kyalosblog

[kyalosblog]

One thing I've learnt is not to interfere with the business of people who are having

"There's just something wrong with heterosexual relationships." Slimy Joe said as we walked. "I mean, there's this demonic presence that you can spot in people who are in a heterosexual relationship. This sense of intense pride as if they've succeeded in something few people could do."

"Are you coming out?" I asked because it sounded like he was coming out of the closet. I suddenly felt worried at what to do incase he was coming out. Do I congratulate him? Or do I pat his back? Patting his back felt like it'd imply something negative because of all the bareback stuff.

We were heading over to Big Tim's who was the only person with a DSTV where we could watch the football matches of the day like a bunch unemployed heretics would do. The sun was out and people were walking about fast as if there was a deadline for something Slimy Joe and me didn't know of.

"I'm not gay. But I understand the plight of the LGBTQ, they are the common hunted, those who are deemed ubnormal stand out and are purged by that demonic presence heterosexuals have." Slimy Joe said. He always had this way of speaking like he'd been to Havard and not Kithingiri University.

"Say isn't that Big Tim's girlfriend with that guy?" Slimy Joe said and pointed. I followed his index finger and indeed it was Big Tim's girlfriend, Maria. I wondered whether we should go and greet her and suddenly found myself hoping it won't be something we'll have to do.

The guy she was with looked cool. Like movie actor cool. And I thought it odd that they were holding hands being that Maria was the love of Big Tim's life. Then something shocking happened, Maria kissed the guy. There in the middle of the streets with no shame, as if they were in New York instead of Nyandarua.

I turned to Slimy Joe and found his mouth agape. "What the fuck?" He spoke my mind. "We should do something!"

Do what? I wanted to ask. Go and kiss them? One thing I've learnt is not to interfere with the business of people who are having sex.

"We are going to Big Tim's to watch football." I told Slimy Joe. "This is none of our business."

"But.. But that Guy!"

"Is she your girlfriend?"

"No but Big Tim!"

"Do you participate in sexual acts with them?" I asked Slimy Joe who just parted and closed his mouth like a fish. "This is none of our business. We stay out of it. We're going to Big Tim's to watch football. Not a word about this to him." Which goes to show how activity oriented I am over snitching.

And so we went and found Big Tim in a vibrant mood, he wore a white singlet and shorts, the games were already going on and he handed us two beers.

"How's the going Big Tim?" Slimy Joe asked while making himself comfortable on the couch. I chose the chair.

"Well Slimy." Big Tim started. "You know how you once told me that heterosexuals have demons?" I rolled my eyes. Slimy Joe nodded. "Well, I am here today, as a living testimony of the opposite of your beliefs. Heterosexual relationships are the work of angels. I consider myself blessed beyond anything."

"You found another girl?" Slimy Joe asked while smiling. I glared at him.

"What do you mean another girl?" Big Tim sat on the couch beside Slimy and took a sip of his beer. "I am in love with Maria. She is the apple of my eye. The very breath of my lungs. I am in love boys goddammit! In love and proud and without a fear in the world."

I scoffed and earned their attention.

"And so the doubter scoffs. The one without a beat to his heart, the one who claims to be dead inside. Incapable of feeling let alone gleaming what a wonder love is." Big Tim started. And that's the thing about him that I disliked. How he never stopped, how it always went on and on. He is in love! We get it! Why do you have to wrap yourself up in tinfoil and pour glitter on yourself to catch our attention. "Let me tell you something Junior. Time goes by, in future you'll be an old pale man, wrinkled skin and brittle bones and you'll sleep alone in a bed and wonder why you never chose the path I trod on—" God he wasn't shutting up!

"We saw Maria kissing some guy on our way here." I said. Pour the gasoline then light the match. Big Tim turned to Slimy Joe who chocked on his beer as he nodded.

"Yeah. She was really kissing him hard. Tongue and everything, like in the movies." Slimy said.

"Yeah..." I started. "Soooooo..." I turned to either of them smiling. "That's that."

