Chronicles of a Dying Generation: Part 3 (Final Part)

(For David Rudisha. Still proudly Kenyan)


“Because we were young, we were stupid,
We were young and we were wrong.”

[(THE SIXTY SIXTH POEM) By Ben Heaven]
-Tony ‘Smitta’ Mochama in What if I am a Literary Gangster?

“Yet
  If I did not think these thoughts
  I would be a beast
  Living an unexamined life…
            doing what comes
            without battling it out…”
(Poem 190)
-Taban Lo Liyong in Words That Melt a Mountain.

     Among other theories of victimization, there is one called lifestyle theory. According to criminologists, it is whereby an individual increases their vulnerability of being victimized. Therefore, the behaviors most cited as likely to result to this form of victimization include going out late at night and living in the cities. On that note, most young men prefer the former-going out late at night. The darker it is, the more tempting it gets. Same to when some of us are in the village. Patrolling the village starting around midnight is what is viewed as the beginning of the real fun. Those who have been bred under the innocence of the village will recall even going at night to pick your girlfriend from their hut must only be conducted in the depths of the black night. This noble errand that always involves ‘deflowering’ your girl is always accomplished with a ‘rungu’, courage and unwavering defiance of the perils of the night. These include motivated night runners, marauding leopards and hyenas depending on the village where your girl comes from and the distance of the place.

Okay, what I am trying to get at is that youth are pushing themselves further to the precarious cliff of having the ‘real fun.’ Our generation is ready to lose everything for the fun. We are not different from crack addicts who will do almost anything to get a fix even if it means sharing unhygienic needles. May be we are a Lost Generation as Gertrude Stein told Ernest Hemingway.  We are being ravaged at the peak of our youth with the ‘war’ of substance abuse and unbridled violence. That is not enough. We are taking grave risks to live the moment. I will stop moralizing the story but remember to Google the Lost Generation. An interesting breed of weird artists.

Back to where we left:
            I must plead guilty here that the two waiters roughed me up really bad. The one who had pushed me dragged me outside with methodical hooks as his colleague complimented with slaps from his right muscular hand. Before, my accomplice Mesh had offered to pay the broken bottles but the crazy waiters were taking none of it. It is worse to belittle the ego of a man and that is what I had done. I recalled later. I had bruised the pride of these men by questioning their authenticity of being polices officers suddenly from waiters who had been serving at the counter.

“Yeah, I said it. I only know you are waiters and I don’t give a f**k,” I growled amid my stupor while lying face up on the ground. Mesh had also been wrestled to the ground by the waiters-turned-police officers.
            “Umesema aje?” the other waiter taunted me.
            “Nyi ni waiter!” and more blinding kicks and blows continued successively from the duo and from the teeming crowd, some had begun asking the familiar questions under such circumstances: “Kwani nini ime-happen?” And under such situations of disorder, people will just continue staring at the unfolding event and ignore you. The wise ones did not even bother to come and waste their time but continued imbibing their ‘Hakuna Matata’ and ‘Greatness’ in contented buzz.

            I suddenly managed to regain from the assault and rose up to defend myself. And at the speed it takes Usain Bolt to complete 100m, I had grabbed the beer bottle of the ‘Magician’ and aimed it at the temple of the waiter who had pushed me before. By the luck of God, it only grazed the corner of his right eye and before he could marshal his violent retaliation; there emerged an armed GSU officer like some magic of ‘Kiini Macho’ guy back in KBC.  All I recall is that I was back to the ground and he whacked me hard that only being mute could confirm my cooperation. He grabbed me by my brown sweater and I heard him say: “You are assaulting a police officer, huh?” “Not that way, officer. I can explain.”
“No explanation young man. Give me your ID.” I handed it him.
“You think we have never been students, huh, tell me…” he said as he dragged me toward a well lit sentry at the corner of the gate. Then I generated another last scuffle that completely enraged the uniformed officer. As we approached the sentry, a night watchman in his night gear of a white heavy jacket with a woolen dark Marvin cap attempted to come near me and a blow received him hard that he withdrew. When he regained, I was again on the ground and this time they almost killed me. I was afraid the GSU officer would train his gun at me and silence me forever.
“Let me explain things out,” I pleaded again. This time the watchman I had previously boxed stared at me like a captured chimpanzee and I thought he was wondering of the young people these days, especially students.
Then the officer blurted out those statements of theirs that I constantly hear in Nigerian movies:


