Wednesday prompts

Wednesday prompts

Posted by yz on Wednesday, March 25, 2020 in

You ask me a question and silence me in the same breath. Funny how you do that. How you ask a question that silences me. Where you don’t want to hear my truth unless I package it according to you, life as you, love as you, communication as you.

Funnier how I am here in this space. No one dragged me into it. No one begged me. I entered this trap of my own free will. Lured if you will by dreams for myself. Wish fulfillment gone wrong. Jafar answered my call when I rubbed the lamp and now here we are. 

They call it the fiasco. In my silence. My silence? Your silence? Our silence? Am I party to the silence by being silent? Anyway, I deny the word fiasco. Too much. It’s too much. It’s chaos. It’s drama. It’s prime time TV, a tele-novella, the a Danielle Steele novel if you will. It’s extreme. I want none of it it and there in  is the answer to the question I shouldn’t have been asking right now; if I’m not for the chaos then surely I’m in agreement with the silencing.

The discomfort remains, the itch between my shoulders. The need to speak and say something, anything and yet I don’t and most probably I won’t.  I tend towards a fade into the background, a whisper that is never repeated

...I’m not ready to speak past your wishes, to breathe beyond you. So I settle into the things I do know. They are this; The itch will go away. Discomfort morphs into a new normal. Your silence becomes my silence. It continues. 

Continue Reading

Splintered

Splintered

Posted by yz on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 in

She began to pay attention when the first cracks began. Or maybe the first cracks began when she began to pay attention. Either way, there was a splintering deep inside. She didn’t have the words for it but she felt it. She didn’t know it was the beginning of an end but she felt it.  A closing of sorts. Seven years old and realising that he wasn’t coming even though he said he would. He promised but then he never showed up. She sat in the living room and waited. In her favourite dress and the shoes he bought her. Brightly polished Clarks that gleamed against the cement floor. The lace of her socks stark white against the cocoa of her skin. The scent of Vaseline and Sulfur 8 wafting off of her as the day went on.

“Come and have lunch,”

Katogo. Matooke and groundnuts. The same thing they had for lunch everyday or so it seemed. Groundnuts were her favourite when Patience cooked them but her mouth dried at the look on Patience’s face. She would learn the word later. Pity. 

“No, I’m going to eat where I’m going,”  Silence and then the slap of slippers as Patience went back to the kitchen. 

“Come and play Lina,”

Francis, the askari’s son stood in the doorway. He wasn’t usually allowed in the house. His mother’s rules, not hers. She didn’t like their friendship. Respect your father’s boss she’d say every time she caught them doing something  they shouldn’t like raiding the flower bed so they could cook in old Blueband tins over stone sigiri or practicing their lessons on her mother’s old VW. “My father has gone to the market so we can take the bicycle and see if we pass St. Johns,”

The old Anglican church was way past the boundaries of how far they were allowed to play from home and so, the peak of their goals. Could they ride there and back, her balanced side saddle and in control of the Hero’s brakes while he held her shoulders and peddled. They’d broke the luggage seat the year before and were technically not allowed anywhere near the vehicle. Today, his words stung, like teacher Agnes’ ruler across the palm of her hands. 

“I can’t today,”

“But…”

She turned away from him, back toward the window, and beyond it, the driveway which lay empty and barren. She didn’t hear when he left but the smell of him, vaseline, sweat and dust evaporated after a few minutes. She thought of how silent his footsteps were. Why he always won at hide and seek.  His slippers were dirty and probably waited for him at the kitchen door, alongside her own. As if remembering their usual freedom, her feet pulsed from within their leather casings. 

She gave up at 5.00 as the sky turned orange and Sabena crossed over their old bungalow. It was too late for him to drive all the way now.  He wasn’t coming, she realised. There is a potency to the death of hope that first time that cannot be bottled or clearly described. That moment in time when something clicks. The pain is sharp and cracks everything you have ever known about yourself. The universe shifts and then realigns so that everything that was bright and brand new adjusts. Sharp edges become clear. Shadows become living breathing things with malicious intent. Rainbows are dull or barely visible, glimmering in a once bright sky. 

She went to her bedroom and took off her good clothes. She folded her socks and put them back in the drawer and lined her shoes back up with all the others. Then she climbed into her bed and she cried. Her mother came and then her grandmother. What they said as they held her, she would never remember. It didn’t help. If anything it hurt worse. As they spoke, cradling her gently, softly brushing her hair the pain seemed to intensify and she wasn’t sure how she fell asleep. 

When she woke up, Lina wondered if it was a dream but her eyes were sore and there was a heaviness deep inside that hadn’t been before. She brushed her teeth and her hair then got ready for church and it remained. . She ate her breakfast, licking the oil of the fried gonja off her fingers when she said she would wash them. Francis and her walked together.  She said her prayers. On the way back home, she climbed on his shoulders so they could steal mangoes from Mrs. Musiimes compound. They ran down the road screaming with laughter as Simba, the old lady’s dog half heartedly protected his domain. 

In the evening she pulled out her pink diary with little padlock and pen attached with a string. Dear Diary, today was a good day because mummy cooked and I prayed to Jesus for a Barbie like I saw on TV. Goodnight. 

The novel lay flat on her lap. She was ruining the binding and she knew it but she was impatient. He’d said they would only be here for a few minutes but it had been an hour. She knew because she was using the watch he’d given her for her last birthday. He’d even gotten her a new battery the week before. It was 1pm and he had to take her back home before 7. There was no way they’d make it to the centre of the city and then back home in time. She sighed and watched the door he’d gone into hoping for a sign of life. The curtain didn’t even flutter. Lucky she’d brought her favourite book along and she had the chocolate she’d made him buy when he stopped to get fuel. It was a sticky  melted mess from sitting on her lap in the car, so she was careful as she unwrapped it. She broke pieces of the gooey mess with her left hand and balanced the book on her lap so she could turn the pages of the book. 

