If I’m found dead . . .

Dear Tyty, my lovely wife and best friend:

Now you have lowered your arm. I too have lowered mine. You were waving so frantically I was moved. I am sure somebody found something queer in the way we said goodbye. Hugging at the bus stop is not something that happens daily at the countryside, you know. Tyty, didn’t we even kiss? I’m sure that gesture is going to be controversial. But I don’t care less. As I watched you diminish while Nyamira Express moved me away from the stage, I felt philosophical. I felt like writing a poem about your bulging tummy. Hm, I’m eagerly waiting for our firstborn, and how I pray that it be a girl?

Dear Tyty, I have found it absolutely necessary to write you this. Something tells me that I might not come back. My journey from Kisii to Nairobi then to Mombasa and back might as well be my last journey on earth. Who knows; I might not even finish sending this message to your Facebook inbox before I expire. Sweet Tyty, I want to tell you who to point fingers at if I’m found dead.

If I’m found dead in this bus, blame it on the driver. He is driving the bus so recklessly I fear something untoward might happen. See, I am on the back-left seat; the seat I told you is my favourite because it makes me get new ideas to write about. As I tyPe tHis pa_rag.RapH on my laPtOp, tHe buS iS MoVViNg on a rRroUGh and BumPy strEtcH. I am suffering at the back seat because the ride is twice as rough. I pray that the driver will not ram us into trouble with this reckless driving on ‘holy’ potholes.

If all goes well in the bus, my delicious Tyty, I will be in Nairobi in about six hours. I plan to spend a week in Nairobi, collecting material for the novel I am working on. Right there in Nairobi (sometimes called the Great Nairobbery) I fear something will go wrong. If I’m found dead on the streets of Nairobi, blame it on stray bullets. You never know; fate might take me into the heart of a crossfire session. Or I might be a victim of mob justice. As you are aware, dear Tyty, I’m not a very street smart fellow. Someone might cry wolf and implicate me as the thief. So if I’m found dead with stones all over me like Naboth, blame it on mob psychology.

Over the weekend, I plan to go watch a Manchester United game to see how they will hit back after last week’s terrible defeat. Remember that night that I couldn’t eat, and you said that I kept mumbling “why always Balotelli?” in my sleep? My team had lost terribly. So I can’t afford to miss their next game. Yet I feel something might not go right in the place I shall be at. If I’m found dead at a pub or any other DStv   place, blame it on al Shabaab. As it happened on Sunday night, some weirdo might decide to throw a grenade at us. Unlike Bruno Mars, dear Tyty, I’m not good at catching grenades. So a grenade might claim my life.

If no threatening incident happens in Nairobi, I plan to go to Mombasa for another week. I will spend some time at my uncle’s, also collecting material for my novel. Yet I also fear something terrible my happen in Mombasa.  I might drown at the beach, be kidnapped, be shot or even be killed by the black magic that is said to abound in that coastal city. Honestly, I don’t know who to blame if I’m found dead in Mombasa. But you can also blame it on al Shabaab.

Yet if everything goes right, if nothing makes me encounter what the singers of The Band Perry call ‘the sharp knife of a short life’, I will be back home, dear Tyty. I’ll be back to get your massage and to eat your delicious food; to listen to your stories and hear you sing to me; to write a poem for you and about you; to love and to laugh.

Oops, I forgot: if I’m found dead before my two-week journey ends, blame it on missing you.

Sh¿t happens

Now, using the most advanced computer stimulation, we disclose what really happened to that man who pooped on his matrimonial bed on the night of his wedding.

Truly, disasters don’t just happen. They are a result of critical events that gradually build up and burst out when full blown.

Starting from A up to Z, we shall explain what happened to make the man poop so heavily on the night that everybody was watching on him. We shall also expose what his newly married bride did to contribute to the disaster.

Abel Mosioma Obara woke up in high spirits. The Saturday of June 11th 2011 would be his first day of going to bed with Callister Nyaboke Matagaro after tying the knot.

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science is what Mosioma’s degree boasted of. The 27-year old had found a job with KRA in 2008, a year after completing studies from Nairobi University.

Callister, who we must stress from the onset that she was a 25-year old virgin as at 11th June 2011, was a nurse.

Don’t forget that the wedding’s budget was a 7-figure affair.

Eleven a.m. found everybody in Amauko PAG; and we must stress that it was a heavily attended event.

