Tears of Blood.

Nowhere to live.

 

The silence in the tall trees and the dark night was almost tangible. Occasionally, a disturbed cricket would chirp spiritedly before hibernating, making the night quieter than it really was. The chilling wind on the highlands was rounded up by the tall gum trees funneling it into a calm wintry air that almost tore at his lean muscles. The dark sky was spotted by an occasional star that brought life into the otherwise sleeping campus. He walked slowly without knowing where else to go or what else to do since he had missed accommodation on his first day of the semester and there was no way of travelling the two-hundred-miles journey back home. He would have to steal to get enough for the matatu ticket back to the country-side.

Accommodation was on first-come-first-serve basis at least by book. In reality the wealthier students got the best hostels as they were able to buy their way into the scanty hostels whether they turned up earlier or not. He was in his second year and rarely had he received the precious hostels on the first. A lot of times, he had had to wait until all the good ones were given away and get contented with the remaining ones, if he was lucky to have one. Some friends wanted to host him for a few days but today there was no one to hook him up with these services as their girlfriends were back to campus too, and well…..you would not want to be in the room on the floor with all the noise.

This silence normally turned into a din of waking students and graduating into a chaos of hustling, bustling and finally drunken singing in the evenings. But at this time of the night, the students were snoring their night away relieved to have at last seen the last of the burly-looking lecturers drive off in their flashy cars.

The University of Nairobi had seen several years on the foundation of the earth. Even in the almost pitch dark, one would tell that these buildings would come down in the case of extreme weather; especially the ones that had been built on unstable topography of the land. An angry wind now blew from the east chilling the lone student cowered at a corner of a veranda in one of the hostels away from the low temperatures of Kikuyu campus, one of the coldest spots in Kenya.

His features had been carved into a grotesque by the not-so-easy work at his father’s farm back at home but at least there, he had a comfortable bed, warm blankets and people who cared about his tomorrow. The thought of home almost brought tears to his twenty four years old eyes but the determination that had invaded him told him that this was no time for despair. This had been his life for the last six weeks since he left home to come the hundreds of miles away to enrol for his last year in the 8-4-4 system of Education in the College Of Education and External Studies.

The rain stopped and a sigh of relief escaped from his tight cold lips. A grievous longing for a hot cup of coffee burnt in his throat but even the Campus canteen would not be opened at this time of the night. Everyone else seemed to be asleep except him. Emerging from his sanctuary, he smirked longing for just a corner of a warm blanket. The rain had stopped but not the cold wind. It blew urging the rain to come again to accompany it in it endeavours of the night but Soili walked on. He needed to piss.

The hostel toilets radiated stench from a few metres away. This was expected with the water flowing into the toilet cisterns about once in a fortnight. Mounds of human waste sat proudly on the brown stained bowls in a defiant arrogance praying that water would not come soon. Soili almost changed his mind about pissing and he thought of the open fields with fresh air but his bladder was stinging full. With a single downward swish of the Zipper, relief exploded from his bladder and he groaned. He thanked the almighty that he could find the zipper without having to look down for it or he would have wetted his pants on a daily basis.

Graffiti was splashed across the walls of the toilets until you could not find space for more. He guessed that some of it was as old as the foundations of the University. The walls had never been re-painted since then and some of it was peeling wishing it also went to the grave just like the living beings. A spider at a corner of the webs-infested toilets spun a thread of its own. Soili was glad that he was not the only one who was awake. He had company; but the spider would not be required to go for lectures in the morning. He had no Continuous Assessment Tests and term papers to write. He was at home in the webs and had an advantage of appendages. He decided to ignore the eight-legged comrade and his mind went back to the walls as the last of his flow crumbled the bladder with a comfortable emptiness.

“No matter how you shake, the last drop shall be on your pants” Read one of the quotes on the walls. He decide to prove that one wrong even as his eyes fell on one that caused relief and a sparkle of smile at the corners of his mouth. “Shake well after use.” And shaking he did splashing the last of the drops on the sleeves of his leather jacket-on his pants.

With no water on the gaping taps and a sink that was blocked with food remains, Soili wished that the rain would come back and shower his hands clean. He skirted a pool of dirty water and escaped from the human stench that clung to his garments with unwanted comradeship. The rain came again and thunder followed in accurate intervals that the lightning designated for it. He watched the rain for hours sneezing reminiscent of his years in high school.

Lights went on in a room close to where he was standing. Students who were lucky enough to get the campus accommodation were waking up to write their term papers and cook breakfast; his classmates whom he was supposed to be sitting exams with at the end of the semester and pass just like them. Students who had paid the same amount of tuition and accommodation fees just like him. But the Students Management Unit and the Students Welfare Association had sold out their rooms to the wealthy module 2 students. The process of refund would take him the few remaining months in campus to complete. The few remaining rooms were reserved for some ghost students who the manager still insisted that they were on their way from home; for the last six weeks.