“Your are now under arrest and anything you say will be used against you in a court of law.”
“I will abide by that,” I replied. He then entered inside the sentry desperately searching for something then came back again. It is critical to note here that my boy Mesh had returned to beg for these guys to forgive us. Things were turning ugly anyway. I was increasingly becoming violent under my stupor and the patience of these people was also waning. They compelled Mesh to sit on the ground. For the first time, a sense of consciousness shot through me the way a mild shock courses in the body since the commotion begun. I finally realized I was dragging my friends into a steaming soup that would have devastating repercussions.
To reduce boring you to this length, the GSU officer threatened to book us at the Central Police Station before appearing in court the day after tomorrow in court to face the following charges:  

• Assaulting a police officer on duty
• Being at the KBC Mess illegally, and
• Being disorderly under drunkenness

Together with my colleague, we agreed to comply with the charges only if ‘Moses’ that is the GSU officer would allow me to tell my side of the story. He refused. I pleaded with him again but he stood his ground. Then we told him to his face we are not afraid to be booked. Let him book us immediately and haul us to the police cells. It reaches a moment in Life when the hard decisions have to be made.

Noticing that we were not going to buy their threats, ‘Moses’ threatened us with a cash bail of 50,000 shillings at the court on Monday which I told him was worth it if I could be allowed to explain myself there. Additionally, I also intimidated them that another of my colleagues had filmed the whole brutal assault orchestrated by the waiter-officers and would use it in the same court of law on Monday to prove my innocence. The guys panicked and’ lowered’ the cash bail miraculously to 10,000 shillings. By experience, there are Kenyan behaviors that will tell you what is expected. And by principle I rarely part with it unless they are ready to leave a corpse of me.

            I was instructed to go and see the ‘officer’ I had ‘assaulted’ and to my credit he had a good swelling to remember me for. In a broken voice of a defeated man- a pale shadow from the brute he had been while ago, he honestly implored even if I could give him 200 shillings to go and nurse his injury then they would ‘kill’ the case and things would be well. Okay, take a pause and consider this: From 50,000 to 10,000 to now 200 shillings. Logic had already whispered to us things were not adding up. And nobody was going to kiss ass at this moment.

            A fellow tribesman whom I had I met at the Mess who had noticed I was not going to tag along, reached his left shirt pocket and fished a crumpled 100 note bob and handed it to the ‘officer’. Then the ‘case’ died. I opened the gate finally and walked to ‘freedom’ in a spring of confidence and defiance. Only that I could I have died during the melee. If it was some club PSYS.

Chronicles of a Dying Generation Part 2

(“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -Mark Twain)

(“In order to write about life, first you must live it!”-Ernest Hemingway).

       Ours has been known as the City in the Sun but I do not agree. It is the Murder City. Green Day perhaps had a dying generation in perspective trampling on hot coals of the City risks. Hear them: This empty laughter/ Has no reason/ Like a bottle/ Of your favorite poison. They do not stop there. It is like they know us exactly. They rock on: We are the last call/ And we're so pathetic. Why do I have to bother you with lyrics of the rock band Green Day? I will tell you in a while. But I will hasten to add these lines to wrap this crap about lyrics and explain myself: We've come so far/ We've been so wasted/ It's written/ All over our faces.

        Nairobi City and by this I mean the CBD is crueler to ‘those who have come so far’ especially if you are pursuing your higher education. Students have had their skulls cracked with blunt objects by semi-illiterate guards. There are those who have been duped into the plush joints of the elite where drinks flow and fun is there like forever. Pot-bellied M.Ps, CEOs of top companies, drug barons and all those lumped on the side of the crème de la crème strip young varsity students in exclusive lodges and perform carnal knowledge with them. This is in exchange of goodies that many of us envy and I will not moralize anything that what the girls are doing is immoral. Live your life. That is the ‘Hippocratic Law’ my father advised me to abide by in this Murder City. But what cannot escape me even under extreme inebriation is the fear that another university girl will be betrayed by these Murder City honchos before Grim Reaper strikes like fierce lightning. The interesting bit of this game is its addiction. The boys are addicted to substance. Ladies are addicted to fragrance of the Good Life.

