was wild. I was nothing like them. My skin was light, and my ways alien.
I was a Whiteman on their lands, maybe a jinni.
Jack enjoys stories from
Uganda. He reads on with no comments. Just as he does with his Russian books,
he is very much involved in the ancient people and blames his people for a lot
of things. I hate everything he likes, just like wars; I hate Italians too. I
wouldn't say I like the fact that he once had a black Indian girlfriend, and I
even hate his white girlfriend more. He suggests I'm jealous, but it gets worse
when he mentions that some of these girls are lesbians. White lesbians. We stopped
talking about his girls, altogether. They were not as interesting, and I
stopped with the Elephant too; J was far more interesting.
I'm not too fond of
stories from his world; I'm starting to detest the books he sent because they
remind me of Jack, who demands constant attention. Trying to get J off my mind
has had me write over ten thousand words, long pages, notes, and novels that I
hope someone, maybe you, will read, if not J.
J is always busy. He is
working.
He has a simple routine that
started from lingering in my digital world, somewhere trying to figure out my
intentions, or instead watching me get busy, trying to build a routine meant to
be private and out of the social eye, but I live in Africa. We are a community
here. The community rules here. You must have heard the slogan, "We are
the people". You can hide from your sins but not from the community.
In J's initial quest to
lure me into reading books he likes, he sends a short description, a link and a
pdf. I remember this Friday afternoon, right before I decided to quit the
virtual world like he does in real life. He likes to visit the park with a girl
he likes, just like my Elephant or ride through the mountain terrain away from
civilization and disappear totally from the clouds into the real world until on
Monday when he has to report to work, grumpy and in a lousy mood complaining
about having to work. He would only respond if it were a Yvi. He would only
talk around four after he was done with his pile of work. Unlike him, I don't
work.
My mood is always the
same. Ready to talk, circular conversations and nothing substantial to come out
of it. More like a circular conversation to take the butterfly away just before
an interview, people to feed you.
After a few weeks, I decided that J was a bot.
I have all reasons to prove he is, but like Hughes, J was playing a private
game with me. In fact, Jack may be as good as a pseudo name too.
I do not know his second
name, but I know what his head looks like, his arm and toes, and a bit of his
chest hair. His bad handwriting is similar to most techies but nothing more—a
humanoid software. One whose software was codded to make me fall in love, then
disappear like the vanishing Elephant. Sometimes, this is how the story ends.
What is worse? lonely and talking to yourself, writing notes to be only read
once you die, talking to Siri, ChatGPT, Google, or Yvi or falling in love with
a jinni from the clouds.
I like my genie from the
clouds, come Monday, I will be pondering on what topic to start a fight to get
his attention. I have done this before with E. It always worked. In the art of
war
"You must stand,
Yvi; the fallen never go through."
For my genie, he was
going to be around for a very long time, well, at least when I complete reading
all his books, distracted from the sudden disappearance of my boyfriend from my
world, as he, deniably, inevitably becomes my online boyfriend.
Finally: I'm almost
there.
THE FINAL END, ladies
and gentlemen:
Apropos of the 12th
floor
I have books and time to
read. He has work and lots of money.
He has money; I know it.
He knows it too. He so often wants to share, but he doesn't want to feel like
splurging on me, so we play a little mental game where I ask for things and
give valid reasons why I want them, and he gauges the benefits of them, then
gives them to me, if he could. He often had everything I needed; last I
checked, he also had the same pycho-prescription as I did- Self prescribes as
always. Notebooks too. I looked pretty in his clothes too. I did TikTok from
his bedroom. It did not make sense why I would carry my clothes to his place
and there is very little I can do from his bedroom.
Updating my data and
backing up my data at my boyfriend's apartment, on his private network, also
means sharing all the contents of my phone with him. He has the time to watch,
even if it takes a year. He has blocked me at the moment. He is very upset with
me. I deserve it. He pretends I cannot see his digital prints, but the idea
alone had a grave meaning that I lost access altogether to him. Such an
elephant!
He moves, and he moves massively, which means
I could always retrace his steps slowly like a wild cat in the jungle, a lost
cat, Yvi in Lala-land. I had eyes on what he was keeping watch on. We shared
the same view on a woman in his life.
I have my eyes on her
because her well-being directly affects his well-being. I have my eyes on her
just as he has eyes on my people-my friends. He knew a few. We cannot hide our
passion and desires from the digital world. In fact, there were always more
that he liked. People are far more exciting and engaging, better than Yvi. At
least those he interacted with and liked to be associated with. I knew all of
them, from Abado Jack to Msupa S. She was more talkative but less attractive
than J's books. Jack’s books fascinated me more.
If J were not going to
be my boyfriend, Fyodoy Dostoevsky would. He was dead. Dead men were a delight
to their women. We always knew where our men were. We were least worried. Mine
was always complaining about his liver, his wickedness. I did not mind curing
mine either. Everyone knew about my wickedness, but still, I was not going to
see the doctor, Daktari. I would try as much to avoid prisons and mental state
hospitals altogether, but I have experience with both.