Lucy and Aslan lulled her to sleep but she woke with a start in the afternoon heat to the sound of a door opening. Groggily she watched a woman giggle as she stepped out of the house in a dress that was too tight. Lina’s eyes followed her father’s hand as they lay on that waist. She watched as the woman knelt and dusted off his shoes then helped him slip them on. They walked together to the car, his hand around her waist as she tottered in heels across the gravel of her driveway.  He walked to the passenger door and opened it then stared at Lina. She stared right back, letting her curious glance slide to the woman slightly behind him. She was light skinned with big doe eyes and bright lipstick. Silver earrings dangled from slightly too large ears below a perm so fresh her hair still looked like it had rollers. 

“Lina go behind”

She stared at him. She did not compute.

“Catalina go and sit behind,” He repeated. There was a tone that he’d never directed at her before. His eyes were hidden behind aviators but the line of his mouth was firm.  She got out slowly and stepped aside so she could reach for the back door. When she looked back at him, he wasn’t even paying attention to her. He focused on the brown leg sliding into her seat, a distracted smile now dancing across his features, lifting the cheek bones she’d inherited. He turned as if feeling her gaze and his face morphed into something she was more familiar with.

“Come Lina, let me open the door for you,” He was as chivalrous as he’d been with the strange woman, holding her book for her and even buckling her seatbelt. Seatbelts were their promise to each other. He liked to go fast and he liked to keep her safe. 

When they were both seated, the adults turned to face her in the back.

“Lina this is my friend Brenda. You can call her Auntie Brenda.  Brenda, this is my daughter, Catalina but everyone calls her Lina,”

Auntie Brenda smelled of Nivea and strawberry sweet stickiness. The brilliance of her smile wasn’t reflected in her pretty brown eyes. “Hello Lina. Your father has told me so much about you. You’re such a pretty little girl. It’s nice to meet you!”

Without looking at her father, Lina nodded but didn’t smile. “Hello,”

There was a giggle and then the car started. They were off. Auntie Brenda and him chatting as they sped through the city. Lina was silent, just watching. The woman had turned to face her father. Her laugh was big and carefree, her conversation punctuated with exclamation marks and a finger running down his arm. 

It was only as they sped through the city  towards Clock Tower without stopping that Lina spoke up.

“Daddy you’ve passed Aristoc,”

He looked at her through the mirror. 

“We’ll go another time. Today we are going to the beach. You like Resort, don’t you,”

“And you already have a book! You don’t need another one. You don’t want to wear glasses when you’re all grown up, do you?” Auntie Brenda had turned to face her in the backseat. She was joking. Lina knew it. Her father’s studied silence said it. It was hard but she did it. She smiled at Auntie Brenda. 

She let them sit by themselves and wandered the shore. She’d wanted to take her soda with her but Auntie Brenda had tut tutted before saying she’d spill it and then ask for another which was just wasting money. Thirst bit at her now. Insistent in its need, her body berated her. She pushed the feeling off as long as she could, wading into the lake so the water seeped up  her thighs even though she knew she was the one who would wash her jeans. Mummy and Patience were conspiring to make her more responsible. 

When she found her way back to her father, their plastic table was weighed down. Her soda sat sweating, a lone warrior in a sea of beer. She pulled her seat closer to him as she sat and then pulled two straws from the basket. Ignoring the conversation, she ripped apart the paper covering and then slid the plastic into her soda. Long sip. Aaaah, refreshing.

“Lina, where did you go? You took a long time and your food got cold,”

His plate was barely touched. Auntie Brenda’s was clean, only smears of ketchup evidence that she’d had a meal. He put a plate in front of her, along with a fork. She picked at a chip as he used his fork and knife to cut her chicken. 

“Don’t you think you are spoiling the girl?” Auntie Brenda said when he was done. 

The girl. The Coke turned sour in her mouth. She put the bottle down, away from the edge like mummy always said. Afraid of the answer, Lina bowed her head towards her food and began to eat. 

“I’m just helping so she doesn’t make a mess. And I know she didn’t wash her hands so I don’t want her to get sick,. You saw the water they brought us. You think its clean”

“Mmm, ok,” 

She shovelled food into her mouth as they talked so they wouldn’t include her in the conversation. Full long before the plate was empty she continued to eat. Her stomach cried mercy and she continued to eat. She stopped when her plate was empty. When she was done, she turned away from them to face the lake. and tried to read but Aslan had been killed and the Witch was winning now. She settled for humming along to the songs and watching the sun set over the lake. She couldn’t draw like her best friend could but she thought maybe if she could, she would draw this. Orange and blue and clear and grey and red. Little canoes bobbing over a dark lake.  

It was late when she got home. They dropped her at home but he didn’t come in to greet her grandmother like he usually did. Instead, he said goodnight in the car.. Auntie Brenda was silent, observing the house, the lit windows and the evening sounds of  TV, onions frying and hushed conversation. He looked at her. She looked at him She felt the crack, lengthen, spiderweb its way further across. 

“Be a good girl. Obey your mother. I know your report card will be good,” He said.  She watched until the lights of his Toyota disappeared into the darkness. How can you bleed without bleeding? He waited until she was walking to the kitchen door then he was gone. Her jeans were itchy with sand, wet and clammy on her skin. She pulled off her shoes and washed her feet at the outdoor tap then entered the house.