Until they stop you from breathing is when you realize our generation is on loose sand. Or you lose a close friend. The night guards you meet along Moi Avenue, Tom Mboya Street, Kaunda Street or even Luthuli Avenue dozing off intermittently, lighting foul smelling Supermarch and casting bored eyes on the dying generation entering and exiting entertainment spots in the CBD can be demons and sadists if activated. They are ruthless if provoked but if you admonish their ‘Nyayo agents’ style of approaching matters, your colleagues will find you at the City Mortuary. I always dread the day the mortuary attendant at City Mortuary will tell those asking of my whereabouts:
“Yes, a young man was brought here dead by armed police officers. And he had multiple head injuries. Is it him you are looking for?” That day may come. It is a precarious life we are living and the tightrope we are walking on keeps getting lose. But nobody has been able to explain the sadism of these ‘watchiez.’ It is like the man that kills an innocent dog in Ayi Kwe’s philosophical fiction, ‘Fragments’, in order to appease his own ego. May be that is what motivates these guards. For what else can drive a fellow human being to take the life of another? You tell me even if our deaths are as result of our dim-witted arrogance of imagining being the only students ever to acquire higher education. John Ruganda (RIP) asks in his play ‘Shreds of Tenderness’, “What makes a murderer tick?” Grapple with that dear reader. I understand our generation is not a lot to sympathize for because after all we claim to know-it-all. And we know a lot by the way.

        A lot of distractions but let us proceed. At the KBC Mess we went to after getting tipsy, I went more loquacious, egotistical and more intellectual than before. Made friends randomly the way drunks easily do and chatted incessantly with more cheap beers and complimenting fag to fan the fun. Raucous and sensual we got with ladies but nothing more than that. By the way, let me inform you that the guy in a pink tee I mentioned in part 1 was an old youth of 36 years and contented with fate that he had lost some of his youthful verve to bounce like us. The only ‘wizardry’ he could entertain us with was losing a 10 bob coin in his lower elbow while seated then ask for a drink that most of us cheerfully gave. It was completely juvenile but nobody was ready to burst his ‘36’ bubble and foil the well orchestrated ‘wizardry’ of fun. Like Twitter we followed and like Facebook, most of us liked.

Ghafla bin vu, two Tusker beer bottles shook from the table of our entertainment and rolled in sequence before dropping on the cracked dusty cement. They cracked with a real thud. For a few seconds, the merriment fell deaf and drunken and glazed eyes turned and fixed their gaze on our table. A commotion was born and the waiter went into a start. I was standing behind ‘The Magician’ and watched with ‘don’t-care-attitude’ the splinters of the Tusker bottles.
“Nani amevunja hizo chupa,” the waiter managed to inquire. Drunken rumblings.
“Nani amevunja hizo chupa,” and this time his white eyes were trained on me with a fiery blaze.
“Ni huyu kijana,” the magician said but did not look at me.

            “Kijana, lipa hizo chupa saa hii…”. Can’t recall what else he said but I adamantly refused that I had not caused the breaking of those bottles. He got infuriated and stormed out of the counter then slammed it before shoving me hard that I almost lost my balance. One of his colleagues, a smooth-shaven brown man with small squirrel eyes and a dark blue cardigan also emerged from another room behind the counter and watched the unfolding scenario. When I regained my balance, I violently retaliated by also pushing the waiter hard and accompanying it with clubbed fists on his right cheek-I am left handed and yelling of my innocence. That is when the river burst its banks and his colleague arrived in the scene like batman and they both wrestled me on the ground before descending on me with kicks and blows and shrieks like those only heard in churches that speak in tongues. A crowd soon gathered but still they would not stop…. (To be continued… the battle of the beer bottle and the intervention of a bribe-seeking GSU officer).

Chronicles of a Dying Generation Part 1

(What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction.
― Arthur Schopenhauer)
      We are a dying generation. A breed tottering on the brink of losing their heads, hearts, mind and soul. And I am a vexed young man. I know I will die not so early but it will still come swift. A generation that depends on absinthe as their oxygen is a generation that will not make it in the famed vision 2030. And it is there that I belong. Drinking away my future. It can be helped but I prefer the wild risks of early 20s. The gush of the youthful blood keeps propelling me to higher heights whenever I take the risk with the boys. Take for example yester night.  Arrived in town at around 8.46 p.m. Snaked our way to the sides of UoN, rolling from street to street like night pimps. No call girl in sight though we were a tad lusty to ogle at one. Bypassed UoN then walked down past Kenya National Theater and KBC head office before stopping at their gated mess. Bribed them as usual.
You see we are not permitted to wet our gills here but what do I say. Kenya is marwa (Ours) and the new dispensation accords us loads of freedoms among them the freedom of movement. Here beer is economical. Tusker goes at sh.85.Guiness and White Cap at sh.95 respectively. Those are the common brands and the league of my dying generation flock here like vultures. We love cheap things. We are still hustling in this whole business they call Life. After entering, one of my boys goes to the counter and orders the first round. I take credit for the first round. We are still sober as staunch Catholic priests. The sobriety makes us feel powerful in this drinking spree. Smartly dressed young men are shouting and tossing their drinks in the air. They are loud and exuberant. At one time, they are arguing over whose drink is the best and another time I can’t make sense of what they are arguing about. Their words are full of incoherence and so I do not bother. There are lots of characters to observe on the ‘stage.’ Some girl in a green hoodie with a matching three quarter and black old skool sneakers chain smokes with utmost ease. I wonder why she is doing that. But it is a dying generation on their pinnacle so what do I say. The pot calling the kettle black or what?