Full to the brim (oh yes we have to use a cliché); Amauko PAG Church was full to the brim. By noon, you couldn’t find room to swing a cat in the newly-built church.

Go ye and fill the earth; that was the verse Reverend Samuel Bikundo read and preached about: Genesis 1:28.

Here is a brief on the bride and groom: Mosioma was in a very expensive grey tuxedo and Nyaboke sported a most enviable gown. The best man and maid were also magnificently dressed. Pomp was the in-word.

Immaculately dressed maidens contributed to making the day a memorable one.

Just to remind you, we are recounting what led to Mosioma’s embarrassing outpour on a very important night of his life.

Knowledge of these early events will help us unravel the mystery that threatened to put asunder what God had put together (FYI, Callister almost called it quits after Mosioma’s act).

Lest you forget, both the newly-weds were astute Christians who had not so much as touched each other throughout their four-month courtship.

Matrimonial vows were made, and soon the two were husband and wife.

No one had taken precaution that Mosioma was allergic to eggs. Problem number one.

Opacats Bakery, which made the out-of-this world wedding cake, used egg yolk alongside other ingredients to make it. Problem number two.

Problem number three is that Callister fed Mosioma some quite substantial chunks of that cake. People clapped and ululated and cheered.

Quagmire number four is that once he took anything with eggs in it, Mosioma would gradually develop a running stomach. They cut the cake, distributed it, received gifts and began the journey home.

Rolling the newly-weds towards their new home was a state-of-the-art limousine.

Spare a thought, please, for what was going on in the mind of each of the newly-weds – remember this would be the first night to do it!

Ten minutes past nine. Everybody went to sleep. The groom could now kiss the bride.

Uncensored details of what happened in the bedroom can’t be stated here for the sake of their privacy. But that is what made problem number five.

Verification complete, a little sleep was necessary.

When he threw himself to sleep after such a long day, Mosioma felt a sharp pain in his tummy but he ignored it. Problem number six.

X-rated is the only word that can describe the position in which the two slept: literally on each other. Problem number seven.

You might say he was more than too relaxed, or maybe too tired, for what Mosioma did of his bowels had never happened to him before; A disaster!

Zip up your mouths, all ye that have got this WikiLeak. Please don’t go gossiping about it. Sh¿t happens.

Brackets of Division

That is when you are made to realize that love doesn’t love everybody. That is when a grown man cries without onions in the vicinity and realizes that, deep inside, he is homo sapiens just like a woman, just like a child. That is when the softest spot of a man is touched; and how painful the touch? It is as painful as a wound festered. That is when nights turn into endless dins and days get blank, oh so blank.

The brackets of division come in and leave a man feel balkanized yet he is in a crowd. These detestable brackets of division hit you with a vengeance and they dent your body organs. Your heart suffers internal bleeding because it can’t understand how things can turn from warm to lukewarm to freezing cold. Your brain goes a-wander because it cannot comprehend how thoughts can race in it as if there is nothing else to think of. These brackets make you feel like a man long dead; a man excommunicated. They make you see things as the Backstreet Boys visualized them in their song, Incomplete: You are awake, but your world is half-asleep.

I damn hate these brackets of division.

When the person you love introduces the brackets of division in your relationship and starts playing fishy, better run for the hills before we hear of your suicide attempt. They might have been a bit too careless with F-words and all, but the Eminem-Lil’ Wayne duo strongly made that point in their song, No Love. Weezy gives a line to use: “Throw dirt on me; and grow a wild flower.”  Say that and walk away with temerity and resolution.

When your workmates subtly bring in brackets of division at your workplace just because they feel you are made of different material to theirs, make haste and quit before we read of a man found dead at some back alley.

When your neighbourhood installs the brackets of division and everybody carries a panga intent on killing anyone who is not of their tribe, better say your last prayers for your world will be about to reach its omega.

When your parents encircle you inside brackets of division and decide to leave you to learn worldly lessons the hard way, say not a word. Just walk on and hope the fourth commandment hasn’t been amended.

And when everybody else works with the brackets of division and pushes, presses, shoves, steps on and hits you when you are in a queue somewhere, wear a brave face. Fight on with the knowledge that natural selection has never been more pronounced on this earth. It is at its peak.

*     *     *

Hm, someone pat me on the back because I have freestyled using the first three concepts of BODMAS (NB: I used to be VEEERY poor in Maths).

If you count, I have managed to write 445 words, in seven minutes. Somebody give me a job and put an end to this useless writing . . .