A blast emanated from the lit room. It did not cause a stir. It just succeeded to drown the dry cough from Soili’s pneumonic chest. He was used to these both sounds. The former was a blast from the electric cooking coils the students used in the rooms. He had given up cooking while he was in second year after being electrocuted twice by the naked wires germinating from the walls where the sockets were supposed to be. He decided that he was better alive and buying food that dying trying to cook.

Several lights went on and the campus was waking. He would routinely walk to one of his friend’s room and sleep until 11 am in the morning. He could have slept with him in the night but the metallic creaking beds were made just for one. An extra human would cause a gross accident in the night and too much strain on the ancient sheets of mattresses.

 

Good. Sayona was wake. Soili could see light emanating from his window whose glass pane was broken and had been replaced with a piece of cardboard. This served just to stop the severe cold blowing in these highlands of Central Province. Soili hoped that Sayona would have prepared a cup of coffee for him as this had become a routine too for the last six months.

“Good morning comrade.” He greeted as he walked in without knocking. Sayona looked at him with pity ignoring the greetings.

“I told you that pneumonia will kill you.”

“The University will kill me. Pneumonia has got nothing to do with this.”

“You refused to sleep on the floor. Inside here is at least warm.”

“This is as rebellion Sayona. I have paid for my accommodation. The room next to us is empty awaiting the ghost students to come and pay hefty amounts to our beloved SMU manager.”

“The first years are sleeping on the floor mate but they are surviving; without the risk of Pneumonia.”

“They are naive. Just came into campus and do not know anything. I am not a freshman Sayona and I know what’s going on.”

Darkness. The power went off before the water boiled and they had to take half-way cooked coffee which was not uncommon too. Soili knew that despite the colossal automated generator, there was not going to be any electricity in the Campus for the next few hours. He had seen the notification by the Power and Lighting Company the day before in the newspaper concerning the power interruption. But no one wanted to purchase fuel for the generator. He silently changed his program for the day. That research he was going to carry out in the computer labs would have to wait another day or other days. This was because there was no guarantee that he was going to get a free computer in the crowded labs. And even if he got one, it was not guaranteed to boot at all. What generation were these machines anyway? He thought of washing clothes in the afternoon but he remembered the gaping taps and dismissed the idea with a silent click and an unnoticed shake of his hooded head.

The lukewarm coffee did little to stop his body from shivering. He thought of going to the mess but the dismissed the idea too. The last time he ate beans from that place, he had a bad stomach ache and passed air the whole day. Blankets were the closest option and he grabbed it physically. He watched as Sayona whipped his books and literally ran for the morning classes. Not that he was late; he would need to book a seat for himself or he would have to attend the lecture standing. A few times, Soili had been forced to write notes with the books on his laps. This was better than combing every room in the campus to get a chair. At times, you would be lucky to get a broken one that looks more of mockery that of any help.

Under the blankets, Soili wished that tears would come. When he was young, he hid under blankets and cried. Now, he could not remember the last time he cried. His tear glands must have dried. No. He knew the tears were there stinging the back of his eyes. Only that they would not flow; tears of blood. He lay on Sayona’s bed dreaming constantly of shadowy outlines which seemed to well-up before him from the bottomless depths of time, waiting to escort him back to his lonely nights in the cold. He often wondered where all these beings in his dreams were when he desperately needed their company out there in the open. He had sworn to pose that question to them once they appeared in his dreams but they always seemed to be busy going about their dreams’ business undeterred. The mound under the bed sheets waited the day to end and the same life cycle to continue until when one sane man would rise and rescue him and thousand others from this undeserved fate.

 

 

 

No one to love.

 

She was walking down the sloping pavement in springy steps, so delicately as if she was afraid to hurt the ground. The long flowing dress that caressed the concrete added gaiety to her movements and the low cut near her neck exposed a magnificent pair of lungs. Her chocolate complexion set off her dark hair hair that hung desperately to her well-shaped head. The irresistible up and down juggling of her hips turned heads from pervert students who whistled deviously as she passed along a pair of books in her hands. Female students booed her presence, jealous of the so-much attention she was getting from the male colleagues. Their exposed legs were no match for her womanly figure in the silk enclosure.

She smiled knowingly as he approached. Though she had ignored all the ‘hey’ and ‘whoo’ from the other, she was not going to ignore the genuinely appreciating eyes of Soili.

“Oh my God, Haizec!, you dressed all this for a commerce lecture?” Soili asked.

“You missed the Lecture, so you would not know.” She answered shaking his hand gingerly.

“Well you look stunning. I doubt the lecturer was looking anywhere else.”