Big Tim hurled his beer at the TV. Smashing the screen that we had come all the way to watch. He started sobbing hysterically and punched Slimy Joe right in the face before flinging the TV remote at me. Slimy Joe and I ran for our lives, screaming all the while. He chased us. The bastard chased us.

"We just delivered the news why does the bastard chase us!" I asked aloud while on full sprint.

"He has gone mad!" Slimy Joe said.

We ran for quite a while and every time we looked back, Big Tim was running towards us in that white singlet vest and shorts. He chased us for quite a while before he started throwing rocks. And I understood again why you should never interfere with the business of people having sex.

[kyalosblog]

Every word she speaks is fire.

Sunken eyes, lines beneath the lower lids, face bruised from too much rubbing, a mouth dry from a lack of kisses and a heart weary from ceaseless beating.

I take a stroll, pointless as all things are and as I walk I think, as if the steady movement of thought from one mundane chain leading to another might offer some temporary respite and from this an epiphany might be gleamed that might change my life, give color to all this grey like a dark cloud parting to reveal a brilliant sun.

I think about songs that I've never heard and will never hear because their singers didn't make them for me. I think about French films I can't understand and how beautiful it would be if I could direct a French film without needing to know French. I think I can do it, as one can do anything if they imagine it. It's all nonsense though. The mind weaves through nonsense as one foot pushes before the other. I think about horses and wonder whether they mate for life and I think about lobsters who most certainly do.

The thoughts are a spiral, ever tightening, never ending. A cold wind beats against my coat and I wonder what it'd feel like to be naked. I pull the reins on the train of thought as it borders on madness; a foe I know all too well about. I want silence within my mind, like the old men with bent backs and white beards preach in their mantras while holding beads and bowing bald pates in their monasteries. Those old men who believe staying away from women and nurturing a life of silence as the only answer to the deafening screams of the mind.

My feet come to a halt. I feel it then, something within that stirs like a leviathan waking from sleep in the depths of my conscience. This urge to rage and burn like a clear sky suddenly set ablaze, white clouds becoming ash and the clear blue transforming into tongues of flame that lick... And lick... And lick.

"I've seen you before." A woman speaks from behind me. I turn, slowly as if frightful of her being a mirage.

She wears a red shirt and black trousers, her hair is long and held back in a bun. I might have passed her while I was contemplating existence and my need to be free of it. She doesn't wear a coat despite the cold.

"Aren't you cold?" I asked her and immediately felt as if I'd trespassed. As if it wasn't my job to determine whether she was cold or not.

"Are you going to give me your coat?" She asked with a smile, revealing tiny white teeth. Her question brings on the previous thought of nakedness and her eyes gleam with the faint touch of madness.

"No." I said.

"Then why ask if I'm cold? It appears we're walking in the same direction, might as well walk together. Solitude can be a damning thing." She said and motioned for us to match strides.

Her shoulders push back, chest out. Each step a cross of a leg before the other as if tracing a line. I am made aware of this fluidity in her motion, as if pouring from one moment to the next and I feel sad that such a sight won't grace my eyes for longer than this walk.

"Where have you seen me before?" I asked.

"There's this building in town, I saw you smoking outside it. Right there in public as if you had no care in the world. As if you didn't give a damn who saw you or what they'd say." She answered.

"Yeah." That's all I could master. It did seem like something I'd do, it also felt like she was forcing me to relive a past I was no longer aware of. I suddenly wanted to walk alone, without her by my side.

"I wish I was like you." She said.

And my coat suddenly felt hot and a thin sweat sheathed my brow.

"I wish I was fearless, carefree. Someone who cares little about what others think. Someone who lives life according to their own understanding of it and not what others claim it to be." She pushed on and it felt like sweat was trickling down my back and the cold wind no longer beat at my coat and my steps were suddenly hurried as if I could somehow outpace her and leave her behind with her  perceptions of me that felt like flames.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" She asked. "We've reached my destination." And she pointed to another road branching from the main road we were on.

I stopped and stared at her. This furnace of a person who focuses every word like a magnifying glass beneath the sun rays until her every word burns.

