The Angry Teacher

She was a nightmare. I do not know why, exactly, but she used to send shivers down my young spine. We were in class two. And every morning we secretly prayed she never showed up to teach. And of course, our relationship with god was at its infancy, therefore unanswered.

Every morning, whispers ‘she’s coming’ would rent the classroom and we’d all peep through the window to confirm. I guess seeing is believing. Mrs. Chirchir would be ambling across the field in pace that made us extra tense as we tried to welcome the impending doom.

The mere act of crossing the field taught us two things: that whatever is abominable for us was perfectly acceptable for adults. Taking a detour across the field was akin to insulting the king. I guess it was an early lesson, which we did not get, that adults can do whatever they want.  

I didn’t like Mrs. Chirchir at all. She had two children, a boy and a girl. They were two really annoying children. I think they intentionally chokozad others and if you lay a finger on them or even act like it, you’d encounter the rath of their mother. We kept our distance, leaving the kids to annoy themselves. And they often fought, with the boy, being younger, was more ferocious than an accosted lion.

Mrs. Chirchir did not do me anything to me of note. Except I lived in mortal fear of her. One day, she came to class surreptitiously and found me talking with my desk mate Edu. We were doing our assignments and Edu was apparently copying from me and I was letting him know about it.

“Ati unanionea hii!!” I said within Mrs. Chhirchir’s earshot.

“Kumbe unaongeanga ivo?” She asked. At the time, I knew hell had broken loose. I knew I would be turned into mince meat. But she didn’t. she let it slide but that simple act did not make me like her at all.

Fridays were hellish days for us. This was the day we’d be asked to fetch fresh cow dung from a neighbor to improve the aesthetics of our classroom floor. It wasn’t’ cemented. It was hellish for us boys because it was an indignifying chore. It was emasculating and the woman in Mrs. Chirchir used that opportunity to diminish our manhood – it wasn’t that advanced but it was manhood nevertheless.

Sore From Too Much Thinking

there will come a point 

you can't write anymore 

your head will be sore 

from thinking too much 

of life, and all the things 

foisted upon us 

and everything is akin to 

to living through a punishment. 

A Bright Day

It is a bright day today 

Good tidings are on the way 

There isn't much to say

Except bow down and pray 

The nagging thought still exist 

Somehow we haven't kept abreast 

So many have ticked their wish list 

Yet we haven't visited the priest 

It is a good day to dream once more 

We've knocked so many a door 

But we are wiser now, unlike days of yore 

It is a bright day, we can dream more 

No Future

When you think really deeply, there is nothing like future. Of course, if you discount Future Fambo, and Future the rapper. But today, I am incapable of thinking really deeply. I’ll offer a superficial analysis of my hypothesis on why there is nothing like future.

It dawned on me, and I am quite astounded, that I am really old. Somewhere along the highway of sweet twenties, I got waylaid by some aliens who convinced me that growing up stopped at 20+x years. It could be a nice way to live if you had oil wells pumping under your armpits. The stench would be bearable to the fairer gender.

20+x years imprints a fatalistic here-and-now mentality. At this age, the future does not exist. There is nothing like a month from now. A year from now? We’ll be probably dead after consuming mercury-laced sugar if not OD.

After Y years have elapsed, the bubble might burst suddenly or gradually. It can be sudden when you go back to the village and that small boy who used to ask you stupid questions as young children are wont, is married with two children. And the wife is probably hot, too, if round off motherhood to the nearest 18 years.

And the little champ has built a house!! It might not be that grand per say, but it is his house. He can wake up and demolish it and no one would give him shit. We would think he is mad though even if it is his own house, built with his own money. And he probably has an old rickety motorbike that would give you tetanus or marasmus – whichever comes first. But damn it! It’s his motorbike, bought with is own sweat and blood.

And then there is you, stuck at 20+x years with a bunch of diplomas and degrees, and a whacky philosophy about life and everything that makes it throb. Whacky here means contrary to popular belief, that is, politics, social, and financial. And religion.

Back to future. It only exists because you decide not to live now. For instance, you could make a little money and decide to postpone spending it now. You willfully deny yourself pleasure to spend it at a later now, which if think closely, will still be now. You will never be alive in a future, you are only alive now, at this present, and one breath, one heartbeat, and one second at a time.

But then if you think like this, you will stagnate and turn murky and greenish like stagnant water.

Where You Can't Afford Sentimentalism

when you wash ashore 

alone, and lost in an island 

you will not care anymore 

about who should hold your hand 

you will not be sentimental 

feelings will be replaced by survival instincts 

you will revert to the natural 

living within the new precincts

and when nights sail by 

no more thoughts of unrequited love 

when night creatures prowl nearby 

you'd only wish you lived above