When The Rain Stops

When the rains stops raining 

And you finally feel the sun shining 

Enjoy the the scene 

Toss everything into the bin 

All the extra baggage 

And let you skin bask in the sun's glory 

Dawn!

 Whatever the case, 

Dawn all announce its arrival, 

Never too late, and never early 

Yet its punctuality shall not be welcome, 

At least not today, 

For there are many things that need hidden 

Under the blanket of darkness 

But, dawn - the ever insolent dawn, 

Shall walk in without an iota of shame 

Stacking itself among many unwanted dawns 

As if it shall stand out - it thinks it is the only dawn 

That was thought of yesterday as tomorrow 

It is in for a rude shock 

It will cry in the toilet of history, 

Broken hearted, because it was rejected before it arrived 

Like an aborted fetus 

Dumped, and never to fulfill its dreams 

It had no dreams 

Metric Disconnect

 It was an incident that, thinking more about it now, would be the hallmark of tremendous disconnect between the education system and reality. I had been sent to buy nails, and as you know, nails – just like certain influential male organs – come in inches. Not millimeters. And certainly not centimeters. That would be grossly demeaning to nails and the organ, who may write nasty comments if you do so.

I was in high school at the time (and on holiday) and seeing that I didn’t have much to do except loaf time, it was deemed that I was fit to run the small errand to Flax Centre to purchase nails. There was a little construction project going on, and as constructions are wont, certain materials suddenly become sparse or are suddenly needed.

“Three inches,” they said even though I had heard the fundi say it. I hauled my juvenile self, neither with ambitions nor hurry. It seemed a minor inconvenience, but the prospect of keeping change acted as the only motivator. Also, the project had stalled because of the slight. The nails were needed in a hurry.

After three kilometres (where did those who use miles learn it from? Movies?) of walking, I was at the hardware. I asked for a kilo of three inch nails. The attendant weighed them, handed them to me, I paid and began the long walk back home. Even if they were not needed that day, I still would have gone back regardless, because there were no suave ways of idling back them. There were, but I was not good at them.

I got home and delivered them to the fundis. One quickly rummaged through and announced grimly, ‘it’s a girl.’ Just kidding. He said that I got the wrong nails…not the wrong nails actually – it’s not that there are yellow nails or nails za kienyeji – but the wrong inches. The inches were nearly double than they ones they wanted.

I think that must have been the only time I felt good when one of them acknowledged our ignorance in a way that detached responsibility from my actions. “These young people do not know anything,” they said as though distinguishing three and five inches required the same intellectual depth as neurosurgery. As far as they fundis were concerned my knowledge of important things such as inches competed favourably with mucus.

Even then, I was perfectly willing to correct the anomaly by trekking back three kilometres. However, the fundis showed tremendous fortitude by improvising. They were in a hurry to get the project done, hit a drinking den, and probably brag about how people like me were clueless about inches.

“I thought he was intelligent, but he brought six inches instead of three,” one will say amid an uproar of laughter.

“How can one not distinguish between an inch and two inches?” a fellow drunkard, well versed with matters inches, will as ask.

I am not ashamed to say that they answer to that question is me, and I have plenty of reasons to back it up. We never learnt about inches in primary school. I have no memory attached to inches back in primary. This is special because I spent most of my last years in primary school pensive and a nervous wreck converting milimetres to centimetres and to metres. And vice versa. At no point in my life did inches feature. I do not remember being whacked because I could not correctly convert from inches to any of those aforementioned metric terms.

Even then, if the guy who had sold me the nails knew what inches were, he could have given me the correct ones. I guess he was as clueless as me. Either that or he was desperate to make a sale. It is not really a one man’s blame. It is two.

If you think like I do, then you must be wondering why what is taught in school cannot be applied in real life. Even metric system yawa. You can excuse learning about the hypotenuse or trapezium, but not something as vital and life-giving – if you get my drift - as inches. Another stupid one is foot. I haven’t got the hang of it.  and miles too.

Every time someone uses metric terms I did not learn in school I feel like smacking them in the face to atone for the beatings I endured back in school. Trust me, there is nothing as torturous as the thought that all your years of schooling were up to nothing. It is even much worse if you spent a few years getting so scared of being wrong – a small wrong would earn you an unforgettable beating. It does not do justice to the moments spent tucking your hands between your legs, trembling and your teeth clattering every time you were in class. All that and you were not taught about inches?!!? Gerrarahia!!

What Now

 What's that step you take when gripped by grief

What do you do when you alight by Hopeless Town?

What do you do when you are on knees?

Unable to get up, unable to move on, 

Unable to reason, 

Unable to eat not for lack of appetite 

But for lack of food 

What do you do?

You are sick - you've been sick

where is redemption that they often promise people like?

or was your name struck off the list?

What now?

Tiny Dreamless World

 The tide, the slow ebb of sorrow 

Advanced upon us appearing as if swift 

Yet the signs were clear in the distance 

And our hopes in better tomorrow

Saw us ignore what was in plain sight 

We drunk...no we gulped our little water 

Obstinate in our refusal to accept reality 

And then it caught up with us 

Exploding on our faces like a big bang 

Splitting our dream into tiny dreamless world 

Tiny formless and desolate worlds 

And there is no whisper of the gods and angels 

Speaking life into it 

 

The Talkers

They have an endless well of stories

Upon which they draw,

Take a sip and regale another tale

I envy them

 

I envy how they easily strike a conversation

And it is with a person they just met!