They both laughed mouthfully. They were friends. Since Soili had found Haizec writhing in pain in one of his lonely night walks, they were inseparable. He had taken her to Hospital and taken care of her till she was discharged. It would have been heartless to ignore this Hero who had saved her life on her first day in Campus when no one was watching and no one cared.

“Anyway why did you miss the lecture? This is important Soili. You will fail if you continue like this.” She asked patronising him.

He opened his mouth to defend himself and found no words. She looked at him straight in the eyes knowing he spent the night outside again. “Oh shit, ok then, I am making coffee, so unless you want to stand there and freeze to death.”

Soili understood this was an offer half of the male population in campus were ready to lay their lives for. Haizec never ever invited anyone for coffee, except Soili. He dropped all the plans he had for studying alone in the fields to cover up for the lectures he had missed. This can wait, but coffee in Haizec’s room was an opportunity not to be wasted. A girlfriend was not something he had thought of and so he had kept his relationship with Haizec as a strictly friendship. Although there was a live rumour going around campus that he was dating her, he decided to keep quiet about it. He would enjoy the moment for as long as it lasted. He had one girlfriend in his High school days who had left him for a richer guy. He wished to keep this lady friend who everyone seemed so interested in. One thing though has been plaguing his mind. He hoped Haizec was not waiting for so long for a closer relationship move from him. He did not want to disappoint her and he still did not want to find out that she was not interested in him in that way.

After four years of friendship Soili could swear his head that he was the sole man in this lady’s life and so he was not going to be in any hurry to ask her. He had intended to so and had practiced every move when he was alone. Just at the time when he thought he was ready to ask her, he had thought of more ingredients to add to his approach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The multi-purpose hall was almost to its carrying capacity. The scarcely-any fluorescent bulbs flickered on and off at irregular intervals and one could only wonder why they were there at all. You could hardly tell who was who in the dimly lit hall. The pane less windows clattered against the wall once in a while disturbed by the howling wind outside. The chill flying in from the open windows almost froze the students to the bones but none of them faltered. All their eyes and ears were for the full-bearded fellow whose arms looked too long for his body.

Soili was half-listening and half-staring at his mobile phone expectantly. He could have easily decided to skip this session but hell! It was about relationships; something that had plagued his mind since the last breakup he had immediately he joined campus. His high school girlfriend had walked out on him for no apparent reason, as he had figured out until he saw her new catch. It was a “Blinged” fellow with all sorts of jewellery on his arms, legs and even ears, nose, eyes and tongue. He looked like he had blinged each of his common senses that he reasoned a little less more than a Columbus monkey.

After Soili confronted her, she had told him that her feelings for him had just vanished into the air. This was not true because after the metallic dude dumped her, she had come begging on her knees. He had told her to go to Lucifer’s den and come back riding on the smallest demon in hell. He had not dared date anyone else after that for the three years in campus. Not that he ever felt for the hot-looking girls here; just that he was not sure about another commitment. He had given his last relationship his best shot and still it failed. He could not figure where to “Put more Effort.”

The speaker for this Thursday night was a Pastor Jeremiah invited by the Campus Crusade for Christ. He was going over the topic of relationship with relish. Soili could tell that most of the Students came to grasp something funny to laugh about. For him, this was something close to life and death night. He had attended other sessions like this organized by different organizations in campus, both religious and social. Soili preferred the religious ones when he noticed that the social groups taught from a very permissive point of view. However, he had noticed that even the religious speakers taught from their own points of view. He had decided not to attend these talks on relationship anymore as they were confusing him. But tonight, he needed every bit of information he could lay his senses on, however frail and untrue.

Tonight, he had a date and he was going to give his proposal for a relationship to a lady he had known since he breathed the first college air; three years ago. They had bonded and become good buddies and Soili thought that it was time he gave the whole thing a commitment. He was sure she could not decline his offer. No! Not after what they had been through together. Haizec Kai. He had always mused with the fact that this name sounded like Korean or Chinese. He wondered whether these campus girls used their real names at all.

“Your mind is not inside here.” A lady seated next to him whispered and suddenly his mind detached from its wandering and refocused on the oldster who had already started making the whole thing a sermon. He glanced at his watch on knew that it will not be long before Haizec called him. He had told her that he wanted to talk and she had agreed. The agreed time was 9pm in the football field. He had decided to grasp a few tips at the relationship event before going to drop what the students called a CV. He preferred calling it a CH; Contents of the Heart.

“Some of these girls will not have made up their minds and they will keep you waiting and so dude, let go and move on.” The preacher said.