        Fellows stagger and make slurring noises as they head to the lavatory to relieve themselves. They greet us. They are happy with the Good Life. Together with my two drinking accomplices, we are seated on stones against a white painted wall. In front of us is the round metallic colonial relic that acts as the bar where teeming revelers buy beer by themselves (It is the norm here) and chatter in high notes. On my extreme far right are where the lady chain smokes and a jamaa in a bright pink tee with a shiny cheap necklace. He has wrapped the lady in a lovely grace and is beckoning her the way a ram does an ewe that needs mating. They are seated on one bench and opposite them is another lady in a black blouse sipping her Tusker in the worst boredom I have witnessed in the recent months of exposing my liver to irreparable damage. I don’t know why she is that bored. May be because a guy is chatting up her girlfriend and yet is not according her any little attention. But the guy seated next to her is even worse. He seems to be lost in a maze of his worries and reflections. We concur may be he is thinking about some impending school fees he is expected to pay next term by the government in our public schools. Or he promised his wife some fancy course, let’s say nursing and now the time is nigh but funds are not forthcoming. His boss is not playing ball as he had promised. He has his right leg on the left leg and gulps his beer as if it will help erase what cannot give him the merriment around.
       Two Guinnesses later and I remember I had also climbed the stage to be observed by the new breed of my generation streaming in fresh and composed to entertain their fancies. (To be continued….how we created a ruckus and nearly lost our lives…)

The Man in the Moonlight

     It was one of those village nights magnificently lit by a full moon-grey and radiant-perched in a spotless navy blue sky except for the myriad twinkles of stars-million years away. One walked on the murram road connecting our village to the outside world and black shadows of different trees lined the road-splashed in stillness-ghostly like. Toward the market, a few shops with electricity and a bar taking advantage of the august season-drying the pockets of the young and the middle-aged and further into the small streets of the market-more yellow flickers of oil lamps perilously hung on rusty, sooty wire mesh on poorly stocked shops and the same sad scenario was repeated on even more shops one continued to encounter. No recent death to grieve about or to elicit any outburst of lamentations that such a radiant night would pass us the villagers.

      I dragged on my dusty feet not wanting to reach home early. The brilliant bathe under the illumination of the full moon continued to fascinate me and I felt like freezing the night. Never slipping from reality. For surely the night would die-however radiant and dazzling it was and day would be born to usher the sun with its morning glory of peace and serene temperatures but with its continued fragmentation-a brutal design of terror-scorching and hot as hell would be revealed.

    But before I could surface from my romantic reverie, there I stumbled upon him: a dark figure-a man by a closer scrutiny-roughly in his early 50s with bushy like moustache stuck out like a hand brush, his face was concealed with a tilted brown fedora hat with a gleaming ring round it and his waist coat had peculiar bulge at the front pockets. His charcoal grey trouser clear under the moonlight was dirty at the hems like he had been wading in loamy mud and he was rooted to his spot like a statue with both hands clasped at the back and knees in an obtuse like angle.

      I continued to study him closely and there he intruded into my thoughts: “May you show me where the path leads to…I mean, son, where is the short cut to the market?” His voice was awkward like a dusty flute, and it had a colourless slur like he needed to cough a bit to unclog the dust. And coincidentally he coughed and spat twice but with a lot of determination and the saliva nearly landed on my sandals. I tensed.

      “I-I-I-don’t know…”I fumbled almost in a whisper of terror but he seemed to have misheard me.

      “You said where son?” His voice had metamorphosed to now that of a seasoned street beggar.

      “I don’t know! That’s what-“I halted to recheck my new found guts, still instinctively astonished by this figure under the moonlight and right at our gate. He remained unmoved perhaps also studying me, hands still clasped at the back.

