Equally Guilty

He wavered drunkenly along the dim lit street. A dog crossed in front of him, “Kwenda, mbwa hii” he hurled at the unconcerned dog which scurried away. Pausing, he scanned the street and watched as the dog unceremoniously scavenged on the pile of filth by the roadside. He raised his left hand on which balanced the four gizzards, tightly wrapped in a newspaper and customarily put in a clear manila paper. He suspiciously glanced at the dog then keenly scrutinized his package as if to confirm he still had it. Satisfied, he continued to waddle on the street his shoes squelching and sloshing in the mud.

The rain was lightly drizzling; the wind chilly and cold was fiercely biting at him. Alcohol and water are not the best of friends so he increased his staggering pace. He had not drunk for the rain to spoil his fun way before he reached home. He used to defend his habit of drinking daily on his wife naggings. He could not stand the deluge of nagging questions, demands and ultimatums from his wife and her daughters when sober. As an excuse, he took caution to avoid them as much as he could and that meant heading straight to the bar after work and coming home late. His children could not even remember how their father behaved when sober.

“Pesa tu, pesa tu kila siku,” he impetuously muttered, “They think I work at De La Rue?”

He was deeply in thoughts; his slumbering brain revolving around one idea, calculating where he went wrong. His wife rarely uttered a word to him not unless she was asking for money; money for breakfast, money for medicine, rent, salon… money, money, always!  He felt as if she was always trying to scourge money out of him, like he was paying for the marriage. To her he was an ATM, a cash minting machine which was never supposed to drain. He remembered the time when his work had taken him to a remote distance and somehow he was short on cash and his daughter feel ill. She had adamantly refused to pay for the medical bill, arguing that the husband was shirking. It took the intervention of neighbours and friends

They had been married for seventeen years yet it felt like just the other day. The only thing he could see of that marriage was only the four daughters though even those he was not sure they were all his. Daughters for that matter made him feel less of a man among his peers. He always harboured the strong longings of holding his own son, a son who stubbornly failed to materialize even in his side hustle. There he had made three attempts with twice the outcome ending in the toilet. The other one he knew existed but where or how she looked was not his concern. Thinking of her now reminded him on how he had bolted on the thought of a child outside marriage; may be it was the fear of his wife which raised shivers in his spine but whatever the case that was a secret he didn’t wish to open.

Marrah sat sprawled on the sofa glued on the TV but her mind was in another world. No matter how she tried somehow she knew she had failed in life and the thought was scary. This morning she had noticed a strand of white hair on her head and she scrutinized it with alarm. Grey hair where she comes from signifies old age; an expiry dates which she thought and felt was ages away. She had thought of her old age but somehow it had remained in the back of her mind like something which could not happen to her. By all means she regarded herself attractive and young and by keeping the company of young women in her salon business time was something she had not noticed pass.

“No, no I can’t be this old,” She peremptorily retorted as she counted her age for the second time, ‘fifty one!” She could not believe how the concept of time had eluded her. She felt short changed and trapped by her marriage - dawning on her - she was married to someone who was also blind to time. Their peers had bought or built their own houses yet they were still to buy a plot. She was certain between her and her husband, their savings could not buy a plot. Their oldest child was still in high school while the rest were in primary school and the husband was headed for retirement.

There was a knock at the door followed by the all too familiar guttural “fungua” from her husband. Without giving his wife time to open the door, Wachira decided she was taking too long and banged even more heavily. 

“Get in you devil and stop banging on the door like it’s a brothel.” Marrah’s anger had boiled over. She was angry at herself and the universe for conspiring to make her a failure in life. She blamed everyone for not telling her that time was running out and more so she resented her husband for not taking the initiative to take control of their stalled ship.

Wachira timidly staggered in the house, his little precious package still tightly held, took a sweeping tired look across the room before eventually planting himself on the sofa.

“Mum,” he shook awake his youngest daughter, “what did you eat, umeshiba?”

“Did you leave any money?” Marrah snapped scornfully. “What did you expect them to eat, your smelly socks?

He didn’t respond. Time had taught him to trend carefully around enraged Marrah even when intoxicated. Instead he blankly stared at her. As if the mention of socks was a reminder of something he had forgotten, he abruptly kicked off his shoes engulfing the room with rotten stench from his socks. Then he slowly with dexterity inept in drunkards he lowered his frail frame, removed his socks and to confirm the stench was to his liking he sniffed and inhaled before throwing them under the table.