“Have you eaten?”

“Why are you so late?”

“Who dropped you?”

“ Nga he didn’t greet,”

“Go and bathe!”

“ You smell like the lake Lina,”

“You didn’t even pack a sweater. You’re not serious,”

“And soak those jeans! You’ll wash them before church tomorrow,”

Grandmother, mummy and Patience almost all at once. Their concern for her washed over her. She muttered responses. Accepted cod liver oil. Sat on a mat as the kettle boiled. Carefully she carried it to the bathroom and set it down.  She filled the basin with a little cold water and then topped it up with the hot. A capful of detail so the water turned milky then cleared. She went to her bedroom to get her towel and stripped, dropping her clothes in the bucket they used to soak clothes. Scrub, scrub scrub. Don’t forget behind my ears. The normalcy  was a balm on a wound that she didn’t know she’d been feeling. She was crying before she knew it. Silent tears that mixed with her bath water. Cracking again but this time the feeling was familiar. Like the scar from when she and Francis had tumbled down the hill on the Hero. Healed over and yet sometimes it pulsed and ached reminding her of what she’d done to her body. Aloe vera helped that. 

A knock on the door “Lina, you’re taking long. Are you okay?” Patience at the door. 

“I’m about to finish,”

“Kale,  don’t waste water. You know it hasn’t rained and the tank can be empty any time,”

“Yes Patience,”

She wiped the tears off and splashed the soap off her body. She was walking to bedroom to dress up when mummy called her. Gentle hands touched her back, and checked behind her ears. 

“Mummy I know how to bathe properly,” 

A halfhearted complaint belied by the way she leaned into her mother’s touch. 

“I am seeing. Why are your eyes red?”

“I got soap in by mistake,” The lie came too easily, sprouting up and out with a will of its own. Her mother looked into her eyes and her gaze searched Lina. Finally she nodded. 

“Ok, go sleep,”

She had always felt like her mother could see through her. Read her better than an Xray could from behind her glasses. For the first time it occurs to Lina that this is not so.  Mummy cannot see on the inside. She does not see how her daughter is like the vase on the table, spiderwebs cracks marring its delicate beauty. She leaves her mother. Turns to go to her bed. 

“Goodnight mummy,”

“You should cry Lina,” Jean, her best friend announces out of the blue.

They are at his funeral. She has stood and been stared at. She refused to speak when she was given the chance. She has not viewed his body. Not properly. She glimpsed him by mistake as she tried to get away and he didn’t even look like him. 

Jean is not even her best friend anymore. Not in the way they used to be. You grow up. You splinter and heal in different ways. That’s how you find that your puzzle piece doesn’t quite fit into the space it used to before. This is their friendship. A jigsaw so old the pieces are bent so you have to bend them again to make them fit. Which they will, but only for a little bit before popping back out again. 

Cry. She didn’t cry when they called her at 3am. She thought she would. She lay in her bed and waited for the pain to hit. It didn’t. She didn’t cry when she went to the hospital and stood by his bed. She didn’t cry at the vigil when everyone was crying. She did feel that old familiar ache throb threateningly but the very first crack had splintered over and over so many times that she wasn’t even sure if there was one stable piece left inside of her anymore. 

Maybe she should force some tears. She looked at her friend, with a baby balanced on one cocked hip. It wasn’t concern she saw in her eyes, it was confusion. Who doesn’t cry when their father dies? Me, Lina tells herself. I don’t cry.  Every tear I could ever shed for this man, I have already shed. This well is dry. 

“I need to find my mother,” She says as if she never heard Jean. She knows Jean will not follow. She knows no one will follow. No one ever has. 

Months pass and her friends worry sometimes but don’t want her to know they worry. Her ability to sift through masquerades is infallible. She gives in because she doesn’t want them to worry but only so much.

“Don’t worry about paying,”

“Dance”

“Will you come out?”

“We never see you,”

“What are you up to these days?”

The questions are different but the same. She hasn’t cried yet. She’s beginning to understand that she’s afraid that if she starts to cry she will never stop. Maybe she’s not a well. Maybe she’s a dam. Maybe that’s why the cracks and splinters are dangerous. She’s breaking and she’s not sure what comes next. 

“Do you want another drink?”

The glass of whisky is being waved in front of her face. She’s seated in a bar with her friends. It’s a drink she can’t afford to take. Drinking for her is letting loose and she can’t afford to let loose. She can’t afford to relax. If she relaxes then all the broken pieces of her will fall. If that that happens, how will she be able to pick up all the pieces of her? How will she know she gotten every piece? Nobody tells a juggler to relax, do they? You leave a juggler to focus on his balancing act. This is her balancing act. Tada. 

“No, thanks.” She picks up her car keys. “I’m actually really tired and I should head home,”

The glass gets passed to someone else. A song comes and a few people get up to dance as she walks out. No one calls out to her. Invisible as usual. 

This moment right here is it. This is the final straw that breaks this camel’s back. She is not cracking anymore. She is cracked. She contemplates what she has done. Head leaning forward so her braids dangle in front of her glasses. The setting sun sparkles off  of her reflecting off her skin and shiny glimmers on her skin.

“Mummy what have you done?!” 

His little voice can carry a lot of horror. Then again, he loved this car. He chose this car. He went with him to Mombasa to pick it up. On bad mornings, the only way they can get him to school is by promising that daddy will take him to school. In this car.

The glass lies all around her. Little pieces are on her skin, her jeans, the vest she threw on. The car alarm is blaring loudly. She drops the gas canister. She didn’t even feel its weight in her arms until a second ago. She came out to go to Shell and get a refill. Also, some milk. The money is in her back pocket. She turns to her baby but something he sees frightens him and he steps back. 