  My brain begun to tick, what next? Scream for assistance or still with hold and observe my specimen? Here I was a mere houseboy in another county far way from home, unfamiliar to the area-barely six months old and now this figure ambushes me with questions of shortcuts and son…son…”

      An over speeding motorcyclist with three customers on tow zoomed past us and the man trembled a little like he did not like such things. He twitched his nose to block the dark blue diesel smoke that the racing man had left in his course and now even shook his head. So he cared, I wondered. No, it was just hypocrisy. Deceit. Perhaps a tactic. Who remained that cared that anyway? I don’t how he would react to discover that the over speeding motorcycle actually belonged to the area chief who was supposed to reign on such wayward drivers. If the government twisted law who was an ordinary citizen not to do the same? Another cyclist sped passed us with the same speed and the stranger now looked agitated and clicked and mumbled some inaudible words of “…ah this world but the speed where to…?”

   I was getting terribly nerved. I wanted to get home and continue with the house chores so that I could sleep early. Ma’am would be really furious. With the news from the city that her husband was polluting the moral purity of the capital-painting it red with all ages, her foul mood wanted her to let it on someone. Something. And it was apparent when she hurled her whisky bottle at Golden-the house cat.

   “What’s your name boy?” he slightly roared, like a command and the rusty tone was gone. I was almost collapsing with fear. My legs had turned jelly and I could feel my whole body withering like a leaf about to snap in a windy weather. What did he want to know my name for? Who was he and what was his mission?  I mean his intention really? At our gate and at this hour of the night. I tried to engage my mind to at least summon reason even if my legs had now been immobilized.

       “You are… you- I mean but I don’t know you well…” I replied curtly to his plain astonishment for I saw I slight contortion on his apple-shaped face-sallow and shabby as now revealed by the slight tilt of his fedora hat. He hastily realized I was again reading him and he adjusted his hat, now blinding all his eyes but the left hand still remained at his back.

        From the fully lit semi permanent house, I noticed Ma’am pacing about the room from this end to that end from the transparent large windows. Earlier on during the day I had done a thorough cleaning of the house including all curtains and they had not been hung back. I had planned to do that this night. By the order of her impatience I could discern a building up of a nasty kind of rage but how could I inform her, them-her two sons, of the stranger at the gate for I did not have a phone.  It had long ago been confiscated by Ma’am because to her I was wasting time contacting my parents how I was doing in my new place of work. I could now contemplate the rubber-whip being lashed on me by Ma’am and her two muscular sons, the lock up at the store for two days-it was always my punishment and the worst I dreaded-starvation! Oh starvation!

        I now begun screaming in a shrill pitch and the man was jolted to his vulnerability. He sprung on me with his two hands to block my mouth and for the first time I noticed the left hand he had kept a best secret was poorly bandaged with a faded white cloth; its like he had used a piece of a rat eaten t-shirt. I wheeled backwards and for a second schemed how to elude my adversary who was steadfast to harm me with a broken bicycle rim glistening in the moonlight. A full torch came sharp-Ma’am and her two sons had heard the ensuing commotion and they now strode to where we were ,armed with shiny pangas I used for cutting napier grass.

      The stranger sensing imminent danger of capture and or being discovered, for the last determined effort waved the rim at my face almost brushing my forehead and bended low then he swooped his hat that had accidentally fell of and hurriedly disappeared into a path of mass vegetation. I heaved a sigh of relief and remembered God instantly at that moment. Ma’am and her two sons had arrived to the scene.

       Her usual sparkling face was now distorted with seething fury and arms were akimbo, extremely shaking. ”So these are the crooks you collude with ah?” she blurted almost breathless as her two lads reached for my earlobes. Before I could explain myself, a blinding smack struck me mute as the dead. A minute elapsed before I could figured out it was Ma’am who had done it.

    “No Ma’am…no…please…”I implored sightless and another thump now banged my head and I knew it was happening again. For about five minutes the rubber whip flogged my bottom, head, back, face everywhere and the supplement was kicks and blows as Ma’am maintained had steady tempo of insults: “Good for nothing…look at you… a thief…a plain fool…no wonder you are poor…” My frantic wails were now subdued by the constant snap of the whip and rains of blows and punches that would not tire.

     Above, the moon was now even brighter-straight-as if trying to illuminate everything below and it dawned on me I could still have played cards with the stranger. Better the devil one did not know than phony angels one was used to.

As Years Go By

As years go by

rivers running their courses

I stand upon the cliff,

and watch by:

the gibbous moon wandering in the starless sky

the grave silence of the seas

my lucid mind:

it unbound to infinite lengths

zigzagging to indefinite breadths

strains of intermittent imagination

flash: no-off-on-off

Life-my Life

like the gibbous moon above, and

the grave silent seas

resonate in queer similarity.