What we'll tell our children about campus

Do you know the hard life we went through?

"Kijana, come here. Sit down.

Again what did you say has brought you back from campus?

Ati to greet us? Who told you we have missed you? This funny attachment of yours with your mother itaisha. OK?

Now, I know you have come to see those girls in the neighbourhood whom you have impregnated. My son is becoming a serial impregnator. Kijana I wish you knew how difficult life is. I'm told that you brag to those girls that 'kwetu tumeosa' so  that you get a quick access to their zippers. You don't have the smallest idea of how I, your father, struggled to get this wealth.

You know, young man, me I read in my days. In those days when reading was reading. Yaa, I read books. When university was university.

In our days, we could stay for months without even imagining of girls. Ask your mother here--I only met her in my fourth year. And, true to the gods, I never dreamt of her while I was a student. I only started having feelings when the giver of the powers to read announced that I would receive a First Class. Ask your mother; I had my first erection that day. First erection in 24 years. We were serious with books, not chasing panty-wearers all over campus.

I could go for a whole semester without imagining of touching a girl. Now you here, all you think of is touching every Nyasani, Bochere and Bikeri that crosses your path. I keep telling you kijana: You will die very badly; like a dog. Chinua Achebe says that the thing that kills a man starts as an appetite.

Yaa, do you know how broke we could get those days? Thank your stars your father understands that Helb money is insufficient and does shopping for you. In our days, my father thought that Helb was enough to pay fees, do shopping and survive with throughout the semester. I remember how I ate sukumawiki until they said I would die of sukukumosis, a disease caused by too much sukumawiki in one's bloodstream."

[To be continued . . . ]

It has never been easy being a writer

BUT, HONEY, I’M A WRITER

Honey, I long chose this career of daydreamers; a career so exacting, so slippery.

Forgive me when you find on paper some of the things we say and do. Everyone around me is my resource and I can’t help picking this and that. So please stop the “Na nisikupate umeandika hii” comments.

Bear with me when you find me aloof and unwilling to talk to you. Trust me; I am always having issues with the characters in the stories I write: Sometimes I am lost thinking what best I should do to a character –- let them continue being rude? Kill them? Make them pregnant? Infect them with some disease? So, you might find me boring at times.

When I shall have written something that no critic will like, please be there to comfort me. An artist is like any fashion icon trying out a new clothing item; (s)he never knows how the masses will receive it.  

When I come home complaining about editors who have spiked my work, please offer me a shoulder to cry on. Be there to assure me that rejections are part of the deal and always remind me of that story of a tree and its seeds -- a tree produces thousands of seeds but only a few manage to germinate into other trees. So is a writer and the articles he writes.

Above all, dear, be the first to read my writings and to correct them. I trust you to spot the mistakes that the speed of my muse makes me overlook.

This is a love letter

When I called you late last night

My phone’s call log has it: Last night at 11.55 I did call you. The call lasted 1 minute and 18 seconds.

You sounded yawny, hswswaffy, scroggy, groggy, soggy, toggy, moggy, foggy, shrfrugggy. Sorry for waking you up. Well, sleeping dogs should be left to lie; except when the sleeping dog is your betrothed sleeping miles away from you. Your responses were “OK, OK, same, OK, same, same, OK.” I was almost thinking you were with somebody in bed; some other man that is. I was almost tempting you to say my name and say “Baby I love you” a la Destiny’s Child. But you are not a naughty girl, ama?

Now let me tell you why I called you late last night.

I called you to feel alive. The day had harassed and crucified me so fervently I felt I had to talk to the one person among the few who might cry with sincerity when I die. With that gassy and puffy “Hallo” you said, all my troubles were shoved aside and I was alive again.

I called you, honey, so I could feel loved. I had met a couple hugging outside our residence as I came from buying vegetables. The embrace made me so, so jealous and I had to communicate to the one who has the mandate; the monopoly to give me such comfy. With that “OK, same, same” you uttered, I felt so loved; so important.

I called you for emotional healing. I don’t know why yesterday’s episode of In the Name of Love made me so charged up. It made me keep having fantasies and I felt the best way I could dispose of them was to call my beloved. With that chuckle you produced when I made the Cassidy joke that you are almost as cute as me, I felt like the main-most character in life’s biggest soap opera.