Lina stands there and for the first time in a long time, she begins to cry. Loud, ugly heaving sobs. She feels little hands hesitantly wrap themselves around her legs and cries harder. He runs outside, still in his boxers. She hears this, the slap of his slippers, the slam of the door. She does not stop crying. He finds the two of them there, his windshield glittering around their feet. The little hands squeeze her legs tighter.

“Daddy help her. I think she’s broken,”

She cries harder. 

Continue Reading

Coconut

Coconut

Posted by yz on Saturday, March 07, 2020 in

There was the thrum of conversation, punctuated by bursts of loud careless laughter and underneath it all, like a heartbeat, the night throbbed to the base pumping out of the speakers. Human fog machines pumped flavoured smoke into the air making the beer garden misty. The flavoured fog coupled with the disco lights in each of the corners gave the gardens a magic it couldn’t claim in the day. Bottles clinked and waiters weaved through the packed crowd balancing trays of tequila above their heads. Bodies swayed to the music, their owners laughing or singing along to the latest afropop hit. It was 2 am in Kampala and the night was young.  

Tiny, Essie and I were sharing a pot of shisha and  a bottle of Coconut. Tiny, was Tina but she was barely over 5ft and no more than 50kg.  She’d always been the smallest from our first day in high school. We never claimed to be super creative about her nickname. Tonight she perched precariously on a bar stool, a glass in one hand and her phone in the other. Essie sat across from her, swaying to the beat on her stool, her glass empty and the bottle closest to her. She  was named after her paternal grandmother, a good Bible name in Luganda that she forbade anyone from speaking in public. She was one of those Nyaru looking Baganda, beautiful if a Hamite long nose, caramel skin was your cup of tea. She was also a semi-slay queen but whoever heard of a slay queen called Eseza Beatrice Nakintu?  Tiny and I liked to joke that the man she eventually married would get the shock of his life when she finally told him her real name, especially since she liked to tell people she was from Burundi.

“You guys, saying you are Rwandese is so basic. The minute you say that someone knows you’re lying,” She  always said when we teased her . 

‘So basic’ was Essie’s latest thing. A thing her boyfriend, currently standing across the room at a table where his boys crowded, hated. He’d paid for both bottles of our Coconut and got us a bucket of chicken at KFC before bringing us here to link up with his boys. Bae meets bffs night out. Choke me now. But Essie liked that sort of thing so here we were.

“God, Fiona, get out of your head!” Essie called from across the table and danced over to pull me off my stool. We were both tipsy and wearing heels on gravel so we staggered for a second that felt like a lifetime, as Tiny watched, one suspicious hand on her phone facing us. 

“Dance!” Essie said after we’d won our battle with gravity and then pulled on my arms moving them to the beat. I groaned halfheartedly but didn’t fight her. Tiny tipped off her stool and came to join us. It didn’t take us long to find the rhythm and begin a  synchronised dance move. 6 years of coordinated dance at school makes it easy to move together. Yes, white people, we are not all just born with rhythm. Shhhh, don’t tell. 

Like bees to honey, soon we were  surrounded by a bunch of guys. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being creeped out by the sudden feel of a strange body pushed up against me, hands reaching around to grip my waist. Tiny was a pro at gracefully sliding out of a man’s arms and then dancing with him but away from him. Essie, natural flirt that she was, had already bent over to twerk better. I on the other hand always immediately stiffened up if I didn’t stop dancing completely now. Right on cue my foot stomped his as I lost the beat and I muttered an apology. I also used this as a chance to step away, back to the safety of the table. Be cool, Fiona,  I said to myself and took a healthy chug of my drink. The rush of the gin down my throat, tempered by the sweet coconut centred me. This is probably how alcoholics are born, I thought to myself wryly but I took another chug anyway. 

Stranger stepped forward, right up into my personal space and whispered into my ear, washing me in his beer breath “C’mon baby, don’t be like that, loosen up, it’s Drinkcember,”

Christ Jesus, he must’ve had beans or something for lunch.  I fought the urge to gag in his face and leaned back. Then I giggled. Giggled?!  What was I, still 21? “I don’t know what you mean,” I managed and looked over his shoulder to my friends. 

Essie’s boyfriend had appeared just as her skirt had begun to ride up. Just in time in short. The two of them were arguing about whether dancing with other men was appropriate girlfriend behaviour or not. The guy she’d been dancing with had slunk away back into the faceless mass of swaying  bodies. Tiny felt my eyes on her and turned away from the guy she’d been dancing with.. When she saw my face she came closer.

“Bathroom?” She asked.

“Yes,” I said. How grateful did I just sound? I wondered to myself. I was sure about just how much when Tiny smirked. “Um, excuse me” I slipped out and away from Beer and Bean breath.

“Ess, bathroom?” Tiny called over to her. Essie turned to us distractedly and waved us off so we stumbled through the crowd, dodging and ducking until we were across the bar. I turned a grateful smile to my friend.

“Thanks, I owe you one,” I said but Tiny shrugged.  “You do the same for me when I need you too. Although you really do need to relax about dancing with strange guys,”

“I can’t, you know I can’t!” I grumbled. “There’s only so much gin in the world,”

“Ok, but…” 

“CHRISTINA?!” Someone yelled. Tina turned away from me to a voice in the crowd. She frowned a bit until a girl in a little red crop top waved at us. Tina’s face brightened and she turned back to me,

“That’s my cousin. I’ll be right back,” She breathed and then dashed into the crowd. I leaned against the wall we’d stopped by and watched her hug, laugh and hug again. 