I stand by the cliff. Pick a pebble

To the sea I toss-

When the angel of death flies by

I suppose-

the useless gullibility of living a life

and dying the silence of the seas

Very Short Poem

If I stop scrawling my muses
God: Diffuse my creative fuses.

For God and Country

(I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death-William Shakespeare)

Things were set to plan. And any leak would confirm that somebody was talking too much. Of late, the local Cheka was sniffing out any bit of a puzzle that was not adding up. The head of the mob sat in a pensive mood, occasionally commanding orders to the younglings who squatted on the carpeted floor. Attentive. “This is for God and country. This is for Allah,” he thundered in measured tones. “This is a calling. Allah has chosen you.” The younglings stared at him with the same awe they had done at others. Most of them pictured the painted heaven of several virgins waiting to appease their tender souls.

“In life we have stood for something. And that thing is to defend Islam,” Abdul Sheikh growled for the umpteenth time, now raising his voice in controlled rage to none in particular in that small room. It was a single room on the second floor of a four-storied house in the outskirts of the city. He had rented it almost a year ago and had settled the rent in advance for six months. The landlord was a local Imam and their relationship was fortified on the grounds of Islamic faith and hence no cards below the table had been seen. Sheikh banked on his radical influence that had cultic following in the local Mosque but still-Life is warped.  Abdul had been raised and praised in the estate where he stayed for his rallying campaign to unite young Muslims. He was a leader. A progressive with the zeal of Malcolm X. Yet his radicalization had been growing steadily. His choice of literature was subversive. On a recent lecture to the Muslim youth, he had called for an enlarged vigilance towards the enemy. Those in attendance heard him use invectives towards ‘the enemy.’ Everyone present knew who the enemy was. I was present and I too knew the enemy.

But it is this set plan I want to talk about. The tales of Abdul are mythological in our community and everyone loves telling them time and again. Abdul called for one of the ‘volunteers’, he called them so, and asked for the confirmation of the ‘tools.’ Everything was intact.

“And sir, when is the job?” one of the volunteers asked.

“The job will be on a future date that you will all be informed. For now, your fundamental duty is to praise Mohammed. We have to read his teachings and convert our brothers and sisters still in the bondage of the enemy. Our relatives across the Atlantic, our folks sweltering under the yoke of the enemy in Europe, in Asia, here at home-our duty is to redeem them from being duped and fooled by the enemy.” He made a momentary pause that is characteristic of seasoned speakers and cast his sunken white eyes on his silent listeners. “Yes, you have to save the brother next to you. You have to save your mother at home. Your uncle who is always arrested by the enemy just because of his religion. I mean-young men-listen to me. And listen very carefully. The enemy has crossed our deadline. And we have to act. Now or never.” He was now almost frothing and one of the young men hurried and gave him a white handkerchief to mop the sweat covering his entire face. His fists were now clenched stiff and he waited for the questions. The audience remained in that cemetery mood, still recovering from the petrifying sermon. One of the boys made as if to ask something but the confidence melted way faster than Google takes to find results. The room wore an ominous silence for the mean time and the racing heart beats of the kids palpitated loudly inside their rib cages that it could have been noise itself.

“So, young men,” he stressed on ‘men’ “You are all aware what is before us. The duty before our hands is momentous and perilous at the same time.” “The enemy is not sleeping. The enemy never sleeps. The enemy will never sleep.” A small pause. “Everyone must play his role accordingly to plan. Life is all about plans. Your make plans and then you execute. That is what our job is all about.”

“What about if they catch us? My friend told me they take people to some remote island and torture them there. Not here at home, but far away.”

“Lies. You are being brainwashed. Allah will protect us. You must believe in yourself. Everybody must believe the enemy will be defeated.”

“If the enemy is not defeated, what is to be done?”

“The enemy cannot be pardoned to live. They have persecuted our members. They continue exterminating our youth on least suspicions. How can the enemy be left to live?” “Tolerance is not allowed here, volunteers. Violence must be met with violence.” He made another significant pause and wiped his yellow chubby cheeks as he readjusted his cleric frames. A religious ideology had hardened him and he seemed to owe none an apology. Abdul had felt the scars of the enemy and he could not jest at those who yearned for redemption. He could not hesitate to redeem lost and confused souls like these kids who still valued the enemy as human beings.

“From tomorrow, intensive trainings will kick-off. Attendance is compulsory and failure to turn for any session will amount to hanging or getting shot.” At the mention of the last words, a section of the audience gasped in horror. In the intricate business of the Holy Call, the odds are stacked to the shelf against the volunteers. It was a fact acknowledged by these kids even before recruitment but still the words evoked a sense of shivers. “And please, remember the trainings will be conducted both day and night. The most obedient and committed volunteers will win the chance to carry out the job. Push yourself and heaven is yours kids.”

