I missed generation X by a whisker. It may not be a whisker to you, but in my standards it is just that a whisker. At nine years, I was in primary four, I was lured to join a club they called 4K club. I was not exactly lured. We may as well say that … Continue reading ZERO TO A HUNDRED-REAL FAST.
If you walk to the west fast enough from Eldoret town you will get to a place called Moi's Bridge. A small town. We could call it a Metropolis. You will see truck drivers and people selling maize in yellow buckets. Boiled maize. They carry with them small improvised salt shakers. There is no way … Continue reading THE NIGHT CHASER OF THE CITY.
If I did this story five years ago, so much would be different. I see myself travelling. I see myself travelling because some good stories cross certain boundaries. Some good stories involve long stretches of land. Lonely land. Some stories involve dirt roads and people that speak Swahili like they are chewing on popsicles. … Continue reading HOOK, LINE AND NO SINKER.
"We will have to meet in a bar. Maybe when the sun is not very serious about its work." He cackled from the other end. There was an echo. Maybe an unfamiliar echo. Like he was in this empty space. Huge. Because the echo seemed to walk very far before it landed back in to … Continue reading THE APOSTLE’S CREED.
One earphone obtruded from my ear. The right ear. It was Bonny James' 2009 Send One Your Love playing. The thing about Bony James is that he commands you to listen. His decibels speak to you in your mother tongue. You will hear a voice telling you, hey it's me again, I think you may … Continue reading THREE INCHES CLOSE.
He got into his Chemistry paper three exams with a small browning paper. Curved on the edges. It was a tiny thing that could fit between his fingers. There was a mean looking officer. With a mean looking gun. His cap looked like it had been boiled in something tasteless. It lacked color. It … Continue reading THE KARATINA WASP.
They both did not have jobs.They had a baby.An extra mouth to feed.That meant they couldn't live in the city.Because the city has landlords.And they have huge padlocks.And bad language.They are hard as wood on people that can't raise rent.They lived on the fifth floor of a building in Umoja.In one of the city's biggest … Continue reading HI,MY NAME IS CHRIS.
Nairobi Arboretum. Do I have company? I wish I did.I am chewing my nails on a patch of grass that is struggling to make sense of life and maybe purpose.There is nothing to show for its life.It has been stepped on, sat on and mutilated by humans that come here to do things.Others come here … Continue reading SET IT FREE.
One time he woke up on the trench of a filthy,smelly urinal in a bar in Kariobangi. A heavy head and a pocket that seemed to have built an endless hall.Empty.His hair was bushy and his wrists pained.He had a cut just below his eyes.His bony hands were weak.His legs twig thin.Carrying himself was … Continue reading THE BAR EXAM
A gray blotch of beard shrubs spread on his chin.Those little lonely things are squatting.Like they don't belong there.They have built a small place to hide their legs because they don't own the place.It is funny how your beard can refuse to own the only place they are supposed to grow on.They end up looking like an abandoned village.Your chin looks like a place people are getting out of.There is no life.There is no habitation. They can't connect.The hairs are not willing to join hands.In these days of people worshiping lash lawns of hair on people's faces, that is a hard thing to deal with.But men,many of them have these shrubs on their faces.They brave the harsh world that is ready to judge them based on the amount of beard on them.They go out and make the best out of a beardless chin.A man must not be defined by a small collection of hair on his face right? His is dotted with chunks of black.There are others that are still debating on whether they should get old or not.They are not done being black.Age is just toying with them.Then there are his three or four strands of what can be called a mustache chiding his upper lip recklessly.They curve upwards on either ends of his lips.They look unbothered by what is happening around them,They don't belong to the unholy union at display on the other side of the chin.They are their own hair and nobody defines them.We need to stop there because I cannot describe a man's beard past this point.You might stop reading and swear that you will never come hear to listen to my boring stories.Stories told about men's facial hair.You might discuss this on your WhatsAspp groups.