I called you because of a song. Mark Antony’s song, You Sang to Me, is still my ringtone mind you. I listen to it every other hour. My phone and its earphones haven’t complained so I guess I should still like the song. The jamaa’s voice as he says that he called his love late last night for comfort just appeals to me. Funny how humans’ experiences can sometimes resemble. You know what, as you churned those half-asleep, half-intelligible, half-romantic OKs and sames, you sang to me. O honey, you sang to me.  

I called you out of insomnia. Sleep doesn’t come easy to me nowadays, perhaps because I have too many thoughts, too many responsibilities, too many assignments. The most lulling thing to me of late is your sassy voice. So, for the one minute and 18 seconds you groggled and sroggled and smuffffed and rthussshed, you ad lib’ed a sweeter lullaby that Celine Dion’s. And how soundly I slept afterwards!

I called last night to ask the Abba question, “Why can anyone feel so lonely?” . . .

Elvis Ondieki, all the way from Moi University

This is how Moi University knows Elvis Ondieki

Ukiona ‘…’, ujaze na ‘-vo’

Kabla tuende mbali, jina langu ni El…

Ninasoma Skul of Artz, Literature nd’o changu kiti…

Tunachambuaga ma play, ma poem pamoja na ma no…

Lecturers wangu ni ka Mbova, Amuva, Mugarivi na Buso…

Stylistic devices zetu ni ka repetivo, alliteravo, tongue-twivo na ma pro…

Tunasoma Chinua Achevo, Francis Imbuvo na hata Ngugi wa Thio…

Themes tunaangalia ni ka opprevo, corrapvo, familivo na immora…

First Class nayo sitapata, juu niko na ma C zaidi ya ngo…

Aki lit kazi mingi, inabidi uvute sigavo ama utumie ve…

By the way, ikifika Vision 2030 nitakuwa naendesha vol…

Wengine by then mtakuwa mmekutwa vitu na mzee ki…

Yaani, mtakuwa mmededi ka yule first martyr, ambaye alikuwa Sti…

Hiyo time nitakuwa bizze, matanga yenu msingoje my arrai..

Nitakuwa waks niki operatia Nairobi na Antananari…

Pole, hope tutaonana Mbinguvo; tukibonga na Yevo Krisvo tukikula matu…

Fesbuvo dot kom itakuwa huko Mbinguvo, na ma modem kiba…

Tutakuwa tunafesbuku bila kuzi crack kwa netwak Yuvo, Zainvo, Orenvo au Safan…

Tutapewa laptovo za sare na stima amba…

Coil na stand za sare tutapewa za kuchemsha matu…

@ Kevo, Mbinguvo hakuna kuwatch ngwaty ama zile zako mauji…

Tutaangalia kina Shusho na Bahati Bukuvo  na Emmy Kosgevo na Emachi…

This Ne-Yo's song can help someone!

Helpful song to all male players – Lonely by Ne-Yo

Who said having many girlfriends is fun? Well, it is a good and brain-exercising adventure – till the proverbial forty days of a thief act against you. Then your life will be one terrible quicksand because the ones you have been smooth operating on will begin walking out of your life, one by one. They can even exit all at once, and you can be sure to have your heart not just broken but crushed. It all depends on how you were discovered. 

But you will reckon that, even though you can have as many lovers as can make King Mswati envious, there will be a special one who has a permanent impact on your life; one who gets etched deep into your memory. Strangely, your love for her gets stronger after she has left you. If you have such a girl in mind, dedicate this song to her. Titled Lonely, it is a 4.41-minute song off Ne-Yo’s 2007 Because of You album. 

Lonely is a song sung to create the real essence of loneliness. Ne-Yo’s genius plus the beats merge to create a really ‘lonely’ song. The persona informs us he is awake at 4 am; in a taxi.  He has instructed the driver to just drive – to nowhere in particular. Even more pitiable is the fact that he is lurched at the backseat, writing on the fog forming on the cab window. 

The chorus is delivered in a haunting manner. He says he is feeling “Y-L-E-N-O-L, as I roll past you in this taxi cab / If you care at all, that means I’m lonely.” That communicates to us that he is passing nearby the gone lover’s residence in that taxi. To me, that is a sign of utter craving.

The persona further describes how he envies a certain couple he sees strolling into a bar, hand-in-hand. He poses: “There’s a couple of different people I could call right now / But the one I’m wanting don’t want ne at all right now.” Those lines reveal to us the fact that he has several girls at his disposal, though this one haunts him most.