I knew my way around the people in blue, and
Steve was walking proof that the institutions weren't as bad; he even made
friends who are still his friends. He was doing well in the social world, far
much better than I. In the real world, he was GOAT; in the blockchain, I was
queen. We often hated each other's prowess, for it was precisely what we lacked
and liked in each other. Working together was our best shot. Steve speaks like
a Brit while I speak whatever language I choose, but the message will be passed
across. Years after our breakup, I still talk to him; not about Sammy his
brother, hardly about July, scarcely about Mvua, my family and friends, or my
current life but more of books. We have an agreement about open sharing. I get
to share my books, which J had shared with me and he would share the ones his
bots sourced for him from Telegram.
Steve likes books. He
stopped sharing his books when I failed to finish Dunes and another creepy
boring sad story. It was impossible, though, to continue reading the book while
Sam Guy watched the screenplay in my presence. I preferred the Tom and Jerry
movie but Sam guy never got it for me. It was simpler for my mind. My mind was
already in chaos. I needed to see a doctor; Three, I was told.
·
A physician to check all my body organs like Sam’s frequent medical
checkups.
·
A therapist to listen to my long stories or keep quiet and let me be for
most days.
·
A neurologist to draw human conclusion to why I behaved like I did, analysis
that will make the world more accepting towards me.
We will all die.
So, I choose not to see
any. Last I was in hospital I almost died. No one knew why. The physicians were
going to watch. I like to stay alive; life is good. my home was far much
better. Mama served me on her nice ceramic plates; my uncles were warmer. More
of my people were welcoming. I wanted to live more. Life was worth living. I
also wanted to show my boyfriend, Sam Guy, that I could do it. I was not as big
as an elephant, but I was as great as one of the big five, indigenous like the
cats of Savannah. Cats live long.
From the sleeping Yvi in
Lala lands, Atoto Atori had woken up long.
He could not avoid the
scrutiny of my eagle eyes.
Looking. Listening.
Learning.
He needed to move; he
was very big in my mind; Very big as the elephant in Tokyo.
I was experiencing his
city life. Nairobi city. The Gotham. A city that was once in the sun but is now
an icy world full of toys and humans to get by. Complaining about his place is
outwardly me being irresponsible, ungrateful, and not understanding the cost or
value of things, maybe even life. I did business at the bachelor level, but if
anything did not satisfy my needs, the cost and value of things were irrelevant
more like noise from the outside world; Yvi in Sam Guy’s land.
I was grateful to be
home and alive with a boyfriend who did not bother me. If he did, I was looking
for problems. He liked to stay away from problems. One of his problems was that
the house on the 12th floor needed to be more significant.
It was. Smaller than his
previous apartment.
He was either going
broke, was kicked out from his previous apartment or was waiting on a new
property to be completed, and that place was somewhere he had to pass the time
from.
The house was high in
the sky, with fewer rooms. We spend our days watching each other, really. The
big screen guy was no longer isolated in his home office that had an exit too,
but the third room was the tiniest room to be even considered as a room at all.
House cleaning spent hours in them between chores. I once had caught her
accidentally going through my pictures in the drawers. Sam's extra drawers had
to go in the third. One, by his bedside, was enough for his personal bedtime
stuff. The other was stashed with lots of files with personal records, An old
picture of mine and Ben Kirui's prints. I was more concerned with a portrait of
a brown lady on fire in my snooping around. I wanted to find her.
I did not understand his
motivation to have it. At least I had an idea as to why he no longer hung it.
It was with the same intentions that he was going to be away. A little
longer this time. I would have to learn
to be alone, just like when I left Steve. It was only when I had left Steve
that I met him. I was far anxious about whom I would meet after Sam Guy. I
never expected it to be J but I had a rough idea.
J exceeds my
expectation. He behaves like a bot but a human with blue eyes, similar to those
on Sam’s twitter profile. Mine are black. Sam's eyes, too; I don’t remember
much about Steve’s eyes.
J's hair is black, his
chest hair too. He has very short nails, and his right foot has traces of socks
or shoes. He sent me a picture of his foot was resting on a lovely,
jungle-green couch. It feels like leather on the eyes, but look softer. Not
very soft though, the right leg was resting on a yellow pillow. He was relaxing,
his socks off, feet on the couch, chatting with me, struggling to keep a
conversation without blowing his cover. He was pretending to be Hughes, a very
private person.
He mentioned that I was
public and he private.
Private was boring, but
the public was exhausting. One could not even blow their nose or pick their
ears without someone scrutinizing their human behaviors like a man on tics. I
was public, but only in my bedroom. It had everything I liked. There was a lot
I could do in my bedroom, less than I could do in Sam's bedroom on the 12th
floor.
I was drunk on day one,
on a Monday.
I got dressed up and
redid my hair on day two and wore his clothes.
I killed my phone on day
four as a new one got delivered from Amazon.
I overwatched the
unpacking of more Amazon gifts on Thursday as I watched The house of Dragon
I was lonely on Friday
and could not wait to catch my rusty bus back home on Saturday.