Soili just recalled that this was what he had to do with the last girl he had proposed to. He could even catch a silhouette of her seated on the front row of the hall. He could not miss the shape of her head and the hairstyle she always wore. You would think she was born wearing that hair. Her name was Sirodi. When he proposed, she told him that she wanted time to pray and seek the face of the Lord concerning the issue. He caught her later openly kissing a lecturer and wondered for a moment whether this old fellow was “The Lord” after all. It was hard letting go but he told himself that; when a roll of tissue paper falls down the stairs, just let it go because when you cling to one end, you risk losing all of it. They always did that for better grades anyway.

“It is always good to bond before you decide to commit yourself to a relationship.” The pastor continued amidst expressions of disappointments. This was because most fourth years did what was called “Gold Rush.” It consisted of grabbing the latest arrivals in campus- the First years when they were still confused and naïve. To this, Soili gave a nod that was a hundred per cent for himself and not for the pastor. He had bonded well with Haizec; for three years. She had also shown a lot of interest in him. In the real sense a lot of students actually thought she was already his girlfriend and no one dared approach her. Even her buddies showed some humble respect in his presence. He played the game well and she seemed to like it that way. You could almost see the expectation in her eyes on when this dude was going to be hers formally.

Pastor Jeremiah moved on to speak about certain risks of introducing your girlfriend to your buddies and Soili stared at his watch again. It was 9pm and she had not called. There was a great temptation to rush out and make the call himself but he had always told himself that patience was a bitter herb that bore sweet fruits. He would wait. He evaluated every point the pastor made and he was almost sure that by the time he slept tonight he would formally have a girlfriend. His closest friend Sayona had always told him that he was lucky to have such a beautiful catch. She was a close friend of him too but he trusted him. He had deliberately decided not to tell Sayona of the event tonight though he hardly kept anything from him. He wanted it to be a Friday surprise for him.

The phone rang. He almost rushed outside but it was just a friend asking his whereabouts. He wondered for the umpteenth time why she was delaying. He knew that she was nervous since he had given her an idea of what they were going to talk about. “It is about us” he had said when she inquired. He wondered whether she was also going to pray and seek the face of the Lord. He didn’t mind; only hoped that the Lord this time was the real one in heaven.

The phone rang again and this time it was Haizec. He knew that she would call or he would go for her from her room a few meters away from the hall. She had postponed some previous appointments like this but in this, there was no escape. Soili was not eager for this meeting per se. He was full of butterflies. He had allowed them to get the better of him until he had gotten used to them. How many times he had postponed the proposal. The last butterfly fluttered in his stomach as he picked the call and knew that today, there was no way back. Even her voice on the phone told you that she was ready to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

“Get me in my room.” She said. He wondered what had happened. The original plan was the field and he hoped all the stars in heaven that she had not changed her mind about the venue. He had dismissed the idea of both of their rooms. He roommate Katrina would feel very uncomfortable. In his room, Sayona would be there reciting the entire balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet at the sight of them. Soili noticed that he was sweating even in the chill of the Kenyan highlands and he dismissed the idea of wearing a jacket.

“Isn’t it cold outside?” She asked when he came into her room without knocking.

“Are you two going somewhere?” Katrina asked.

“Just taking a walk down the ais……I mean down the campus.” Soili replied.

Haizec fidgeted at the idea of walking down the Aisle. Soili smiled at her and smirked, “No Katrina, it isn’t cold. There is a nice weather for taking a walk really.”

He could see the tension in her eyes. Normally, she would get all cheeky at such kind of a topic but tonight, she didn’t smile at it. She didn’t even look at him directly. There seemed to be something she was looking at above his head any time she pretended to be looking at him. Her eyes looked as if she would cry but even Soili was not expecting that. He had noticed how much pain this lady could take without shedding a tear. He had always mused that she cried through the nose. If she blew her nose several times amidst a conflict, he always knew that she was crying.

The last time he had rushed her to a hospital in the middle of the night in much pain, she had done a lot of groaning and complaining but never even once crying. Blowing her nose of course a zillion times by the time he lost count. He cried a lot of times for the period that she was in hospital. Even that night at the hospital, he would find tears on his face and would have to hide and dry lest she caught him. He had spent a whole sleepless night in his room crying asking God to remove the cup of suffering from her and at least give it to him. He would not have minded suffering on her behalf. He loved her that much. This proposal would not change a thing. The tears he had cried over her would be all history by the time he slept tonight. If anything, they could only be replaced by tears of joy.

He remembered that he had seen her tears once. The day he had been taken by a powerful migraine and she and a few friends had to rush her to the hospital. He had seen her amidst the confusion cry. That was the only time he had seen her tears. If she could cry over him and not herself, tonight would be a walkover. He had however noticed the way with the girls. However eager they were about getting hooked to you, they never said ‘yes’ in the first approach. They would come up with all sorts of excuses like that one about seeking the face of the Lord. How he hated that one because of the way it worked with Sirodi.