I once overheard an adviser on love issues say that dudes with poetic mileage score highly with the dudettes. In the same vein, this song is guaranteed to win any lady over, for it makes use of witty poetics as the persona describes his state of mind to his runaway sweetheart. Sample this: “What am I supposed to do now? / Rolling around, feeling like a fool now / Cryin’ like a b* in . . .” These, to me, are meant to create a more desperate picture of him; and that will call for more sympathies. How clever! I think such are the mistari people use to be polygamous.

Dedicating Lonely communicates two things to her: (a) that you are not yourself without her presence (because she is the one who makes you feel most complete), and (b) that, however unfaithful you may seem, she is the one who takes the lion’s share of your heart. Human beings like it when they know they are driving others nuts and this song could earn you a wowing number of points (!) 

However, dedicating it also epitomizes the African man in you – unapologetic to say the least. The persona was discovered having affairs with Chanel, Tiffany, Tracy and Stephanie (listed in stanza 1). This made the girl go away. Regardless, he is not directly expressing that he is sorry. He just says he is ‘YLENOL’, i.e.  ‘LONELY’ reversed, period. Things about remorse and regret aren’t mentioned here. He even admits that he can call several other people at that moment. How African!

Loneliness and being deserted are feelings that have informed a number of songs by various artistes, among them Akon (Lonely), Mariah Carey (We Belong Together), Backstreet Boys (Incomplete), Westlife (My Love), etc. Closer home, we have Sanaa with Najuta and Matonya with Anita.

Why I love the song His Mistakes by Usher Raymond

Usher’s His Mistakes: for a lady acting lukewarm over the wrongs of her ex

Here is a song that speaks out for those guys who don’t have the guts to say enough is enough to the clumsiness of their newly found girlfriends. It is His Mistakes by Usher, off his 2008 Here I Stand album. 4 minutes and 59 seconds long, the song has a powerful message for that lady trying to tire you. It will advise her to stop comparing you to her ex, while at the same time echoing the element of you being loving, accommodating and caring. 

Sample the paradox in these chorus lines: “I love you, girl, but I refuse to stay / Paying for his mistakes.” The persona is willing to call it quits if his new catch continues being overprotective just because her ex inflicted upon her an unforgettable heartbreak. But he insists that he loves her and is willing to do anything to prove it. Thus he says in the chorus: “I’ll do anything to prove I love you / Baby girl but I refuse to / Pay for something I didn’t do . . .”

True, a heartbroken lady will always be riding by the ‘once bitten twice shy’ adage. But why should the guy who comes next be the one to suffer? Why should an innocent bloke who has made a catch be trapped in a catch 22 while he should be focusing on a bright future?

Any guy who has ever hooked up with a chick on a rebound will concur that the initial phases of the relationship are not the rosiest of moments. She is ever suspicious, overly cautious, negative about men in general and is, on end, not so interesting to be with.

To add insult to injury, some even begin telling you how well-behaved the ex was when he was at the same stage of the relationship as the one you are in. Such responses as, “Even him he used to take me out whenever I wanted to . . . even him he always said he would like to marry me . . .” are commonplace. Eventually you look like somebody who is committing some sort of crime by falling in love.

The persona in the song captures the aspect of unfair comparison by stating in stanza two: “Just because he did [leave a scar on your heart] / You swear I’m cheating / You think I just don’t care . . .” A line in the song that depicts the element of tiredness says in the chorus, “Always guilty before the sin / I can’t win, no I can’t win.”

Sure, one can’t score much when guilt defines every other thing one does. Determination to let bygones be bygones on the side of the guy is highlighted by posing in stanza two again, “Don’t let his wrongs to tear us apart / ’Cause girl I’m your man.” A more radical statement is made at the bridge of the song: “I know he did you wrong / But tell me what does that / Have to do with me?”

If you happen to be facing a similar situation to the persona’s, don’t hesitate to dedicate the song to her. Who knows, it might make her realise how overbearing she has been and that you are ready to part with her if she stops being haunted by the shadow of her errant ex. And that might iron things out.

The song is also a befitting dedication to that lady who is quick to rush into another man’s arms too soon after parting with her boyfriend. Psychologists advise that a break-up ought to be followed by a ‘holiday’ which one should spend picking up their pieces. If she goes too fast into another relationship, chances are high that the ex blues are still lingering upon her — and she will most definitely be doing an unhealthy comparison between the present and the past boyfie.