Last night, I was a person of interest in a murder case. The whole incident scared the wits out of me because I kill small insects for fun – people who know me wouldn’t even have the privilege of saying “we know him, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.” And that, my good friends, would have thrown any lingering doubts of my innocence out of the window. It would further throw these lingering doubts down an abyss of oblivion if it were on a Monday or Thursday as they would meet manually propelled projectiles.
We (suspects) were filed into a room for
interrogation. It wasn’t really an interrogation but to take a lie detector test.
I knew it because I am a true crime enthusiast and I have watched numerous
documentaries where suspects are strapped with those strange-looking objects
that measure even the slightest change in your heartbeat, skin moisture and even
your thoughts.
I knew I would fail the test even though I
couldn’t identify the victim in a photo lineup. My heart would be beating like isukuti
drums when asked whether I killed the victim. I knew the machine would scream
‘liar’ upon which I might have been executed on the spot. You know how our
police work – kill suspects and find investigate later whether they were
criminals or not. It takes guts to be a criminal who does not even have an
ambition to vie for a political office. I don’t and the lie detector test would
definitely pronounce my guilt in a crime I did not even know the victim.
But strange things happen, as they tend to
happen in dreams. This was one of them. A mutura seller rescued me. He
entered the room and spilled his merchandise, angering a couple of cops idling
around the room. They clobbered him like nonsense, ignoring the fact that one
of his legs were shorter than the other. He ran away in a pitifully comical
way.
Instead of leaving him alone, the police
decided to have fun by giving a discernible head start, hopped into their
vehicle and gave chase. At this point, I stopped being a suspect and became an
observer in the ensuing slow police chase.
The limping mutura guy popped into a
chuom. One officer alighted and gave chase. Moments later, the officer
emerged from the chuom running for his dear life, followed closely by
the limping mutura guy had seemingly gained superhuman speed considering
his locomotive impediment.
I stood there wondering what was inside the
chuom. My curiosity was satisfied when I saw a monstrosity nibbling the
behind of a white guy emerge from the chuom, which had then turned into
a cave. Then I woke up from the nightmare.
As part of my mission to write something seemingly
intellectual (or lack thereof), I will teach you a very important life skill:
never ever deliberately forget your phone charger because you don’t want to
remove your shoes. Who would do that, you may ask rolling your eyes in a manner
that says ‘what is he saying?’
I’ll tell you who would do that. Me. I
belong to a long lineage of self-respecting men who do not subject themselves
to dull indignities of abiding by a sick and twisted tradition (by which I mean
invented by women) of removing shoes before entering a house. I’ll only do that
when entering a ‘shrine’ because the blessings from a ‘shrine’ are worth any
indignities.
Unlike you, a phone is not a valuable companion.
A simple click and your whereabouts are revealed. I am not a criminal, but as a
wannabe fugitive, that’s not something I would want. Being unreachable does not
bother me anymore. Your woman would still think you are busy shanking another
of her species even when you are in the ICU. While fighting for your life, you
will get a thousand messages insulting your very existence. Ptoh! Fear women.
I was told to remove my shoes. I squinted
at them closely because I almost bought them twice the price if the hawker
could hold them for me and I decidedly said, ‘ptoh! If I ‘remove’ them I am
dead.’ These shoes aren’t grand in any sense but they communicate to me a vital
lesson of survival: ‘good things might pass you by when you are not ready.’ And
then I again decidedly said, ‘a mere charger!!!” I wasn’t right in the head and
I was ready and off I left.
And now I have to use chargers that only
work at specific angles of elevation, 34.89 degrees Celsius, specific time of
day and probably its mood, which has veto power. It means if the charger is not
in the right mood, it won’t work even if you summon your ancestors in alphabetical
order. I hate this charger. It has a couple of sisters – I don’t know if
chargers identify as women but why not risk – who have also conspired with it.
One discharges and the other gives the following info ’66 hours till full.’ I
don’t desperately need a phone but waiting for a decade is a no.
In the meantime, I have to coax the working
charger, threaten to cheat with its other sisters, and chant libations at the
same time. But these chargers are goddamn resolute. It takes persistence,
patience and every other word ever conjured by motivational speakers such as
Atwoli.
My phone has to be on somehow, just in case
I receive those texts that say, ‘hey mom, nilipoteza calculator. Tuma pesa kwa
hii no. 008t3663545.’ These messages are close to those romantic messages you receive
when your purported woman has realized her ‘main’ is cheating on her with his ‘main’
and has officially promoted you to the ‘main.’ I dare not miss them because
there is nobody to miss these days. As such, there is no other viable option of
wasting Safaricom’s text messages I occasionally receive when I purchase data
bundles.
