GHOSTS WATCHING TV

Photo:Courtesy

He loved a life, where many sane people, even those who harboured the most-wicked intentions in their darkest of minds, would frown upon, and without imploring their own dark souls, conclusively declare him a Satan incarnate. Eric loved being on the periphery of things, wicked things, cheering bloodied bodies, headless human bodies freshly beheaded and most importantly the wail of people, deeply affected by the atrocities inflicted upon their loved ones. It sounded deeply romantic, and he enchanted, danced like he was hypnotized under the moonlight. He loved humans writhing in pain, he adored when they couldn’t take it anymore. He loved their stillness, their breathless bodies sprawled on the cold floor. He loved when they couldn’t protest anymore, the moment before plunging their damned souls into an abyss they called eternity, which to Muslims masked as heaven and the rest hell.

He kicked the bucket, like every other mortal, though with seriously obstinate hope that he’d live forever, that he would see the world end. But it wasn’t to be. Every passing day he got closer to his death, like a lover stalking and asking for a date. Sometimes he would think about him, after his mother warned him that he would be cursed by the Turkana’s whose kids he loved to bully/torture. That had sent a precedence of fear and he’d wake up in the middle of the night sweaty. There was no light to switch on, no electricity, except a paraffin lamp which always ended in his mother’s bedroom. One time he was too afraid that he slept in his mother’s bedroom, having been too scared to sleep alone. Then he was a young boy aged 10 and that was fifty years ago.

Eric now is immortal having conspired with evil underworld forces to return back to earth to haunt and act the hand of god. He had pleaded his case, of how it had ruined his childhood, robbed him of happiness and he had been chosen to return back to earth because of sympathy and because other aspirants of the envied role had been murderers before checking into the underworld. He had been coronated in one big ceremony, where human skulls and blood donned the place. Some were hoisted upon long thin sticks, some were laced with gold, silver depending on their seniority in the underworld. These were witnesses to his reincarnation as a ghost, who would roam the land of the living, and act the hand of God.

And he loved to roam, dear Eric. Sometimes for fun, sometimes to conduct prefeasibility studies. His ceaseless wanders, as the air, always took him to an apartment in Hurlinghum, called Mursik. He loved to visit house number A7, where he’d slip through the gate as silent as the wind, pass by the ever unconscious watchman and up the stairs. Sometimes the aroma of food would hit him and he’d wish to join the owners in partaking the meal. But then it would past mid night, maybe he would risk the ire of a fellow high ranking ghost. Protocol had to be strictly adhered to or else he would be cast among those who have been eternally damned-child rapists, sodomites, politicians, drug dealers and a few doctors. Those would never be reincarnated into anything beyond street mongrels, to be kicked about by everyone, and cursed by their own names. Then they will die a slow painful death and misery, and therefore, eternal damnation.

Eric rushes up the stairs with lightning speed to house number A7. Its 2 am in the morning, a time when everybody is asleep. The scantily furnished room, two single seater coaches, one three seater coach and a table. A small TV stands low at the corner. There’s a residual smell of cigarettes in the air. A newspaper spread is on the table, which had acted as the ash tray. He can also detect a faint smell of perfume, which leads him to conclude that a woman is in one of the rooms fulfilling a man’s most basic need-sex. He can hear the heaving, the sighs and the moans but that’s not what he is interested in. He just wants to pass time in front of this small JVC TV. He switches it on.

Previously someone had walked up to switch it off. Twice in fact. He heard him curse in his thoughts. The next day he switched of the sockets on the wall and he didn't have a reason to be there anymore. He didn’t want to leave finger prints on the wall. 

LATELY

Lately her words seem to point at affluence

Like how she just moved to a bigger house

A house she can’t afford since she’s jobless

Her survival isn’t just a mere fable but scientific

Lately she’s taken to taking mirror selfies

Ass first, ass the point of focus, she loves life

The many hashtags belie her peasant upbringing

A huge makeover, a sudden metamorphosis

There’s so much happiness in that sneering voice

Castigating my hustle, demeaning the man I am

The brain sometimes fails in outwitting the heart

And it works overtime to stay intact instead of leaving

Valentine ’s Day is steadily approaching

She’s hinting at nothing less than a Bomas Inn night out

Previously we would stay indoors and drink mursik

Lately she wants none of that, just champagne

Lately she’s hinted at her being miserable

At a place where it had become home

Out of the blues, Kipruto’s rickety car looks so beautiful

Even when we loved trekking, talking all the way

DO YOU?

Do you, in the stillness of the night, wonder

And crave a text or even a call from me

Do you wander to far off lands in daydreams?

With me in tow, plucking flower with abandon

Do you crave a moment of reckless abandon

Unhinged and without regrets at dawn

When you wake up beside me, entangled

Do you crave that smile that you’ll wake up to?

