The mission that wasn’t.

How did they get here? How did this happen?

They were such a perfect couple. She, with her ethereal beauty. Flawless golden skin, like immaculately vanished wood of the iroko tree. He, with his irreverent charm – it was about the only thing he had going for him. It was no movie perfect story, but one steeped in the brine of the real world, fraught with drama, punctuated by long periods of silence and countless break-ups. See they were equally proud, stubborn oafs they were. She would say ‘no’, just because she knew he wanted her to say ‘yes’. He would refuse her simplest request just because she expected him to oblige. But when they were in sync, oooh, it was like watching a cosmic reaction; you could not be in their presence without being consumed. They had eyes only for each other even in the most crowded room; they seemed to be locked in a pervasively sexual conversation when their eyes met, one devoid of inhibitions, one you were not privy to, a conversation no linguist could hope to understand.

Let us start from the beginning.

They had seen each other around the school campus. He was a first year. Hair unkempt one day, blow-dried into an afro the next. He didn’t have a care in the world. In fact, his sole intention for the four years he had to be confined in a campus was to sleep with every girl who would have the guts to step into his room- he aptly called it; ‘the hyenas lair’ for effect, and well, to make sure he never lost track of his four-year mission. He was slightly older than most of the other freshmen having left another institution of ‘higher learning’ before the one they were currently in. Brother had a huge chip on his shoulder. In his head he was well…the shit! He had a certain walk, perfected by years of mimicry and practise. Years of watching hip hop videos. A certain mind set, fashioned by reading countless stories of sex and violence. Moulded by the words of Robert Ludlum, Wilbur Smith and Jackie Collins. Campus was an unnecessary transition for him, a leg in a journey to riches and power, to fast cars and even faster women. So you see, he wanted to make sure he left his mark. His name to be mentioned in awed whispers, and tales of his conquests to be passed down the generations like the legend he intended to be.

She was a sophomore. She had an older boyfriend-well, perhaps a man friend, so the promises of young, immature schoolboy suitors were as empty as they were cheap. She was easily the prettiest girl on campus. Beauty magnified by the fact that she was so unassuming you wanted to punch her lights out just as much as you wanted to be with her with the lights out. She had no time for the pettiness of campus life. She had a friend, they we joined to the hip in that irritating can-she-just-be-alone-for-a-minute-so-I-can-talk-to-her way, so the guys would only muster some courage when they had imbibed cheap liquor, inevitably making even bigger fools of themselves. Campus was a transition for her as well. She had a life of fabulosity to live. A life of expensive designer clothes, trips around the world and expensive restaurants to go out and live. So you see, she could care less whether she was remembered in the dreary campus, she would make sure you remembered her later.

They officially met on a matatu from the rave. A cheap affair where you had to wait in the biting predawn cold after the club didn’t want you anymore, for the morning to come. Only then could you get a matatu back to school; drunk on cheap liquor-and stinking of it, tired, bleary eyed and broke. He and his group had already gotten into one when someone shouted, “Ngojea! Si wale ni wasee wa chuo?! Dere, ngojea!” He turned back thinking ‘Sa hawa ni mafala gani?’…and thank God nobody heard him, because the subsequent moments changed his life. He turned to curse the creature that was keeping him away from his thin mattress that promised heaven at this particular moment, and gulped. She was running towards them slightly staggering, but he could have sworn it was like marvelling at the grace of a gazelle in flight. She was in a yellow top, and bathed in the rays of the rising sun she literally glowed. Her whisky coloured skin seemed to soak the light and radiate it like a moon. The black jeans she had on did nothing to hide the seemingly endless legs that were striding drunkenly towards them. Despite his inebriated state, he felt a familiar tightening in his pants. She got in breathless, panting and a lump rose in his throat. She sat heavily next to him, her chest heaving from the exertion, her breasts rising with every inhalation. Her yellow skin was flushed-running drunk will do that to you, he caught his hand just in time, inches from her face…this had to be a mirage. He knew whatever happened; he would never forget that skin. And just like that, a week into his first year, he completely forgot about his mission.

She laughed at his jokes-perhaps it was the alcohol, but she did. Infectious laughter, it rose from the stomach and clutched at your heart. It was just the right timbre. Not too whiny like a skinny blonde cheerleaders’, not too deep that you wondered, no, just right. And it was easy talking to her, making her laugh like that over and over and over and over again became his new mission.

They became almost inseparable after that-at least he made sure they weren’t, but he could not help himself, he wanted to see that skin flushed again, wanted to keep hearing that laugh, and most of all, in the most beautifully perverse of ways, he wanted to own it-the skin, the laughter, the legs, the…everything! He wanted to make them his, wanted to flaunt them and make sure the whole world knew they were ‘his’.