He then chorused as they all rose up: “For God and country.”

“For God and country.”

About six months later, the trainings came to an end. There were causalities of course. Two volunteers had been shot for fainting during the training and another three hanged for complaining they were being exploited. The rest qualified with ten chosen for the Holy Call. Abdul once again convened a session with the graduates where he reminded them of the virtues expected of them. He reiterated the fundamental objective of annihilating the enemy and his followers without any feelings of remorse. The head of that cell, a tall, lanky man with a long bushy beard garbed in a flowing white robe and black sandals turned up and paid each and every one of them.

“The Supreme Leader sends you Holy greetings.” He told them. “He says you are very brave young men. History owes you. A fight for what you believe in is worth dying for. Go and spread the cause. Destroy the enemy.”

From the meeting, everyone was dispatched to his respective station of finalizing the plan. Six young men aged below twenty-one years had exemplified highest level of obedience and obligation to the Holy Call to execute the duty on the stipulated date, at the exact time and in the specific venues with the utter most precision. There were further instructions that the enemy must suffer as many casualties as the ‘tools’ of choice could achieve. Other arising news would be communicated later.

On the appointed day, six young men awoke from their humble hideout with two to die for Jihad. They assembled their explosives dexterously and packed enough grenades brought early in the year by Abdul from the country they called the Motherland. The plans were to hurl three grenades at one bar along Mfongoni Lane during the premier league derby and the other at the TCC bus terminus where from reliable sources, people gathered, waiting for buses to take them to their estates. However, the heartbeat of the conspiracy lay in two young suicide bombers, Hamed and Abdikadir who would run into another throng in another equally jam-packed bus station. The aim as repeated by Abdul was to kill the members of the enemy as possible. Stab where it hurts most. That was the ultimate rule.

Dusk came naturally in the city as it has done on other occasions and city dwellers went about their duties as usual. On the streets also walked six young men heading to different directions to heed a call. In the city, people brush shoulders with all shades of people. And nobody cares anyway. Everyone heeds his call to survive.  Two youthfully dressed Muslims took a corner and embarked on the poorly lighted alley of Mfongoni Lane. On their away, they bypassed two officers on patrol smoking leisurely with caps pulled to their faces. Another two arrived at the TCC bus terminus and searched for a strategic hurling point before escaping on a waiting van just a few meters from the station. The last duo strutted on to their target station, knowing very well they were doomed to die young for a cause. They penetrated the multitude normally, just like young fellows try to push you in an overcrowded place and you assume it is all hormonal gush of energy. Almost half an hour later, it was all breaking news on our screens: Bomb explosions in the city!

The End.

Newspaper Scanners

We mill around
Like flies upon rotten jungle carcass
Or, like curious countrymen and women
Round a fresh murder scene
Glimpse of a headline to catch
‘Politician A accused of this’
‘Man Kills Self and Family’
Our reading appetite
In that chilly Nairobi morning
Is satisfied.
We continue to steal more glances
Upon the array of different publications
‘Inflation drives child to Madness’
‘Activists arrested over Demo’
Our time is limited
I steal way from the crowd, and
rush to my destination.
But more newspaper scanners
More and more
Broke citizens of the nation
Who get informed by just a scan
Will flock to the scene
To catch a glimpse of the headline.

Police Killed the Wrong man

Nobody knows
Police killed the wrong man.
Not the community. Not the press. Not the government.
Nobody knows.
He killed on our behalf. Looted on our behalf, he
abused office and plundered resources, all
on our collective behalf, but
only celebration and ululation I see.
The people rejoice. The government has not instituted a taskforce,
No committee, no inquiry commission, no investigation
from our new government.

Our ever nosy, noisy press, none is unearthing a scoop.
Investigative reporters are on hiatus,
Coz, nobody knows, police killed the wrong man.
He leaves behind a fleet of Benzes and stashed cash in Switzerland,
Semi-orphaned kids in foreign universities and an ambassadorial wife,
The man is to be interred. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, yet
 the people, the press and the government alike, sigh
In contented relief: BURIAL OF A THIEF AND MURDERER!
yet nobody knows,
that police,
killed,
 the wrong man.

Behind Enemy Lines

No models. Hopelessness. Want.
Nobody to emulate
Hope long died, and only
Misery is alive
Replicated under every roof

Tummies swell and we watch
Necessitated by extreme want
Besiegement of weaker sex
By venomous springing arrows
From, fairer sex.