“I like the way girls greet each other. Open joy, no fake swag,” A voice said from beside me.

I turned to see that there was someone leaning on the wall to my left. Be cool. 

“Yeah?” I asked. Do I look sexy or do I look like I have constipation. My face wasn’t exactly trustworthy about this kind of thing. 

“Hell yeah, see your friend? They did the whole, hug, scream, laugh, hug again thing. We guys on the other hand?  Drop our voices, slap the other’s back if we touch at all, and ask like we don’t care, ‘long time man, you good?’, ‘yah man, I’m chill, you?’” he’d pushed off the wall and made gorilla motions and punctuated his fake scenario with grunts.

I couldn’t help but chuckle. He’s funny. He grinned at my smile.

“Success! I have made the lady smile,”

I felt my smile grow. “If you’re trying to be charming then yes, it’s working,”

He grinned back. Wow, he has a really nice smile, that gap between his front teeth works for him. “Fantastic. I’m Agaba,” He held out his hand for me to shake.

“Fiona,” I replied taking it and shaking quickly before I let go. Were my hands sweaty?

“Nice, I’m guessing you don’t come here often,”

“It’s my first time. This is my friend’s boyfriend’s joint,”

He paused a bit trying to follow and then nodded. “A stretch but I get it. You are, how do they say, blocking the cock,”

“That would be an easy job. We are vetting the new meat,”

“And how does the new meat fare so far?”

“A little bit controlling but nothing my friend can’t handle”

“Aaaah and what kind of meat do you prefer?

I laughed. You just guffawed. You guffawed in public Fiona. So much for sexy!  I flushed, embarrassed at the donkey bray of a laugh I’d revealed but replied. “You went from smooth to real dry Agaba,” I like the way his name rolls off my tongue. 

“First, were you born laughing like that?”

“The first time I laughed, the neighbour’s goat came into the house looking for one of her kids, yes.”

He laughed and then nodded “Ok now you have to give me your number. You’re not embarrassed to be yourself, you can laugh at yourself and you just made my name sound like poetry.,”

“You’re in corny territory now with that last point,” I said laughing at the terrible line, donkey sounds and all.

He grimaced good-naturedly and then made the praying motion. “Please pretty Fiona please,”

I thought for a second and couldn’t give myself a reason not to. He was funny and he had a nice smile. 

“Do you promise not to say anything corny again?” I asked stalling.

He grinned. “When it makes you laugh? It’s a winning recipe so no, I do not promise,”

I shook my head smiling but pulled out my phone. “Ready?” he pulled out his phone from his  pocket. I waited as he unlocked it taking a peek at Tiny. She was hugging her cousin now. 

“Shoot” He said so I read off my number as he typed quickly. A second later my phone vibrated in my hand and I lifted it show him the screen.

“That’s me” He said. I looked away from him to save his number.

“You can save me as Really cool guy Agaba,” he said. 

I shook my head, slipping my phone back into my bag. “Too late, You’re corny ninja Agaba,”

He grinned and was about to respond but Tiny had reached us and eyed him as she paused in front of me. “We better head back, before Essie thinks we ditched her,” She said.

I nodded and pushed off from the wall I’d leaned against. “Nice meeting you Agaba,” 

“Likewise,” he said with that smile that could charm a kaloli off refuse. I smiled and led the way away from him and back to the other side of the bar.

“Did you know that guy, Fi?” Tiny asked when we were far enough that he couldn’t hear us.

“Nope”

Tiny’s eyes bulged. “Are you saying that you just had a functional conversation with a man you do not know?”

“This is what happened. I even really laughed and he didn’t run screaming,”

“Your donkey laugh?”

“The one and only,”

“I think you may have met your Prince Charming,”

“Let’s not be hasty” I replied. I’m excited.

“Hasty about what?” Essie asked. She wasn’t happy and her new boyfriend was gone. 

Tina pointed at me. “She. Talked. To. A. Man.” As Essie opened her mouth Tina shook her head no. Essie’s mouth closed and she turned to me in shock. Then she clapped her hands and ran around the table to hug Tina. 

“Our baby is all grown up!”

“I know!”

“Shut up, please, both of you,” I said with no real bite and slid back onto my stool. The bottle of Coconut was almost empty and watching Essie stumble back to her seat I realised where it had probably gone. 

Tiny was just getting to her seat when a song all three of us loved came over the speakers. We screamed in unison and jumped off our seats to dance together. It was followed by another song we loved, and another and another. We worked up a sweat and worked off the gin that flowed as thickly as the blood in our veins. This time when guys came to join us, even Essie pushed away sticking to our little triangle of Coconut and high heels. Finally, Tiny threw up her hands.

“Guys, I am done. Can we go home please?” 

Essie reached into her bag for her phone and grimaced at the screen. 4.30 am. 

“Crap. My dad gets up in an hour. Where’s Davo?”

Yes, that’s it. Davo is his name. I looked around to the table he’d been at with his friends. It was still crowded but he wasn’t one of the people at it. Essie tried his number twice but he didn’t pick up. Her expression went from frustrated to furious.

“Does everyone have battery on their phone? We could split up and look for him?” Tiny asked before Essie could work herself up into a fury.

I checked my phone and saw I had 35%. I nodded at her. Essie glared at us mutinously. “I’m not looking for him” 

I glanced across at Tiny whose face was deceptively bland. She hated going out with Essie for this very reason. There was always a high chance the night would end dramatically. This wasn’t even counting the drama waiting for us at Essie’s gate if her father found the daughter he thought had gone for an overnight stumbling into the compound in a micro-mini dress and heels, Coconut on her breath. 