Their budding relationship read like the script of a Mexican soap. Jealousy, revenge, passion, rumours…these were the themes of their young love novella. His friends teased him about spending so much time with a girl, ‘what happened to your mission?’ they would taunt. Her friends, well friend, questioned whether she was replacing her with him. Guys who got wasted with him avoided him now, ‘how dare he go where we failed?’ they would pose. Everyone wanted to talk to her now, to explain just how bad a choice she was making picking the most rotten of all the apples. Inevitably they let their pride get in the way, refusing to admit just how much they wanted to be with each other. Their hard-headedness well, prevented some hard hard truths from sinking in.

See, at the time, they did not want to meet halfway. Nobody was about to give ground, nobody was going to admit to the other just how right they were for each other, though they both knew it in the depths of their beings, though they both wanted each other with unbridled passion, they pretended they did not.

So, they broke up for the first time!

TO BE CONTINUED…

Mother!

She has lived for slightly over 55 years, give or take a few days…registration was rife with guesswork in those days. She grew up in a family of 8, well more, but inevitably some didn’t make it in that era of even more unreliable healthcare. She came in third.

She was raised by a P3-primary school teacher and an illiterate, wise ‘housewife’ in a village somewhere in the depths of the Coast province. Growing into a promising young woman with a devoutness that should have led her to a monastery for a life of servitude and prayer…but, perhaps in another life.

Originally slated to be a nurse, she, by some bizzare twist of her story, ended up an accountant…and a damn good one at that. Blessed with an annoyingly accurate attention for and to detail, it is rare you will get away with an indiscretion under her nose. Maturing into a young woman at a time of great promise, she quickly landed a job and begun to forge her own path in the world, to find her place in it.

In 1987 after some years of picking and dropping the bad apples, she landed her prince. A simple man, a good man, a self-made, generous man-but that is an ode for another day. The story of their courtship is not clear, perhaps it is a story they wish to preserve for themselves. And, in July of the same year, they were blessed with a baby boy, 2.9 kilograms. Came into the world bawling and clawing, calling for attention-he’ll probably leave the same way too. One year, six months later, another boy came, and they arrived in rapid succession after that-5 at the end of just over 7 years, 4 by the dreaded C-section! I know, the numbers are dizzying! I told you she was a brilliant accountant!

After 5 births, 4 C-sections, a history of high blood pressure and faced with a litter of 5 pesky boys to raise, she knew she had to bring her “a” game! And, at 5ft 3, her ‘A’ game had to come in bold upper case and a few pretentious asterixes to boot too. And by jove it’s a good game!

She is a simple woman. The kind that knows her place in the world. A woman who does not feel the need to stir the pot, or question the delicate balance that has put her at the place she is. She lives for her God, and her family. Every breath she takes is for that band of misfits, and for the unfathomable supernatural power-steeped in strict Catholic doctrine, that dictates her every action. They say faith is a gift, well…if it is, she received it in buckets!

She carries the curse of martyrs. Forced to suffer the agony of the realisation that that gift of faith is not one she can confer by genetics. But, she carries her curse, in stoic silence, never complaining, always praying. With such innocent devotion, that even the most stubborn agnost would grudgingly admire.

Her brood, as varied as they are, display a baffling emotional stuntedness that Freud is probably still turning in his grave over. And this, she has had to face and accept with her trademark resilience.

This is an ode to a rare woman. A woman ravaged by life, by it’s sadistic trials and unmerciful tribulations. But, one who refuses to yield. One who faces these trials and tribulations in determined silence, armed with the sword of faith, and covered by the wollen cloth of faith.

God bless you mother!

Of hearts and sleeves

I have a friend. Poor bastard wears his heart on his shabby sleeve like a fancy timepiece. He wants you to see it, he prays you do…and like a 5 year old girl, he sulks when you don’t. It’s sad really. But it’s eerily admirable. Like a boxer; eyes swolen shut, legs wobbly, barely able to stand, knocked down whenever he finds his feet, who keeps getting up, keeps raising his gloves. You don’t want to watch, but for the life of you, you cannot tear your eyes away.

 

So he trudges along the murky trenches of love with all the weapons and ammo in his meagre ‘armoury’ on display. And by some perverse, almost pitiful logic, he expects to vanquish more battle-hardened and experienced veterans. The idealistic bastard!

 

Now, my cynicism may mask the quiet admiration I have for him.

When many men prefer the pursuit of love a hunt, fraught with deception and wily trapping, he prefers to see it a walk to the promised land, with manna fallling from the heavens. The problem is; manna is bland, monotonous…unsavoury almost; while hunted bison teases your senses, it’s elusively intriguing…it never lasts, but you just cannot get enough of it.

 

So my friend walks an eternal optimists’ path. He professes undying love after three dates, plans a proposal after the fifth, and picks the kids names by the time he is paying the cheque.

 

He is however, not a desperate man, far from it. He does not cower and give up after another ‘failure to launch’, no! He shrugs his shoulders knowingly-like a short man reconciled with the afflictions of his curse, and quotes a famous poet I know, ‘on to the next one’,  and so, the trudge continues.

 

Like most of the non-conforming stalwarts of an increasingly pretentious race, my friend will eventually reach the proverbial promised land…and like the Israelites, the walls of scorn, skepticism and blithing cynicism will come down, and he will enter like the star he truly is.