“You’d rather get yourself something warm.” Haizec said when they stepped into the cold night.

“Am fine my dear.” Soili said, going ahead to give a detailed account of how his body reacted to warm clothing. He said it made him inactive. A few people greeted them suspiciously as they made their way across the abandoned car park into the dark field. The grass had been touched by slight dew and it gave Soili the first chill and he shivered. He knew that even though he had declined to wear a jacket, he would feel the biting chill on his short-sleeved shirt and his bare face. Haizec Kai had put on a heavy fur jacket that made her appear like an African Eskimo stepping out of an igloo. He wondered whether it was all that cold or she was just hiding her anxiety behind the soft artificial fur.

He suggested that they do the talking as they walked around the field but she declined. He knew that she had spent a long day and would be tired but his optimistic mind told him that she was just eager to hear the proposal that she had probably waited for months. He only wanted the comfort of walking; his confidence would be boosted by walking. Sitting down would be too formal and he wouldn’t like it. More than any other time, he did not want to start an argument tonight and so he agreed to almost anything she said. He wanted to score as much points as he could. He had always known that he wasn’t a coward with this kind of thing. He just wanted to take his time and talk from deep within himself. All the same, he did not want it to turn so mechanical.

He agreed to some two old and abandoned seats at a corner in the field. He shivered despite himself and he noticed that even when he spoke, there was a quiver in his voice. He cursed again and again. “You were right. I should have brought something warm but I’ll pull through.” He said between clenched teeth. He did not want her to start having the obnoxious idea that he was shivering from fear or anxiety though he had detected it far off. They chatted first about nothing in particular. He knew when to bring in the proposal. He had stupidly rehearsed alone including the responses and he was sure she had rehearsed too. He therefore knew that tonight would be just drama and reality would hit a few days, weeks, months, or years later after this Thursday night. He found himself wondering whether pastor Jeremiah had said something about that when he realized that he must have walked out of the session before then.

“Like I said, we came to talk about us.” He said and silently cursed his shaking voice. If she had allowed him, he would have rushed to his room just to get a corner of his leather jacket. But who would want to appear like a deserter especially at this point of the conversation. She did not look up. “Haizec Kai, we have come a long way as friends and I fell it’s time we got close to each other’s heart.”

“You have always been close to my heart Soili. Are you saying I have failed?” she asked looking up for the first time. Why did she think he had overlooked that kind of defence?

“True my dear, we have been close to each other’s heart, but in this cold,” he said feigning more chill than there was, “I won’t mind getting inside your heart dear.”

“Ok, go on Soili.”

His heart fell only when he had started celebrating his few seconds of victory. He wanted a dialogue and he wasn’t prepared for the monologue she was getting him into. But he would not give her the advantage; he would get into the monologue and do it well. He delved into the feelings he had for her and she acknowledged. He dared not venture into the things he had done for her. He had decided during the rehearsal to skip that bit as he was sure that she would bring it up herself. He had buried a landmine there and the moment she stepped on it, it would explode all on her face.

He told it in details the reasons he thought they should get into that relationship including the fact that he had waited for it for over a year. Haizec Kai had done her homework well. She took the stage and started showering all kinds of praises on Soili touching on his character. He felt on the top of the world but knew that it could be turned upside down by a single ‘but’. He still however wanted her to go into the things he had done for her-the Landmine. And she did. She went over some of which even Soili had forgotten and for a moment, he wondered whether she kept a record diary of the things he had done for her. “I do not know how to repay all the show of kindness and love Soili.” She concluded. It was the time for the landmine to explode.

“Oh dear, dear, do not put these things I’ve done into consideration. I’ve actually forgotten most of them.” The latter was true but the former was a lie. The landmine explosion. “I’ve done those things and will continue to do them not for love, but in the name of love, so don’t mention it.” It caught well and she blushed.

The preamble was done and he wished to know whether she agreed to his proposal. “I do not know how to say this or even know how you will take it Soili.” He fidgeted and despite the cold, he noticed that he was sweating again. He was ready for anything. He just hoped it had nothing to do with ‘seeking the face of the Lord’. How a lot of times we use the name of God in vain and he warned us against it in the Ten Commandments. If God wanted to be liberal, he would have given us the Ten Suggestions.

“Go on sweetheart, the choice is entirely yours.” He affirmed.

“It is hard Soili especially after you have waited for a year.”

His heart jumped in his chest cavity. He felt a hollow in his stomach and he expected his heart to plummet into this void. He promised himself that he would not show the shock he had gotten. He knew her answer before she said it. “Go on Haizec Kai, Like I said, I had exploited all the consequences before I asked you.”

“I am in love with someone else.” She said openly and frankly.