“Wapi chakula?” he asked to no one in particular though he could not have been addressing anyone else but his wife. Without waiting for the answer which was not forthcoming, he planted his smelly feet on the table, just next to the gizzards, reached for a cigarette and blessed the tiny confinement with wisps of smoke. The child sleeping on the sofa coughed and sneezed but he could not connect why. No one spoke in the room, the three daughters who were awake just watched their father go through his usual drill. The atmosphere was decidedly frosty this evening but dozing off on the sofa Wachira did not notice the aggression and regrets in Marrah’s eyes. She sat there critically scrutinizing her lifetime mistake as if she was seeing him for the first time. He too looked old and frail not the man she fell in love with. He had several strands of grey hair and his receding baldness had taken nearly half his hair.

She wondered if he was aware of the progress his peers had made. She wondered what he talked with his peers in their drinking dens. She pitied him and hated his friends for failing their peer. What are friends for if they cannot correct you where you ere? What about herself, as a wife what had she done to build her family? Bile boiled in her, she thought of her children and tears streaked across her cheeks washing away the make-up which she had applied religiously from as far back as she could remember. She wiped the tears took a plate and poured her husband food and laid just next to his scented feet and nudged him from sleep. She took a knife and started dissecting the gizzards.

He ate with relish, powerfully munching mechanically though he was sleepy. He could open his eyes when he was scooping and then munch while his eyes closed. The whole room was silent exempt the small TV. The late night news were being aired which was a message of hope by showing all those who are suffering that they are not suffering alone. Tonight was no exemption,  the news were the usual rhetoric; a teacher arrested for impregnating his pupil, a sheikh lynched after sodomising small boys, wife hacking her husband to death, politicians salary increments, embezzlements of funds meant to fight HIVs and all other vices which counted as news.  As an icing, the stories of poor wallowing in suffering were wrapped by profiles of prominent individuals; the who own what of the land.

“Wow, there are men who have money.”  Warrah observed.

“Get married to them then,” retorted Wachira, “you love money like a prostitute.”

“You call me a prostitute; you dare call me a prostitute?” Marrah was fired up. Here was the man who had ruined her knife yet he still had the temerity to insult her. That was something she was not prepared to take lightly. She had been patient with him for so long to a point he thought her a fool. Not her. She just could not take it anymore.

“You are the one who is a prostitute,” she yelled back “and stink like a dead dog. Do you think I don’t know what you do in those bars you visit every day?”

“In his inebriated state Wachira thought he could contain the situation by one slap. He shakily stood up; span his hand but Marrah duct just in time for the hand to brush over her cheek, hurling the wobble man off balance. He was soon on his feet with a vengeance, grabbed at the woman’s neck and clang on it with magnetic tenacity. Even when the sharp pain seared his stomach he did not connect where it was coming from or loosen his grip. He felt another jab of pain on his chest followed by the screaming of his children, looked and his chest to see a knife wedged there. He hurled at the breathless torso of his wife who fell backward, her head connecting with the edge of a stool.

He kneeled on the floor, squeamish with his own blood, pain gorging at his chest and stomach. He looked in horror at his terrified children, who were now orphans.

Steve Karathi, 2012.

Over the Counter

While I may not pass as the happiest person by any standard, it would be unfair for anyone to accuse of me of denying mankind this invaluable possession which paradoxically is bereft in me. Narcissism does not allow me to glorify myself so I will go slowly on this. Somehow even on dejected gloomy periods, the niceness in me partly fuelled my brokenness ensures that I put smiles on bank cashiers and mpesa agents. Am not contracted to walk around banks making silly jokes to this bunch of nation builders; rather, it happens that at this time, am reminded of the dregs and remnants in my bank accounts. Masking a no nonsense face, I walk to the banking hall and line up to collect whatever meagre balance had been forgotten there.

This is an episode that has played out a couple of times in the past. Amidst failed promises and brokenness, my patience wears off as soon as I remember a couple of hundred shillings sitting in my account. This is the situation I found myself in a few days ago. The money had been in that particular account from some times last year and procrastination had ensured I never topped it up to an amount that won’t sound shameful to line up to the teller and demand to withdraw. This particular account happens to be a savings account and as such there is no ATM as a deterrent to impulse withdrawals. 

The decision to make this withdrawal was not an easy one; I contemplated outsourcing for loan from a pal so that I can go deposit it the account then move to the next branch or may be the next teller where I could make the withdrawal without feeling ashamed. The more I weighed the idea the more stupid it sounded so I eventually concluded that it was after all my money and the bank had no restrictions that I can’t withdraw such an amount.