“Maybe he’s in the bathroom or talking to some people. Let me just walk around and see. You two wait here. We can get an Uber if I don’t find him,”

I said to calm them both. Essie responded by ignoring me pointedly and refilling her glass with the last of the Coconut.

“Should we get some water maybe?” I asked hesitantly.

“Don’t start Fi, please” Essie growled.

Tiny however gave me a thumbs up underneath the table. Shaking my head I turned away from them and began my search.

The crowd had thinned out. Most of the people who remained were in groups which had slowed down, sitting at tables instead of dancing, or in the dark corners of the bar. I knew the kind of guys Essie liked so I looked at the couples in the corners more than the regular groups at the tables. I walked round the bar and was walking by the kitchens when light reflected off something behind a huge mango tree that shaded the back grills. I stepped closer to take a look and sure enough, the light was reflecting off a watch. 

I only need to check if it is or is not Davo. That’s it. Taking another step closer I ran through what I remembered of him. Preppy type style, Mohawk dreads, fitted green polo over dark jeans. Check, check, check. There were hands on Davo’s waist pulling him close. Big hands. Man hands? Davo’s hands were on hips. Slim hips. Davo muttered something and stepped away. The person he’d been holding smiled and the dim light reflected off his teeth. A really nice smile, even more charming for the gap between the two front teeth. Oh. OH.

I stumbled backward and then as fast as I could, made my way back to Essie and Tiny. Both of them looked up as I approached. 

“What’s wrong?” Tiny asked.

“Who was he with?” Essie growled.

I opened my mouth but words failed me. 

“Tell us, Fiona!” Essie whisper shouted. 

Continue Reading

Life in all of its complexities

Life in all of its complexities

Posted by yz on Thursday, March 05, 2020 in

Not everyone who is for you is actually for you. There is the internet to give the actual quote I am paraphrasing but I’m writing this on a whim, before the thought leaves me completely and I’m never able to properly able to verbalize what I am forced to learn every year in one way or another.

Not everyone who is for you is actually for you. Let it sink in. Let it perforate, marinate. Submerge yourself in this thought. Some of us, for the longest time, in a myriad of ways, find ourselves idolizing a person or a relationship. We set in stone this idea that a person can do no wrong. But sometimes they can. Sometimes they wish you wrong. Sometimes they actively work against you, against you.

Sometimes it’s not intentional. It’s the way they formed over the course of their lives, where crucial pieces go missing and they don’t know or want to see if it can be glued in with molten gold. Sometimes it’s intentional because they really don’t like you, they’re jealous...I could go on and on into the whys.

Continue Reading

Untitled 1

Untitled 1

Posted by yz on Thursday, October 10, 2019 in

It was 11.00am when Mama Nulu finished the housework. The little house at the back of her plot was dusted, swept and mopped. The clothes were washed and hanging on the wire just behind the house. She herself was bathed, and dressed for the day in bell bottom jeans and a loose flowered blouse. Her hair was due for a retouch so she’d pulled it back into a neat puff. She wore no makeup, not even Vaseline on her lips but she didn’t need it. Mama Nulu’s age would be anyone’s guess. She was petite with mahogany dark skin that seemed untouched by time. Only John knew of the fine sprinkle of lines at her eyes, and the stretched out wrinkling of her stomach. For some reason, he loved these parts of her as much as he loved the way her brown eyes caught and held the light or the way her mouth tilted up in a permanent smile. Her hands spoke of age too but they were the hands of someone who had worked since she was 13 years old. Mama Nulu loved her hands with their hard callouses and extra sun darkened skin.  

She rose from the bed where she’d sat to put on her jewelry, a thin gold chain and simple hoop earrings, and crossed the room, her slippers silent against the terrazzo. She reached up above the neatly folded and hanging clothes to where she hid her handbag behind her two suitcases. She pulled the bag out and quickly went through it. Satisfied with its contents, she pulled her kabiriti out and turned it on. As the old little Tecno phone shuddered to life she swung her handbag over one arm and shut the wardrobe, locking it. She moved fluidly out of the room with one swift glance to make sure everything was arranged, it was, and  then locked her bedroom behind her.  Mama Nulu moved towards the front of the house but, as always she stopped by the bedroom directly opposite hers. 

Unable to help herself she pushed the door gently. It didn’t creak because Mama Nulu oiled all her hinges religiously. It opened up to a simple bedroom painted all in light blue. It had a queen size mattress, neatly laid with a duvet that complimented the colours of the wall in a plain white. Every wood  fixture was  painted white, the bedframe, side table, the closet doors, the little desk and chair. An empty vase sat upon the side table, reflecting the untouched loneliness of the room. Mama Nulu sighed and shut the door, then locked it and headed out to the kitchen. She didn’t stop, it was already clean, just walked across to the open door, pushed it open and then latched it firmly behind her, taking her time to make sure all three padlocks were secure before she turned to the compound. 

The compound served as a small beer gardens for what Derrick had once called her retirement plan. Now it was littered with empty bottles, straw wrappers, straws and whatever her clients had dropped as they sat at the  plastic tables scattered across the grass. Her grass thrived in part because she had taken steps to protect it, making little pathways to and from the tables from the front building. Now Helen, and Robert worked across the tiny lawn, each of them with a local broom and dustpan in hand. The straw of the broom was an almost silent susurrus against the wet grass. 

“Madam moningi,” The two of them chorused straightening up to greet her as she walked by. 

“Morning,” Mama Nulu replied but she did not smile and they did not smile back. Smiles were for customers.  