Who allowed Haizec Kai to use nuclear war-heads while poor Soili was busy setting up landmines? He muted the ‘huh’ that escaped from his now open mouth. He promised himself for the hundredth time to keep calm. His heart was pounding heavily on his chest and he was afraid the front of his shirt was bouncing up and down for the whole world to see. He even checked. “Oh really?” he asked in a voice that was calmer than any he had used that night that even Kai looked up. He had even stopped shivering from the chill. “Go on, tell me about him.” He urged.

She was now staring at him in fixed incredulity. Her eyes seemed o pop out from her fur coat. She was checking his reaction and finding none. She went ahead to describe the guy she was in love with declining to mention his name even with Soili’s insisting. This was more to tell him that this was no ‘seeking the face of the Lord’. The answer was one that carried some rigid finality. “I am sorry Soili”. She concluded.

“No need to be my dear, can we take a walk around the field?” he asked.

“Just once”. She agreed. He would tell his conclusion then. He tried to get the name of the guy who fitted the description but he gave up. He just recalled how he told Sayona when he caught Sirodi kissing a lecturer, “I will burn his wrinkled ass.” He had said. Sayona had rebuked him for such strong language and even reminded him that he had given his life to Jesus and he had quickly corrected himself; “I will apply heat to his aging fundament.”

Even as they walked on the field silently, he was deciding what to do with this other guy that Haizec Kai claimed she was in love with. How come he had never noticed anyone close to Kai? From the description she had given him, he must have been a nice dude. Something told him that he knew the dude and that was why Kai had withheld the name.

“I am sorry Soili.” She repeated.

“It is Ok Haizec Kai” he said, “But if this guy ever hurts you……”

“Then what?” she asked noticing that he had referred to her without the usual ‘my dear’.

“I will kill him.” Soili said frankly.

At that moment, the world he had built for a whole year fell apart. The sleepless nights he had spent crying over her pains and concerns were trashed in the dustbins of rejection. The hopes he had built a mountain of visions with were swept away by an ocean of dismissal. The esteem he had built for years on earth got trampled on by a mighty foot of betrayal. Even as he walked into his room alone, he felt a sharp pain cross his chest and he knew it was real when he almost collapsed on his bed. Stinging tears welled up in his eyes and he wasn’t sure whether they were from the night’s experience, from the pain suspended in his chest cavity or from both. Only one thing remained. The Immense love she had for her was still there.

He almost woke his roommate Sayona by groaning deeply of pain from a bleeding heart. Sayona stirred in his sleep but did not wake up. The tears came down, tumbling and wetting the pillow which he now clung to as if it was a lifeline. He turned to the mirror and almost jumped, startled by his own reflection. It was his face twisted in pain and his bloodshot eyes that scared him. Tears of blood. Honestly if that dude hurt Haizec Kai, he would kill him. “He better love her better than I do.” He told himself and then stopped as if a knife had been thrust in his back.

How did he miss that from the description? He was too freaked to concentrate and focus his mind. He looked as if for the first time at the mound of blankets raising and dropping at regular interval of the breathing roommate. Yes! It was him. He stood up and dropped the pillow on the floor. This is the devil you do not know. Son of a bitch. Sayona!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cannot Graduate.

 

The tick-tack of the clock clicked away into the night. The stillness of the night amplified the sound and the timepiece seemed to be the only living thing in the single room dinned by the buzzing of the mosquitoes that festooned the night eager to get a drop of the red juice from the inhabitant were it not for the treated mosquito net that covered the lone soul in the almost empty room. The radiance from the security light outside penetrated through the windowpane and lighted the room with a ghostly glare such that Soili could still see from where he lay on the floor on a very thin mattress, the remains of the Ugali that he had tried without much success to feed on the night before.

A very large rodent scurried across the room dropping a few utensils that Soili had left piled up on the floor of the room. He did not try to haul up his head or scare away the usual visitor that fed in the sewage during the day and in his house during the night. His ribs ached from sleeping on the thin mattress on the floor but that was not what had caused him to have a disturbed night. Something else was bothering him and even at this moment, he could not actually tell what is was. He seemed to have woken up from a really bad nightmare that even he could not remember how it was. It seemed to linger in his sub-conscious grudgingly prompting him to wake up and change the reverie. But he was awake!

A vicious hunger hit him hard and his belly roared like a rock reverberating out of the sides of a steep hill, accelerating on its way. At first, he thought that he had forgotten to eat but he dismissed the idea after he remembered that the day before he had not taken lunch at all. He was out back to his former college to clear from the university and collect his graduation robe which he had paid an agonizing three thousand shillings equal to the rent that he paid for his house for a whole month. He had wondered what was so special about the damn cloth and he had even inquired from the campus authorities whether he was renting or purchasing the bulky garment.