Do you crave that I crave you

Do you think about me in moments of solitude

Like I do often, like every time I breathe

Do you crave a poem, written for you?

Yes, I crave you in the stillness of the night

Indeed I see you often in my day dreams

I crave your touch and you lingering smile

And most of all I want you to crave me

Why I wouldn't want to date

Photo:Courtesy

She said I’d meet someone, she who would knock me off the apex of my loneliness or the craving of the same. For me it’s more about the craving to be alone, be reckless, sleep at whatever position I desire and most importantly lock the outside world from intruding into my sanctuary. Not so an exciting life but just worth the introvert in me.

A relationship has so much hassle in it. You won’t be able to repeat your socks, leave them wherever you want, sprawl dirty laundry however you feel. It has perks though, but with a price. The price is commitment and sometimes you pay with your own freedom. It constricts your life, fitting into a narrow prism of a woman’s mind, her stupid and nonsensical ideals, aimed at molding you into the man she wants. Shit, I don’t want that.

And her problems become your problems or at least expect you to be the super hero, chase after the villains and deliver her to a perceived heaven. Be it financial, emotional, physical (which you have to insist about her beauty every morning) and even political. She’ll tell you about all the problems she has had, what her mom has had, her father, brother, sister….pretty much everyone in the lineage of their family. When all has been said and done, you wonder what the F was it all about. Nothing changes.

Often, you must fit her into your schedule no matter how tight it is. You must check on her all the time. Woe unto you if you don’t. You aren't supposed to busy and more so broke. Where do you suppose money come from if we keep responding to your stupid texts? Then she goes to a broke guy with time in his hands, gets disappointed and leaps to the greener pastures, the octogenarian sponsors, staring at their graves.

Enter social media. She’ll ask why a certain girl keeps liking your mundane posts and photos. She’ll want to tell the entire world about how relationship is the best, the envy of everyone. She’ll advertise you, tagging you in everything she does. That’s the epitome of insecurity. We don’t need to be everywhere on social media. It’s a ‘keeping up with us’ kind of shit. Nobody has to know about how happy we are in the relationship, which, thankfully, research has disapproved, terming such kind of uncouth behaviour as that of a very unhappy couple seeking validation and approval from strangers online.

I love the peace of solitude. I love looking at my phone with pride, knowing there’s no girl in the entire world whom I am obligated to check from time to time. I love the peace that comes from not being involved in another’s problems. I love doing things the way I want it done, the way it pleases me. I love not the torment of being accused for something I haven’t done, just because she’s in love with me. Relationships just suck. Nothing but bunch of compounded problems. 

SHOULD I GET RICH

Should I get rich, and I feel it’s imminent

I will buy all the things I don’t need

So that others can also buy what they don’t need

Mind you, I will carry myself like a dignitary

When times of spending on a budget are over

I will traverse all the golf courses in the country

And overly indulge my soul in the boring game

Just because the rich can afford the swing

I will track down Vera Sidika, for heaven’s sake

Everybody thinks she has a million dollar vagina

I will make an attempt at it, not to hit it

But to turn over screenshots to desperate bloggers

Should get rich, and I feel it’s imminent

Judging from my unbridled love for sleep

I will vie for an elective post and steal form Kenyans

How they love people who steal from them

Should I get rich, just for fun and pleasure

I shall erect a giant middle finger statue

Next to my ex’s home, their front yard

To remind her of the zero fucks I give 

I SAW YOUR CRUSH

I saw your crush, the one named Lydia

She looked emaciated beyond Libya

There was no gleam in her eyes

The kind that lit up your thousand skies

She was with a pot bellied guy

A rich man at that, brand bags don’t lie

Mr. Price on the right, Chicken Inn on the left

Ah! How you were royally financially bereft!!

The thighs and ass that we obsessed over

It’s gone man, like it was overran by a land rover

In its place seemed to be patches of meat

Wobbly and, disgustingly, indiscrete

She doesn’t look anything like the video vixen

That graced your favorite song, Seventh Heaven

She walks like a ball of human flesh

It’s blasphemy to walk to her and say ‘Sasa mresh?’

THE DECEIT

Just as the world watched the greatest nation on earth inaugurate a racist, misogynistic, sexual predator and most importantly a braggart billionaire, Fiona too was inaugurating, or getting inaugurated into the cruel world of deceit, and worse, from the person who would be the last to abandon her. It’s during her hour of need that she’s thrown into an abyss of uncertainty and self-loathing. Her instincts are reduced to a single question; why me?

On the day she learnt that that her parents were no longer willing to pay her rent, she also learnt that her dear Eric was a dead beat father and a debt ravaged human mongrel. She had lent her entire savings to the man she trusted, the man she loved and the man she thought was overly and totally crazy about her. It’s not good to snoop around, it lets you into a treacherous trait of deceit from people you totally gave all your trust. The cover ups, the lies…damn the world.