The morning was for general peace. Well, for everybody except Nantume. Nantume was the kafunda’s cook. The kitchen, a small simple affair to the side of the front house was her domain and Mama Nulu, had a learned respect for kitchens and those who ran them. You could just hear the tinny sound of Nantume’s radio as she sang, loudly and more than a little bit off tune, along to whatever were Kampala’s latest hits. She would do this until 3pm when Mama Nulu turned on her sound system for the clients. She sang as she peeled, as she chopped and as she fried. She sang as she measured charcoal, cleaned and wiped the small countertop. The only time she stopped singing was when she was talking to her workmates or  arguing with Daudi, the boda man who delivered the food she cooked each day and the charcoal she cooked on it.  

The front was basic. It was rectangular and split into two parts. One part was split unequally and made for the kitchen and a small toilet. The other was a smaller dark little sitting space that some people preferred over the airy garden.  Mama Nulu crossed to the kitchen and entered. 

“Banange Nantume, bulilunaku ne Goodlyf Crew?” She teased the  fat woman perched atop a little wooden stool who peeled a huge bunch of matooke.  

Nantume’s laugh boomed against the concrete walls. “Ndeka Mama Nantume, banyumisa” 

Mama Nulu laughed as she crossed to the big fridges and began to count. Both women fell in to companionable silence as Mama Nulu began counting the stock. She had two fridges, the freezers used for storing the meat if they didn’t get any customers for food that day. She reached above the the fridge where a rickety little shelf sat and got a neat large ledger book, a Nataraj pen tucked in the page she needed. She began the most boring part of her day  walking round, going through crates, fridges and the store. The counting was routine and allowed her mind to wander whether she wanted it to or not.  

“Mummy! Mummy! Did you know that Prossy cannot count?!” Derrick shouted across the open space of the living area to his mother who sat watching Friends on TV. 

He was seated at the dining table doing his homework and the offender in question was trying to lay the table for dinner. His older siblings, Matthew and Gina, lay sprawled in the sitting room with their mother, their homework completed an hour earlier.  

“That’s why if you don’t want to be a houseboy the way she is a housegirl, you should do well in school so that you don’t end up like her,” His mother replied without even glancing away from the TV. The older children snickered. Prossy didn’t even blink at the jab. Silently she continued to lay the table. Derrick lay his pen down and looked up at her then back over at his mother.  

“Prossy, I am sorry that sometimes Mummy is mean,” he said and lay his small hand over hers. She spared him a smile, a wan one that didn’t reach her eyes then pulled away.  

“Madam, supper is ready,” She said softly. 

The woman in the tv glanced down at her wrist, then up, at the clock above the TV.  “What time is it?” 

“It’s 7.30, mum” Matthew replied without looking up from his handheld game. Gina looking over his shoulder, nodded. 

“Prossy, I’m tired of telling you over and over again. The children need to eat at 7. I don’t like waking up and fighting with people to do their homework,” 

I also don’t like serving late because I still have to clean up, iron uniforms and your clothes and then polish shoes. Also, I’m the one who wakes them up, not you. I wake them up, make sure they are bathed and ready and seated in the car. All you do is turn the car on and go. And I wouldn’t even have cooked late if you brought the food early but you are waiting for Taata to give you kumeza and he didn’t. So you sent me to the market at 3pm and expect me to buy food, come home, cook it and serve it after serving your evening tea before 7. Oba who do you think I am?  

“I am very sorry, madam,” Prossy murmured as Madam, stood up to face her. 

“Well, I am very tired of you,”   

In the distance, a baby began to wail. Prossy did wince this time. Madam sucked her teeth. “Go, go go! I don’t want to see you again tonight,” 

Mama Nulu pushed the memory aside and went back to her stock, this time focusing the sound of the music so she wouldn’t get sucked back into times she’d rather forget. She was just reaching up to place the ledger in its place when Robert came running into the kitchen.  

“Mama, there’s someone standing outside by the gate,” 

“What do they want?” Nulu asked patting her head to see if her puff was still neat. 

“It’s a young woman. She just said to call you,” 

Mama Nulu walked slowly, wondering who it was. She was behind on the Water bill but John had said he would sort it. No, Robert would have said if it was water. she slowed even further as she realised it might be those people who walk around selling things. She didn’t have time for that nonsense.  What about a jehovah’s witness? No, those were only men.  

Too soon she was outside and she squinted across the small front space to where a young woman stood by the gate. The two of them stared at each other. Robert must have told Nantume and Helen because all three of them perched at the kitchen by the window looking out at the women who stood, two cowboys at sunset waiting to see draw their pistol first.

“Who is that?” Helen asked. 

 “Even me, I don’t know,” Robert replied.

Nantume remained silent looking down at the two women. 

“Mama I hate you!” Nulu cried, lying on the floor of her bedroom.

 Prossy knelt down and reached to cradle her daughter but Nulu pushed away, sobbing hard.

“Nulu, try and understand,” 

“NO! no, I cannot understand it, I will never understand it! Why did you tell me now? Why didn’t you tell me before?” 

“There was no right time for it,” 

“That is a stupid excuse!” 

“Nulu! Do you dare call me stupid,” 

“I call you unfair! I call you unkind! and yes, maybe stupid!” 

“I thought Madam would never allow it. I …” 

“Oh so you’re a coward?” 

“Nulu, don’t be like this. It’s just that I didn’t think,” 

Eyes red and brimming, nose dripping, Nulu choked down a sob and scoffed. “Of course you didn’t. That is always your problem it seems. You don’t think. You don’t choose. You just allow life to just happen. I’m not going to be like you Mama,”  

Nulu jumped up from the ground, up to her bed and grabbed the bag she’d begun emptying. Out went the school books and pens, covering the wrinkled graduation gown that lay on the bed. In went the nearest clothes she could reach. 