Soili however remembered that he was too unhappy the night before to touch any of the food that he had cooked. Three months after he had left campus, he had found himself a poorly paying job as an accountant that barely managed to put food in his mouth leave alone his table. He had also rented a single room house where he slept bathed and cooked. If it had a hole on the floor, it would have served as a latrine as well. It was situated in the estate of Hamza where occasional floods happened from busted sewages filling the atmosphere with the bad odour of human stench.

The glitter of a corner of a briefcase lying idly on the floor caught his attention. It was illuminating from the security light outside. He had used the security light a lot of times to cut on his electricity bills by using it to light his room by leaving part of the window open. The briefcase contained his clearance papers and the bank slips which he had used to pay for the graduation gown to be used for the event that was taking place in a day’s time. This was what was keeping him awake. He needed to travel back to the campus where he had spent four painful years to collect his gown. At least this was going to be a happy ending after all.

He closed his eyes to lock away his state from him. It opened him into a misty world with shadowy outlines dancing before him a timeless dance of mockery. His memories shaping the mosaic of his imagination into corresponding dreams carried him away into the dreamland of overlapping experiences and events. How the mosquitoes at times managed to find their way inside the net was a mystery to him. A harassing itch on his forehead awoke him from the sleepy stupor as a lone fellow who had sucked enough whined away into the morning light escaping just enough before the grid could stop him. Soili clapped a splash of blood into his palms as the fellow lost his life that had been so much fed just a few minutes ago. What a waste!

He folded the mattress and pressed it away into a dark corner to give him some working space in the small room. He took a cold bath despite the electric heater hanging against the wall on an ancient rusted nail. He only used it when it was extremely necessary to heat his bathing water despite catching pneumonia a few times. Who wanted to pay a heavy electricity bill because of bathing water? He skipped showering at times. The strong tea escorted Soili out of the house en route to his former campus. Despite the repulsive encounters he had faced in what he had come to nick-name The College of Tears, he could not help but feel a surge of hope shoot through his chest at knowing that he would be leaving formally from the College of Education and External Studies.

The chill of the cold wind in the Central Kenyan highlands town hit him and he smiled at it. He had slept outside on these cold nights. He did not have to anymore. He had a house that at least sheltered him from the winds. The previous week he had come to confirm that his name was on the graduation list and he was relieved to find out that he would be graduating with a Second class upper division which was what most students managed after the struggle with the system for the four years. It was almost impossible to get a first class honours and only around five bookworms managed the feat.

It was queuing that Soili hated on his first day at campus and it was queuing that he was going to do three months after he left campus. Co-incidentally, it was at the exact place that he had queued to have himself registered at the college. Despite him arriving very early, there was a procession of his classmates waiting at the queue to be served. The one lady and two gentlemen serving them were elegantly dressed and you could tell by their size that they were also well fed. They engaged in an animated chat only pausing for a second or two to serve one or two students. With this kind of misplaced priorities, one could hardly notice that the queue moved at all. It was this kind of incidence that caused students to riot but, they were not students of the university anymore and any disturbance would result into a gruesome court action.

Ten in the morning, operations stopped. The good some lady and gentlemen had gone off for tea break. Soili was not moved at all. He used this chance to talk to a few acquaintances that he had not seen in the last few months. The queue however did not distort. Nobody dared move away from the queue in fear of being displaced. At lunch time, the operations stopped again for the lunch break. The students picked their gowns and left with a pledge to bring them back or risk losing their result slips which means that there would be no prove that they ever stepped their feet at the academia. That was what a piece of garment was worth; an entire education system.

Finally his turn came. He saluted the gowns crew with a cynical “hi” which was more of a “goodbye” than a greeting. He was sure that he might never have to tolerate their insensitivity again. The lady held the booklet having the names of the graduates; the same list that he had looked at a week e earlier with a smile to find that he had been sentenced to depart from the College of Tears with the promise of a celebration. He had invited the entire village and they were going to journey the entire a hundred and fifty kilometres to come and receive their learned son from the University.

Soili’s mother had extended the same invitation to the entire clan and they prepared a huge festivity for him. They were going to come in four mini buses. Soili’s friends had travelled from as far as Mombasa; a whole day’s journey to come and celebrate with him. A few days ago, his brother had called him to inform him that they had ripened a whole consignment of bananas for the party. Neighbours gave their contributions for the party as everyone wanted to be part of it. Some of the people that had called him to inform him that they would grace his celebrations on Friday were foreign to him. Everything was set for an ostentatious celebration because Soili was the second person to graduate from the highest institution of learning in the village since time-immemorial. The last one was twenty years ago.

“What is your name?” the lady asked in a voice that startled Soili. It was as if he had hesitated which he knew he hadn’t. The gentleman gave him the kind of look you receive from the custom guys at the Migingo Island that induces even in the most law-abiding traveller an almost irresistible urge to confess.