"No." I answered and walked away fast

[kyalosblog]

The View from the roof of the Aubrey Plaza.

I don't know why I went to the roof of the Aubrey Plaza but there are reasons and plans unseen to us that often point to the likelihood of a higher power. It was there that I found a man standing, overlooking the town. There weren't any railings and his feet were very close to the edge.

Somebody normal would have had the idea 'Suicide!' but I'm not normal. I went to the man and got out a cigarette from my coat. Started patting my coat for a lighter and came up empty.

"Hey!" I said to the chap. "Hey do you have a lighter?"

"No." He answered.

"Damn. Things never seem to go my way." I said and sat on the edge of the roof of the Aubrey Plaza with my legs dangling over emptiness

"Things never seem to go my way too." The Stranger said and I felt a kinship with him. As if the celestial bodies that governed the universe had created me and him from the same fabric of existence.

"The other day I was watching the news and a story came up about a guy who'd killed his wife and chopped her up into little pieces and he was in the process of transferring her body to a dumpsite when he was apprehended by the police who were curious about him and what he carried in the bucket he had in hand." I said. "You know, I thought about that guy and his situation, specifically about how he got caught and I found myself harboring this immense certainty that if I was in the same shoes as him I'd have been caught too. I mean, what are the odds of bumping into cops while transferring a body?"

"The odds are very low." He answered.

"And then I thought about what kind of thing would lead a man to chop his wife into tiny pieces? Like, what level of hatred or rather anger can push a man to go that far?"

"You'd be surprised what people can do out of pain."

"Pain huh? Don't like that emotion at all. Pain is better if it's a flesh wound, something you can see and feel and know exactly where it is. You can apply ointment to it or massage it with hot water. But emotional pain? Where can you massage that? It's like there's a wave of agony spreading all over you. From the tip of your head to the sole of your feet. And your thoughts mirror your emotions and images are painted that just renew the pain time and time again." I spat and watched the spit drop all the way to the ground. We were about five storeys above ground. "I hate pain." I concluded.

"Does it make you angry?" He asked.

"It makes me scared. Afraid of settling within my own skin. The mere thought of emotional pain makes me want to run in the opposite direction bare handed. Leaving everything I own behind." I said.

"I see." He answered. I looked up and found that the man was crying, thin streaks of tears marring his face. I suddenly became aware of where we were and what our conversation had just been.

"Why are you crying?" I asked.

"I'm just tired is all."

"Been a rough day?"

"A rough couple of years actually."

"Uhuh... Should I call somebody, a friend or relative?"

"I have none."

"Okay okay." I said for lack of a better word. I suddenly felt that if I departed the roof of the Aubrey Plaza this man would finish what had brought him there in the first place.

"Sometimes the ocean breaks the shore and ventures across the land in a tide of destruction." I said.

"They are called hurricanes." He said.

"Yes. But after the winds rage and the sea roars and there's destruction and pain and it feels like things will never be the same again, the tide recedes and the winds calm and the shore once again holds back the ocean and it was as if nothing had happened."

"But something had happened."

"For a time, but the slow march of said time renders the hurricane's efforts of claiming a permanent existence, futile." I said with a smile. "So what's the problem? What brings you to Aubrey Plaza today?"

"It's the tallest building." He answered.

"So it's the view?"

"More of what can be done with it." There's a finality to his words.

I had two options, I could walk away or I could push to persuade him to value his life but he seemed tired, very tired and I could tell from how his arms dangled by his side and the hunch of his shoulders and the way his neck stayed bent, staring at the ground below. So I did what nobody who was born after the ice age would have done in such a situation. I stood up and positioned myself beside him and we stood there for seconds, then minutes then an hour. Just standing there, me in complete silence, him in silent weeping. And then he leaned his head on me and I let him and after a long while he whispered 'Thank you.' and walked away. Leaving me there, enjoying the view from above the Aubrey Plaza.