And then they talk and talk

When you think it’s over, they start again

 

And they laugh! By God they laugh

How are they capable of telling jokes?

And tell more stories

From sunrise till sunset

 

And they will be at it again tomorrow

Talking as though they last met last decades ago

Where do they get fresh stories?

Where do they purchase them?

 

As for me, I struggle beyond the greetings

I am have no well to draw stories

Although sometimes I have one for insults

And as you know, these cannot be repeated

 

Sometimes I do not want to hear stories

I want to live in my silent world

Stuck not knowing a thing about that person

For gripping stories often involve other people

A Cow’s Leg Breaks

As darkness impalpably encroached the land, so did the cold. Scared of my transgression, which I was sure there was no way out except death, I hid behind a bush quite determinedly. It had been a fine afternoon until a cow sneaked into our farm, and began nibbling at the maize shoots that had just sprouted. I broke its leg. 

After the errant cow had been spotted, my sister and I went to drive it away. Just like all animals, cows are incredibly stupid and forget where or how they gained entry into a location. As a young boy with slightly above average intelligence, there was simply no way I could go an extra mile and drive an animal through gates, back to where it was. That would take a significant chunk off my idling time. As a result, my mantra was ‘you will go through where you came through!’

With characteristic vengeance, I uttered to the animal as we drove it off the farm:

“I will break your leg today!”

And break I did. I picked a rather large stone and hurled at the cow. We heard a cracking sound and the cow lay crumbled like a pack cards, and then lay still. We prodded it with sticks and it would not budge. It did try to rise but could not. It was such a grave sin that would not be bought with silence, and my sister quickly went to report me. I was at my wits end, not that I had any wits, but the little I had. There was no defense. You couldn’t just say ‘I didn’t know it could break its leg. 

When the evening came, children came to drive the animals back home to be milked. To their dismay, I imagine now, one of their cows was down. I was not there to witness whatever transpired. I wished there was a way I would melt and sip into the ground. Science had not invented such a thing back then. I had to contend various scenarios in my head, chief among them the fact that I had left mother cooking chapatis that day. I’ll miss chapatis, I remember thinking. 

Being a grave issue, it required the intervention of adults. That was scarier. Two adults talking in a conspiratorial manner? Well, that was doom, an Armageddon of sorts. Mother talked with them for an inordinately long time. By the time they were done, darkness had already settled, but I could see figures of animals being driven away. I thought I caught a glimpse of the injured animal, alive and well, having magically regained the use of its legs. It turned out to be a mere illusion, a mind playing tricks trying to make up an ideal scenario of a dire situation. 

I heard mother call me, assuring me that everything was okay. She lied of course. I emerged from my hiding, armed with all the guilt I could master. My sisters’ looks of pity could be translated to mean ‘at least it is not me.’ It is at this point that one of your siblings who had a grudge with you give you a thumbs up, one that ‘see how you like it! You thought it wouldn’t get to you huh?’

By a sheer stroke of luck, nothing happened. When I say nothing happened I mean I was not disciplined. The next day, I was ordered to stay home. My sisters went to school. Chebaon Primary School. Unable to move, the cow had to be fed. Talk of forced zero-grazing. I remember seeing water delivered to it. people came to witness the magic or the tragedy that had befallen me. I was still as a guilty as a sinner on judgment day. I had not been berated or admonished, a thing that increased my misery. I missed school.

The headmistress, a family friend came by later that day. A couple of adults, just as conspiratorial as they were, came by saw the still animal and left. A pick truck came by in the afternoon, and the poor animal was loaded into it. it drove away, and a part of the deepening misery had been solved. Father would solve the remaining part. It involved giving away one of our animals in compensation. The family had mourned, how the cow produced a lot of milk. At the time I downed it, it was being milked.

When I was finally cleared to go to school, I found out that a rumour had been spread, alleging that I broke the cow’s leg with a hoe’s handle. I hadn’t, I said. It was just a stone. A mere stone. People couldn’t believe that a ten-year-old boy would hurl a stone at such a high velocity that it would permanently immobilize an adult cow. It simply was impossible. ‘May be there was a hole somewhere,’ I heard one adult confiding to mother. The fete was simply beyond the powers of a ten-year-old, and my classmates and schoolmates a like could not wrap their heads around it.

And when father finally came home, he casually asked me what had transpired that day. There was no point in lying.

“I threw a stone at it,” I replied, knowing too well that he could spring at me and strangle me any minute. I took my chances.

“And are you proud of it?” he reduced his anger that simple question, a question that I couldn’t master an answer, even if I made an attempt at it.

Decades later, I discovered the same stone. How it felt round in my palm, carrying with it the same potency of a grenade. I should have put it among one of my sentimental collections, a vanity of sorts brought about the allure of civilizations. It could act like piece of art, reminding me of the time my childish might brought down a mighty cow. The best milk producing cow. Every time I see that family, the memory of the dear beloved cow give rise to temporary guilt.