“My name is Soili Muguna” He replied waiting with a pen in his hand to sign against his name before he received the gown. The lady’s finger immediately fell on the list with a thousand and one names. They were set in an alphabetical order and so it wasn’t all that hard to find the names. The painted fingernails caressed the pages of the booklet with the lady licking at them from time to time to allow them to stick to the pages. Soili started to even gape at the fingers and swallowed hard every time the lady licked at them. As she came to the end of the list, she looked up at Soili and whispered almost to herself, “I can’t find that name.” She checked and re-checked but even Soili could see that his name was not on that list.

A shot of despondency ran through his entire system. He felt the world beneath him crumble threatening to gulp him down to the Hades below. The ambiance around him seemed to be pressing firm against him and he involuntarily took in a deep gasp that caused a stifled shriek to escape from his already open oral cavity. A miniature thread of perspiration ran from his armpits shuddering his body with its wintry temperature, causing him to shiver despite himself. He knew the drill. It would be a lot harder to get his name back on that list than to shove that Biblical camel through the eye of a needle. The red tape required to just right a gaffe that one person made would be used to choke him from the eminent ceremony if he did not paint it green as early as now.

He moved from one agency to the next; from the registry to the dean’s office and back to the principal’s. They all seemed to be laughing at him. No one could explicate how the name got omitted from the list when the names were being transferred to the ultimate pamphlet to be read in the graduation ceremony. They seemed to be blaming a phantom escritoire who was opportunely not there and her cell phone was also conveniently off. No one denied the fact that an error had been committed; the predicament was to own up that error. No one wanted to face the gigantic vice-chancellor to elucidate why a last-minute name was being added to the booklet for the graduation. The chancellor office was twenty kilometres away and it required a two-day notice for one to be able to secure a rendezvous.

Now that someone had to pay for the mistake that was committed in the dean’s office, they had to find a sacrificial lamb. This sacrificial lamb had to meet certain credentials and conditions. One of these was the fact that, that name was not to find its way to the list no matter what as the vice-chancellor would want an explanation. The other prerequisite was that the lamb had to be without blemish and as far away as possible from any campus office or staff. These kinds of considerations left Soili as the solitary creature between the devils and the hearty meal. He was going to be sacrificed.

Seven in the evening and he was standing at the principal’s office; the senior most authority at campus level. The old man just looked at him without feelings and said, “There is nothing I can do. You just have to wait for the next graduation two months from today.”

Soili didn’t say a word. It was no use trying to get these people to understand what was going to happen after this kind of a verdict. He had nothing to say to them. After a moment he decided that they were broken vessels leaking nonsense. They would not be there when he tells his friends to travel back the hundred and more miles back to where they had come from because there would be no ceremony. They would not be the ones to tell his father and mother together with the rest of the clan to eat the food they had prepared for the party because they were not going to travel to the capital. They would not be the ones to eradicate the speculations from his guardians that he had been kicked out of the graduation ceremony because of unpaid fees, indiscipline case, or failing to achieve academic credentials to graduate with the rest of his classmates.

He left the campus with a curse stuck in his throat. He was wondering who to release it to. The entire college? No, that would be unfair to that psychology lecturer still inside who had counselled him the time when Haizec Kai told him that she had found another man better than him and he had gone without food for days before the don could reach out and help him. The principal? He did not know what to do with the principal because although he had not omitted his name from the list he had the power to have it back there; power which he was too a coward to use. The dean? Yes, it was her office that refused to own up the mistake. She was the one that deserved the curse. He decided to leave the matter to God to exercise judgment in his own ways. He had read from a Bible sometimes back that ‘Justice and Righteousness are the foundation of his throne’.

Friday 9th September 2011, the graduation day. Soili is seated in front of his workstation at work doing some accounting for a court case in which a national corporation has failed to pay the arrears to the company that he works for. He is supposed to establish how much exactly they owe Waithaka Motors (K) Ltd. He knows that all his classmates including the ones he had beaten in class were at the graduation square. Some of them illegally because they could part with a few coins to have their names on that list. He had seen it that day when they refused to correct a mistake. A dude that had a punitive case was on the list. If there was anyone he should be taking to court, it should be those greedy cowards.

He had appeared like a liar. He had been sacrificed for what he did not do. Three months after he left the college of tears, it still reached out at him from his desk in the office. His father called him umpteen times to make sure that he had not failed. A friend or two called him to curse him aloud for inconveniencing them. A relative disowned him. A tear rolled down his manly cheek and despite his every effort to conceal it from the secretary seated across him, she still noticed it and gawked loudly attracting attention in the entire office. None of them had university education. They hardly understood how difficult it was to just graduate from The College of Tears.

 

Impressum

Texte: Stanley Mungai
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 12.08.2014

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