So am standing in the queue I.D and debit card in hand. In front of me there is this gentleman man who seems uneasy occasionally glancing over his shoulders. His restlessness is overt making him conspicuously suspicious. He observes the activities at the banking hall with detailed attention and a couple of times our eyes meet. He withdrew his gaze with an amazing alacrity, perhaps fearing that I could be some kind of a crook. Soon his time at the teller arrives and he saunter to the teller and pulls two fat brown envelopes which he hands over to the teller. At this juncture I can tell that his paranoia was due to the amount of money he carried with himself. Could be the difference between us was so obvious to him could tell of my shallow pocket and thin bank account. 

I will be next in line after this guy and when I approach the teller and hands overt the id and my card, momentarily my voice fails me. I clear my throat and feebly repeat the instructions. The teller raises her gaze plant it on my and sceptically confirm” …hundred?” I nod and she reverts to typing the details from my card into her computer. I could read something of a smug in her lips. While still hunched over her computer she kept on glancing over her glasses perhaps to get stock of the broke chap. This made me quite uneasy.

Behind me there was this beautiful lady whom I think, wow, if she has had heard what I was withdrawing over the counter, certainly could be she knows am not even worth looking at her. Honestly I don’t feel that worth so I keep my glance away.

As if to torture me, the lady teller will go ahead to require me repeat my signature a couple of times by claiming that it doesn’t match. I mean from this very account I have previously withdrawn much larger figure but only on the occasion when I had to withdraw literally nothing will I stand the embarrassment and suspicion of stealing? Eventually when she satisfied with torturing me, she pulled a bunch of fifty shillings notes and leisurely started counting them. I was tempted to resist but I had overstayed on the counter and wanted to get out of there soonest so I just sulked and reluctantly took the notes and walked out.

It was the longest five minutes I have had to endure a bank and it was a relief to storm out of the hall. I could; however, feel the eyes of the customers lining in the queue glued on me. I just couldn’t look back, I couldn’t. My misery had turned out to someone’s amusements and I am proud to provide entertainment even in the banks.  If that teller keeps a diary, am certain she had a story to write.

Love and Broken Dreams

There comes a time when choices narrow a time when, though mostly reluctant, excuses fail to convince. At such time, circumstances demand that we take our time to audit ourselves and examine the hard facts and
update the necessary adjustments. Such time for me is now and therefore this piece is saturated by narcissism and personal subjectivity.

I grew up with big dreams twirling around my head and surrounded by people who encouraged me that all the dreams were within my reach. It happened that from a very early age, I had created an aura of hope, an illusion of my future achievements but I failed to put emphasis on the threats of these dreams. Sure there were some challenges along the way; there still are. It is not the challenges per se I have a problem with; those were there for guidance. The problem is I grew comfortable around the idea of achieving anything I set my eyes on and failed to take periodic review of my track.

Everything I knew or anything that I was told with regards to my successes is now e a lump of big lies. I scoff when those who haven’t tired of my “delayed success” still prophesy and proclaim, while meaning the best for me, that the future still hold more promises. It has come as a late discovery that patience is merely a girl’s name; not a virtue I can stand. I write this thus to portray my impatience with life and lies of life as I see it now or rather the sorry state of affair I find myself in. Perhaps there are those who can argue that at my age, everything should be bliss and I thus I should concentrate on my current undertakings. In a way I agree with that and that’s why I feel I should try explaining my predicament if not to anyone but myself.

It should be mentioned that I don’t have a good past record when it comes to dreams and anything I hold of value to me. A close analysis of the things I desired in the past paints a chilling picture if such a projection is to be made. I held on the dream of establishing myself as a writer and to date, though the dream still is alive, there is nothing to show for it. A look at things I have been involved in planning in the past also illustrate on how fate has always found a way of messing up with my plans.

In as much as I can indulge in protracted and lengthy gibberish in the chain of my failures, it would be fair to stick only to a few details. No man can claim to have lived and not have broken dreams about some girl. At least that man isn’t me. To the contrary, I can boast (if warranted) to have experienced the shattering of this dream for a couple of time. Normally a conversation like this is expected from melancholic lads who have just suffered heartbreaks which is not the case here.

She made me cry for a week. I begged and cursed and begged even more but the dice had been cast and she would hear none of my pleas.  I lost the taste and appetite of food and somehow the will to live. For the first time since the passing of my only brother some eight years before, my weakness was overt even to my mother. Before this, I held a dream of joining the army. Not that I have the killer instinct in me but I really wanted to join the forces. Well, I lost my girl to guy in the forces and with it I lost the desire of ever joining the forces.

Getting accustomed to this loss was not easy. At times my heart made deliberate attempts at ignoring my brain and I could snap from nowhere and call her. I tried insolence where persuasion didn’t work all to no avail.  It is something I did often in the first few weeks and it always left me weary and grieving. Drastically, we had transformed from people who could talk for hours over the phone to people who lacked anything to talk about after one minute. My phone became an object of temptation; a device to torment me for it was practically useless now that I couldn’t talk to her. I would spend hours stalking her in facebook and draining my sorrow. 

