People
People
Measure of Happiness
Michael says he is happy. I asked the question about twelve times, and each time he answered he swore he is. He carries a smile that lights the room. A smile that forces you to smile back. He radiates sunshine that you might actually believe his words. Now, I am aware of how cynical I sound. Trust me. It’s just that the more he swore to me that he is “actually happy”, the more my skepticism grew. He first texted to ask if I was sure I wanted a story about a happy person “like I said in the blog”. …
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Where The Sweetness Lies
You can probably count the total number of times that I have eaten pineapples in all these [very few] years I have lived. It’s not that I dislike them, because you cannot dislike something that you know where the sweetness lies. See, I like pineapples, but every time I eat a slice, my tongue becomes the Rift Valley. Jack, too, realized a sweetness of his own. He was always a good boy. The one who sat in a corner and read Goosebumps novels while the rest of his classmates were busy jumping on lockers. He sat still and upright in …
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Hell Hole
For some reason, there is this notion that girls do not get along with their moms. I don’t understand it. Not that I haven’t tried, because I have. I simply cannot wrap my head around it. It also doesn’t help that I get along with mine on most days. But then, as if the universe was sending me a direct message, this one girl sent me a text as I was bingeing on a Netflix series that I felt was trying too hard to be original. See, a story needs not be complicated, or about something you have never seen …
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Face-to-Face
“Girls have always gravitated towards me,” he says at one point in our conversation. I am tempted to ask whether this force is naturally occurring or man-made. Does it come as moths flock to a light source or bees to a flower? Instead, I let him go on. “See, I’m a girls’ guy. I’ve lived with girls. Growing up, I was surrounded by them.” He is cocky and chauvinistic. The kind of millennial that truly believes that the place of a woman is the kitchen and a man enters his house only to bark orders. He is a lost millennial. …
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Halfway Roofless
Some of you do not know that Railways was actually a train station first before it was stage ya Ronga. You have only seen it filled with buses to Ngong and Kitengela and Easy Coach. That inasmuch as it is the most common stage in this Nairobi CBD, it brought as many people to town even in the olden days. and you may think you knew this, but think about it. did you really? I know this because I was among you until I was enlightened. Brought to the light by the person who told me this story. Now, you …
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Dancing On Tables
It often happens that I meet people I never thought I would again when I am totally zoned out while walking, thinking about pancakes or a cute puppy that I just discovered on Instagram, or trying to remember a new word I just read and forgot to write down so it slipped my mind. It happens a lot [everything from meeting these folks to recalling that bedlam means chaos] and most times, it is a huge pain, mostly because after the meeting and exchanging numbers, we will most definitely never talk. But sometimes, and very rarely, it morphs into a …
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The House with No Food
The girl telling me this story has a cat. A beautiful dark grey feline with silver tips named Stormi. Like all cats, he is playful and fun and poops in the bathroom. But I was allergic to him [my first experience ever of being allergic to a furry] and it broke my heart. We had to throw Stormi out while she told me this story, and it may have been his sad meows at the door or my nose slowly blocking and my throat choking up that made this story a little difficult to follow. Some parts may be fabricated …
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Delmonte Guy
I met Fred a few weeks ago while I was staying with an aunt. They go to the same church. We had not shared a total of seven words before the day he came over and I was alone in the house. There had not been an earlier warning, so I did not let him in until I had confirmed with mwenye nyumba that Fred was expected. He was. He needed to use the internet and the electricity in his apartment were lost [is that direct translation?]… or so he told me. We sat in the common room, me on …
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Double Sentiment
There comes a time in a man’s life when he has to sit himself in a corner and say ENOUGH! Enough of chasing and moving and playing. This moment varies in all men. There are those who are in the corner for two seconds and they walk out new men. There are also others who spend years in this corner and never come out. These ones spend their days telling themselves that things HAVE to be different. They need to move on up. To change their situation. But they remain in the corner not because they lack the will to …
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Venice
I wanted to name him after a city. Somewhere far that he has never been but where correctly shows the turmoil he has faced all around his life. I wanted to equate him to a busy city that is filled with life and laughter and lovers holding hands when its exterior is plagued with an excruciating calmness that threatens one’s soul. I wanted to name him Venice. But Venice sounds like a girl’s name. So I asked him what name he would like before I christened the poor soul New York. “I get to choose anything?” he asks. “Anything. Reach …
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