“Nulu what are you doing?” 

“I’m leaving. I refuse to live your life,” 

With the bag half zipped, she turned and stormed for the door. Prossy stepped in her path and held out her hands. 

“Nulu, wait please. Maybe one night. When you have relaxed…” 

“I am leaving tonight Mama. Please move,” 

“Where will you go? be sensible,” 

Nulu laughed. A hard bitter thing that broke something inside Prossy.  

“If you had been sensible we would not be here today Mama,” She pushed past Prossy and stormed out of the house, across the yard where revellers stopped to stare at the scene. Prossy followed but she kept stumbling, the blisters that had built up losing to the soft soil of the compound. Nulu, more limber, and barefoot to boot, was at  and out the gate before Prossy could catch up. As Prossy stumbled towards her daughter, she saw her hop on the back of a boda.  

Gone. 

Prossy fell to the ground and let the tears she’d been holding in fall. A warm hand, a gentle touch on her shoulder. She looked up to find Nantume. 

“Come inside Mama Nulu,”

The sun was blistering hot already. Bodas zipped by the road and a sleek fat car sat in-front of her gate. The hard glint in her eyes from that night remained. She stood, as slim as her mother, a little boy leaning curiously from behind her hip. Prossy wanted to run and hug her daughter but knew in her gut that if she did, Nulu would turn around, get in her car and never come back. She opened her mouth to say something and then closed it.  

“Mummy who is that?” the little boy asked.
Nulu ignored him, her eyes pinned to her mother like Prossy might attack her with a knife.  

A car honked and everyone, even the peeping toms in the window, looked to the gate. The old Prado shuddered to a stop and an old man stepped out. 

“Jjaaja!” the little boy broke from his mother and barrelled into the old man’s legs.  

“Hello Junior!”  the old man said and they smiled at each other with the same gap toothed smile.  

Nulu cleared her throat but when they turned to look at her she turned up, as if speaking to the sky. 

“I have come to tell you and Taata that Derrick is dead,”

Continue Reading

on the edge

on the edge

Posted by yz on Wednesday, September 25, 2019 in

Old post circa November 2016

I’m sitting on the edge of a cliff. Or maybe I’m camped here? 

There’s clouds beneath my feet and if I just stretch my toes I can touch them. 

Stretch them like a ballerina. 

A hippopotamus ballerina. 

Anything is possible, right? Why not a hippopotamus dancing across the clouds.

You’d think it isn’t possible to be air and stone at the same time but it is.

 I mean, my butt is plastered to the stone beneath me. 

I’ve been sitting here so long that I don’t think either the ground or I remember where rock starts and flesh begins. 

Weeds thrive in the creases where dust collected, an anthill is growing alongside one thigh. 

My hair in all its woolly glory is become a nest. 

It’s empty now. 

Where are the birds who call me home? Were there ever any?

I realize that I am like a forgotten statue, withering, becoming one with nature. 

But I am me and I am alive. 

Am I waking up? 

I am. I am waking up. 

But wait, if I do that then what happens to the nest on my head and the ants by my thigh, the dandelion using me as shelter from wind and rain?

My eyes are open wide but I blink away a fog, inside and out.

 I am tattered inside and out. 

I am afraid to stretch, to be fully awake. 

The ants, the birds, they are an excuse. 

An excuse for what?

I look. 

Really look, into the distance, a field of clouds, sunkissed red, orange, and gold. 

A floor for this hippopotamus to be light. 

I look and I remember. 

I am still afraid to fly.

Continue Reading

all over the place

all over the place

Posted by yz on Wednesday, September 25, 2019 in

Old post circa January 2019

It’s raining in dry season. The weather has been all over the place for a while which resonates with my mind. It too is all over the place, emphasis on ALL. In fact, break that English right up. My mind is all over the places. For example, I’m doing a thing you may know as free association, doing a thing to get myself writing where I just write the first thing that comes to mind and goes from there. I find that trying too hard is where the problems begin. You sit and you plan and get all these grand ideas and designs about what it is you want and how you are going to go about getting it. of course, the world is circus that specializes in fuckery (oops, this should be a R rated fuckery for Language blog now). But yes, the world is a circus that’s specializes in fuckery. Just people going up and down not intentionally meaning to fuck you over but fucking your over all the same.

The feeling I’ve been feeling for the past two years, maybe three, is definitely that there’s no point to any of this. There’s a reason that they call it a rat race. No one wins in a rat race. There are people who think they win. Who see the mini trophies that the world gives them and think that means they have actually won but they haven’t. the car, the house, the kids. None of it means anything in the grand scheme of things unless you actually prescribe meaning to it yourself. But of course, we don’t do these things. We wait for other people to determine the meaning for us. Is it an actual thing that we believe? That other people must decide for us how things? Is it because this is how we are raised; do we never evolve from the child looking to their mother for guidance?

Of course, I say this from the lofty perch above it all. Don’t worry. I know this perch is precarious and I will tumble and fall any time soon. Maybe I hope to fall. You don’t know and quite frankly neither do I.  But yes, I sit on this perch and think about it all. And I know the reason for my lack of motivation is simply because I see through the façade that the world has, I see through the trophies and the little rewards and I want more. I want satisfaction at the end of the day, I want mind-blowing experiences, I want unequivocal peace. And it’s precisely because I have experienced these things that I know it is possible to get them. So then attempting to be satisfied with the mundane. Just waking up and doing what I did the day before over and over again begins to seem like a slow death. Of course, I can’t sit at home and do nothing either because that’s slow death 2.0.

So then what?

Continue Reading