Eventually my desperation yielded another relationship. By blind chance a met a total stranger and we somehow hit it off. I must say it was a precise replica of what had happened to me earlier only that by a strange twist of fate  the guy who got burned this time deserved it. Why he deserved it will remain a preserve for another day. Replacement made peace was restored and though at time I would sink into melancholy and dejection, I always had someone to fall back to. It would be more than a year later when this new love will fade and this time there would be no cries or pleading.

Tracing back I have loved and lost and there is certainly nothing to show for it. It is one vanity that has occupied my mind more than anything and I can pride more in having lost than loved. I know am not and will not always be the better guy. It happened that when I lost to the army guy, I could swear with certainty that that he was just a joker trying to pull her legs. Well, the certainty of that has been heavily eroded though in a way he did pull her legs wide to a point of procreating. I just have to swallow my pride and ignorance and salute him. I did bandy words with him and exchanged some nasty epithets and it is it is manly and fair for me to rescind that. This thought came to me after realizing that for expecting anyone to love me and wait for me; I would be putting her life on hold. I don’t want to be accused, even for love, of delaying anyone’s ambition.(P.S.  Not unless your name is Patience and willing to be patient with me).

Fighting Conflict

A one eyed man among the blind is deemed to be the king. It is therefore not a surprise to see the amount of vitriol pouring in the media and blogosphere, championed by a few pseudo intelligent individuals who,snobbishly mistake their opinion to facts. It is the essence of freedom of expression to voice your opinion but in so doing, it is prudent to realize that this right is not a monopoly to a select few.

It’s worrying how degenerative we've become a point where we are always right and anyone with a contrary opinion is a piece of turd, a numbskull and a dozen of other epithets. We are very intolerant people, quintessentially condescending and always brimming with all manners intimidation. It is said that rudeness is the weak man's sense of defense and, with all our perceived intelligent (and the stupidity of others) we can't hold a decent argument is itself telling on how intelligent we are. Instead of showing signs of decency and maturity, instead of talking sense and remaining pragmatic, we blow the rid every time someone happens to voice or hold contrary opinion. It's a shame that our idea of debate involve an archaic chest thumping, a rigorous shake of the head followed by a chain of bile and vile words.

We can never be equal and we'll not always agree. Why then do we antagonize and vindicate others for their own opinion? In explaining cultural perspectives of conflict, Robbins (2009) argues that sometimes the meaning given to violent behavior often dissociates the perpetrators of violence from blame. This is the tip of the iceberg that is manifesting itself and sadly propagated by the media. We haven't learned anything from the 2007 post-election violence and it seems we are not ready to. The dissociation which Robbins postulates is done by hiding the actions of perpetrators behind a supernatural being, dehumanizing and demonizing opponents or defining war as a defense against the oppressor. This is essentially the result of us versus them mentality where snobbishness confines us in this narrow mindedness.

Stereotypes concerning the various communities are what our comedians call jokes. Instead of letting the diversity of our communities act as our strength, instead of looking for the positive in all the others, we tend to zero in on meaningless negativities and inadvertently malicious. What we consider as harmless jests amidst laughs and mirth eventually turns into our beliefs of the various communities. It limits our knowledge about the other communities their cultures and anything they hold of value. The ethnic cleansing which gripped this country can hardly be compared with what was witnessed in Rwanda but there is a lot we can learn from Rwanda in terms of the reforms which were implemented there. Having Integration Commission to look on issue of hate speech while we haven’t defined clearly what hate speech entails won’t take us anywhere. Like Rwanda, it is time we stopped identifying others by tribe and start seeing them as people .

Until we identify the prevalent problem, until we own the problem and start thinking of the way forward without hiding behind our tribes and tribesmen, the smoke will continue smoldering and soon the fire will break. Fighting tribalism involves more than just shouting down and speculating what this and that tribe is planning. It involves taking a step to try understanding why the individual in conflict is taking a certain view without considering how stupid or intelligent they are. We have to accommodate the views of all Kenyan whether they be trash or not and try to view the world from their perspective. The question is, since we have elevated ourselves, our tribe and whatever little grouping that we identify with, are we willing to shed these bonds to break these ties and accommodate the views and opinion of others? Until we can answer this question on the affirmative and be able to take unwavering steps to stick to this resolution, we shall only be wallowing in mediocrity, and worse, we won’t know of it. Ours would be a constant lie that we are intelligent and this mild notion won’t take us anywhere.