She’s laid awake at nights the entire week, thinking and thinking about how all this could happen to her. Why does she attract bad guys? Why do they end up betraying her trust? These and many other questions walked briskly in her mind, with Trump-like carelessness and outright disregard to the virtue of trust and may be the biblical or whatever the phrase originated from, that we should treat people the way we wanted to be treated.

Sitting at Smothers Restaurant, Fiona would occasionally stare blankly, thought with intent and attention of a watch repair man, at nothing in particular. She’s pretty and has the potential of driving men crazy, a chauffeur without a car. But that isn’t a guarantee an upright man will walk into her life. Fiona sips her tea, it tastes salty. Her palate is rebelling against the tea. It’s here that she sees clearly the lies he often told, about having been bereaved, about his salary being delayed and how that sneaky bastard, whom she hates to admit that she deeply loves, could dupe her into digging into her savings, albeit little by little, until she depleted her coffers. After all, she thought, he’d get through tough times and they’d be happy together. That wasn’t to be.

Eric had had a major fight with Lisa, his baby mama, having spent the entire Christmas period with her. Fiona cringed at the thought of Eric spending her money buying diapers. The fight had made Lisa confiscate his phones as any woman would, when the man her man wasn’t providing for the kid, a three month old at that. Lisa had seen it all, alone. The cries the baby made at the time when was beginning to enjoy her sleep, a reprieve though temporary, from the thoughts that had eaten into beauty and weight. She no longer had the luxury of ‘pimping’ herself and she now looked like that gunia strapped on the back of a street man, collecting precious yet discarded materials. Lisa can’t remember the last she made her hair. She can’t remember the last time she looked beautiful. Motherhood eats into your time, your social life.

Lisa had gone through Eric’s phones and had found out about Fiona. She thought about how she was ‘eating’ her baby’s diaper money and most of all her man. As any woman would do, she had opted to call her to warn her or just to inform her of the man she was getting involved with. Lisa thought there’s no limit a man would go to if he can abandon his offspring. She informed Fiona of that, with the hope that Eric would see the light and man up to his responsibilities. But hope is a dangerous thing, it can kill a man for Fiona had no thought of breaking up with him. It’s also through that call from Lisa that she learned that Eric was/is a playboy, a man with who couldn’t keep protuberant tool under control, in the presence of a skirt. It’s also through the call that she learnt that Lisa fell pregnant accidentally, the usual crap. No one trips and falls on a dick, no, it takes consent. Lisa was just being reckless, hiding stupidity under the term ‘accident.’

It’s that call that informed Fiona the kind of man she was getting involved with. She was at crossroads. Her meager earnings as an intern wouldn’t sustain her. The rent would eat into her allowance leaving her with nothing. Her savings would have come in handy at times like this. She had gambled it with a man, although expecting the same amount back. It wasn’t too much a risk, was it? It’s not like those sport betting firms, at least she would have been assured of a profit or worse still lose everything. The worst is losing to man, her world, he pillar, her steady rock during storm and most of the man she immensely adored. She consoled herself that at least she isn’t pregnant with Eric’s baby, a playboy, in local terms an esteemed member of the infamous mafisi Sacco, though he’d be expelled once word got out that he had breached one among the many rules of this club of mongrels-borrowing money from a woman.

Fiona got out of Smothers Restaurant, and made her way to Koinange Street where she would dance part of her night away. It’s seven in the evening. Street lights give the city a serene look, a semblance of sunset. It’s somehow looked romantic. She crossed roads and streets, fearful that a reckless driver might knock her over. All she could think about was salsa. She loves salsa. It relieves her mind, makes her think clearly. She would forget about Eric for awhile, no, about the money she’d lose in the event Eric decides its worth more than the pussy he was getting. She would immerse herself in the steps, the swirling around and the kizomba music that played softly in that salsa only club. She regarded this place in the same manner a believer would to a church or the confession chamber. Here she’d find refuge.

As she descends down the stairs, into the basement, the location of her temporary refuge, Fiona’s mind can’t think of anything except how to recover her money, and possibly get back at Eric, mortally wounding is pride. She thinks of planting cameras in her bed sitter, to capture him on the throes of passion. She thinks of cheating on him on the same bed and making sure he knows about. With this thought, an easy one, because a pretty girl like her can never run short of admirers, who will be at her door upon a moment’s notice. But with all these men hovering around her she could afford to mess with this mongrel of a man in Eric.

She’s thinks of slashing his car tyres.  But then she doesn’t know if he truly won’t pay her money. He promised to at the end of the month, ten days to go. At midnight the dance was over. And she traced her way to her abode, and into her bed, that grew progressively colder every single day. She fell asleep too quickly, owing to the fatique. Last night she had left an event at 2 am in the morning, affording the fewest hours to sleep. She slept soundly.

WATCH OUT FOR PART II