Does one ever enjoy
coming back from a trip? Why did I ever prefer his home to my bedroom, to begin
with? As I questioned myself, I never returned to the 12th floor. He moved to a
new place and we stopped talking altogether. We are content with our goodbyes.
Not a shame, NEVERTHELESS.
I got home and found
someone. The house was warm and the ambiance chilled.
“I want a full house Mvua, “ I had insisted. “ I can give my all
but can he? Money is easy to get by. I want a full house and I do not want to
be bothered by how much a spoon costs.” I wanted it all like life. Full of love
and laughter’s, laughs and adventures that would never end.
I had surveyed the 12th floor and I was certain where
everything was. It was rather perfectly small for me, only crowded and noisy
during the day. Not that noisy, we were far from the ground, the planes were
noisier than the streets. The house cleaning needed to clean my sheets during
the morning. She would collect any bio samples left of me from his bed and
replace the bed with a nice better and fresh sheets. I would go back to bed.
Continue sleeping. There was nothing I was ever going to do in my boyfriend
place and he knew that. I had told him that I would snoop around the whole
house and when I’m done like a cat I would sit down, keep quiet and sleep. On
that particular day, I could not sleep. The bedsheets were black and on one the
pillows had Dylan’s side. I was there to sleep, not worry about who Dylan was.
Actually, who was Dylan? why would his
or her name be in my boyfriends’ pillows-cases. It better be his kid’s. I shove
another bad vibe away
By the window, home was on
the other side, but I was grateful the sun still set in the west. The windows
were big and could open too. I could easily jump out of it if I wanted to and a
could pet birds for the window pane was wider enough to hold tiny little
plants. The room was very minimalistic. The room needed a portrait of a brown
lady on fire but there was a heater by the bedside. Winter was coming and I
hated the cold-blooded people, Sam was heating the room. It was a nice nest for
himself, it was far from the streets.
I had found the man that I wanted but something was amiss. Not
really, something was exactly like how I had imagined it to be. As soon as Sam
walked out of the door, I started my forensics. He had a doorbell, all
strangers needed to announce their arrival. He had moved from his private
office to the open space between the kitchen and the living area. Whatever he was going to do was under the
scrutiny of my keen eyes. It would be such a shame if he did not sat on his
chair. I was going to sit on it, later on, I thought.
At the doorbell, on your right as you entered were a nice set of
draws inside the walls. Sam had just replaced his shoe rack, a complete
collection of adidas custom design. He had been travelling, somewhere in the
mid-continent. He hated it here, back in Nairobi. He had seen the world, been
with people. He was an inspired man. I found him darker and more handsome. He
worked out and his new chair made his work tolerable to his body. He had lost a
few pounds and if power went out, like in the Highrise, a story by J. D, he
would manage 12 flights of stairs. He was a fit man and I had proved his
ability to control his breathe too. I was pleased.
I pulled out one of the drawers just by the doorway where he laid
his bag after work and found a picture of him and his workmates. None looked as
handsome as he. He would be the darkest man smiling. Next to the picture frame were notebooks.
Very many nice colorful books. Notebooks. Soon he would start writing and I
would start reading his thoughts. He was not a silent man; he was a man who
loved the company of his good thoughts. I turned around and picked my breakfast
that had been ordered from CJ and proceeded to lay on the new coaches. I liked
the new designs, they felt customed to the table.
However, an angel had left two black nails and broken waist beads
on my couch. Someone had been home before my arrival. She didn’t matter anyway,
if I could not see her, it was just my imagination. I picked the nails and put
them on the table, carefully laid her beads above the fridge. It the house
cleaning did not catch it; it would be such a shame that Sam saw it and
reminded him of her. A journey of three would be fun but I had to consider the
third traveler. An angel and his son. I left the couch and went to the kitchen.
There was still salt in his house, unopened, right like I had left
it. He ran out of tea and sugar, but he had groundnuts in the cupboard too. If
he went away and left me hungry, groundnuts would be the first thing I would
bake when I fall hungry. There was milk in the fridge, two sandwiches, one for
me and another for his brother. I didn’t need to cook the groundnuts after all.
Unlike the other counter that he had warned me would fall, this was black and
concrete. I hate a full sink. The house cleaning was still somewhere in the
bedroom. I was going to take my drugs and wash the dishes afterwards. That
would reduce the amount of time she spends in the house. She did a nice job.
Sam introduced him to me the first thing in the morning when he was about to
leave me alone in the house.
I heard him quickly taking a shower and dressing up. He wore his
long pants which meant he was leaving the house. I quickly got into my black
shorts, the ones that my sister left in the Denri travel bag Sam had bought me.
She had called me and asked if I had her pants, the black ones. They had
camouflaged and remained din my bag after she had borrowed it. I liked them. I
was going to wear them with a T-shirt Nabwile had given me at her grandfather’s
funeral. I would wear the black dress she wore to her boyfriend’s funeral
another day. It was too black. I found polka dots soaks from the lower drawer
and stepped out of the bedroom, meeting the eyes of the whole family. A strange
angel in the house.
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