[kyalosblog]

The poor man's cross

Poverty is like the stench of death. It's hard to ward off, people notice it, they feel its presence without even having to know its backstory. Women can tell a poor man straight away. It's in the posture, the hesitance to speak freely lest one put a price on words. The hunched shoulders as if weights unknown are being carried. There's the fear in the poor man's eyes, fear of losing the little that they have. You can see it in the eyes of the man going through his woman's phone, seeking proof that a better man, a well to do man, is after his lamb.

And if said proof is found? He'd rage and froth at the mouth. Clutch and tag at his hair with anguish and deep sorrow as if this poor life wasn't meant to be his. As if fate has played a cruel joke on him that is repeated each time lest he forget it, without a care of whether or not he gets the joke.

There are things you can do if you're a poor person and you don't want to suffer under the weight of being regarded as poor. Do you currently have no idea what a savings account is? Is three dollars a fortune to you? If someone drops a coin will you step on it and proceed to stand there for hours on end until the person who'd dropped the coin leaves? This article is for you. I have been where you are and boy do I have news for you. It's going to get harder.

The problem with mankind is how eager we are to compare ourselves. You're hungry, you haven't eaten for three days. You take out your phone and go and check out videos of people feasting on the succulent flesh of roast ham and you say to yourself. 'I wish I was them.' You're an idiot. What are you doing owning a phone while you're hungry? Sell the phone. Buy a sack of maize flour and live off that while you try and find someone who'll buy your kidney.

They say poverty is a mindset. A scarcity mindset to be specific. You always lack. You don't have money to add on to the bill yet you're there drinking and smiling like a stupid lunatic. Wet lips gleaming with borrowed liquor. Nodding your head hard whenever those buying the drinks offer a point. One of them remarks, 'The state of affairs is damning!' And you raise the glass to your lips and sip without thought until you realize they are looking at you for input regarding the state of affairs and you with your insecure poverty stricken mindset, open your mouth and blabber on without shame. 'Yes, married people and their damn affairs sheesh!' And you continue to drink with no shame.

The scarcity mindset is so severe that your braincells just give up. You find yourself avoiding to think about anything for fear of the stench of poverty your thought waves may give out. Hope becomes a rumor, something heard of but scarcely felt. You hear about your cousins abroad from your parents who are doing something with computers and starting million dollar companies. Yet there you are, on a thin mattress everyday, healthy as a horse yet playing the role of bedridden because there's absolutely nothing else you're good for.

Your parents have given up on you. The local priest has given up on you. The children of your neighbors  have given up on you. So far the only person who believes in you is the village lunatic who always sees you coming from a mile away and comes running to you, arms spread wide, tattered rust colored garments flapping in the wind while crying out. "My brother! My friend!" And you have to stomach his stench as he pulls you into an embrace and asks you how you're doing because he sees himself in you. Like you're a prospect, a village lunatic prospect.

The worst part about all this is that a part of you feels like this will end. That somewhere out there, there's an end to the rainbow and there you'll find your pot of gold. A placed bet perhaps, or a dead relative leaving behind land. Something... Anything to transform your life into something worth talking about. Anything to ensure the girl you won over using speech will stay because of the paper.

But as time edges forward and streaks of grey mark and tease about your hair and the lines across your face farrow deeper and your back bends and hands become knobbed. You realize that there's no end to the nightmare because the rich get richer and the poor stay poor so you decide to take matters into your own hands and go against the law. Which is the quickest and surest way to make big money fast

But the scarcity mindset and the dead braincells can't help you with proper ideas on how to steal like a politician would so you end up robbing people in the dead of night with the same knife you use to cut tomatoes for tomato soup and you get caught and convicted.

So now you're sitting in a dingy cell you're sharing with a guy who killed his mother, wife and children before having sex with a goat. And you hear your cell mate grunt and heave each night as he ferociously masturbates to thoughts of grandeur and all you can do is stay silent hoping he doesn't take note of your existence. And then you feel the self pitty with a dash of melancholy and the tears stream down your eyes and you find yourself wishing that someone out there will pay to hear your story because you're poor and that's all you can think about.

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