Community’s fool of tender victims
Sprouting under the drought
of futurelessness.
And now: Love is pain
Are them to blame?
For swelled tummies?

Development projects galore
Determination to survive
People talk! People talk! People talk!
Methodology of survival. Only.
But, who’ll whisper
For the weaker sex, tender;
Behind enemy lines
of venomous springing arrows
from, fairer sex?

ONYO KALI

New Katiba is with us
Yet
I still see your Jomo-Emo One, thievy fingers,
Yearning to dip
Into our CDF and state coffers, yes
You over there: it is you MP am addressing…the one with a deceptive grin
 am strapped this time.
Take great care
New Katiba is my shining sword
and, I will take least hesitation
to wield against your Jomoic-Emo One-nic, filthy hands, so
take care former “Mheshimiwa”
This time: SERVICE LEADERSHIP ONLY!
And that’s my “Onyo Kali!’
Don’t say I never warned you.

Crazy GK

Crazy GK, Crazy GK
It came in a jungle green jeep;
Our Crazy GK

To haul bodies in its jungle green jeep
Victims of slum infernos
Our Crazy GK

“GK will cater for funeral expenses”
of affected victims, but
A nation is ungrateful
They mock
Crazy GK!

Donor funds float in GK plush offices,
foreign cash in billions.
GK officers drool in thievy expectancy
Foreign cash will vanish as work of magic

Crazy GK! Crazy GK!
caring GoK of our nation, always
will live: no stone unturned
Crazier and crazier
Our Craziest GK!

The Price

Walking by the battered rural path
  I chanced upon her
    Clay-pot aloft her head

        As I opened my mouth to speak
          She halted in her tracks
            droplets trickling down her smooth temple

              Reaching to say “hello”
                 She waved her left palm in distress; and
                    walked away towards the dying sun
                           I paced behind her in doggy-anxiety
                             Sword in my sheath sweating stiff
                               There and then I did it sloppy

                                  Behind the iron grills
                                    traversing the sands of time gone
                                      Only if she was ripe enough
                                         If she had persevered a little,

                                           Inside this towering government fortress
                                             barbed with electric wire and broken glass
                                               fourteen is mine to pay
                                                banished from the beauty again;
                                                  the ultimate price for a sloppy job.

Lost Child

Lost child wanders aimlessly on the streets
Book and an iPod on his hands
He wears bright white socks with white sneakers, and
A rock t-shirt, screaming “The Life of Hendrix.”

Lost child runs, he halts, stares cluelessly
And stops. Pap!
Strangers don’t care.
Nobody cares here: Welcome to Nairobi, kid
He sprints again, and stumbles: booooom!
The Children’s book drops with a thud and his expensive
Samsung iPod-it cracks on the clean Nairobi streets
City Council of Nairobi is a working nation.
Only one idler shows remorse
Draws near, hides the iPod and gives him the book.

Lost child is confused
His white parents have not found him
White people on the street don’t care
Nairobians are busy as ever
His iPod is gone-Coldplay and U2 classics
All his favorite rock band tracks are gone.
He continues to roam aimlessly, this white child
In the labyrinth of Nairobi walkers
Lost.

August must read

TITLE: To Be A Man: Kwani?  Poetry Competition anthology
AUTHOR: Various Poets
PUBLISHER: Kwani?
PRICE: Ksh 500

          Nyeri women pouring hot water and bludgeoning their men to recall their responsibilities a few months ago in the press is still fresh in many minds. Since FIDA and other organizations begun to protect the girl child from gender inequalities, the boy-child has been left on his own. For the first time in Kenya, men are  endangered lot and Mandeleo ya Wanaume is flashing a red card. The situation is dire!

         This poetry collection attempts to reveal through its various poets-both young and old what it takes to be a man. It is divided into three sections: the competition winners, competition shortlist and breaking through.  For example, In ‘Breaking Through’, Ndanu Mungala mourns:

                 My sisters tell me
                 I am now

                 the man of the house.
                 A polite way of saying
                 Stop crying!

       The society is also breeding men who are not supposed to account for their misdeeds. Men who invent excuses to avoid responsibility that is a common scenario of the new Adam breed in Kenya. This is according to Samuel Munene in his playful piece “Mercy Don’t You I understand That I am Man?”

       The collection also contains illuminating pieces done by published poets such as Ngwatilo Mawiyoo, Sitawa Namwalie and veteran novelist cum poet Marjorie Oludhe-Macgoye among others. This volume is a must read especially for all aspiring and practicing poets but more so, those curious to understand what it takes to be a man.