Every Thursday night, we meet in a lecture hall as SPOKEN HEART family, poets, writers and rappers. The talent flowing in Maseno is enormous. I sometimes write, overcoming my weaknesses and hurriedly jot pieces of stories that are half corrected and in its first draft. I read them out, despite the many grammatical mistakes that am too busy to correct here is one flash fiction that I wrote and read out in one of SPOKEN HEARTS weekly meetings.
Its evening, the sun sinking fast
into that abyss in the far west, activities picking momentum by the minute,
Jikos are being fanned vigorously, Utensils clanking and sufuria’s being
scrubbed in front of open rooms in readiness for the evening meal. Someone is
bent over the underground tank tagging at a 6 meter rope to draw water. Black
paper bags with evening mbogas (normally kales) swinging in hands of tenants
coming back after a day of sexual escapades in the girls hostels.
Allan my roommate had gone to
Nyawita for sukuma wiki and some omena for our supper, he walks in and without
any warning hits me with
‘aki kuna sauti inatoka kwa
choo!’ his hands on his mouth and a disturbing look on his face.
‘Ati choo?’
‘kuna mtu anaongea kwa choo’
‘choo gani?’ I ask.
‘hii ya hapa mbele’
You see, this particular choo is
the sort that one prefers to use the bush instead. It’s an old pit latrine, its
door precariously hanging on its faulty hinges, the choo is filling up. You
shit and the heavy thud is not far off, it’s instantaneous, it echoes back. So
close. The walls are almost touching, giving just enough room for squatting
space. You would literally see the murky deposit from a thousand previous
squats eating up the dark hole below. Green and well fed flies decorating most
parts of the walls. Little white worms wriggle on the floor as if they were
late for a busy dung market. Any sane minded person uses this latrine with a
painful frown like one in deep agony. I confirmed this from the frowns that
people still had on their faces whenever they walked of that old latrine.
It is this choo that Allan now said he heard
voices coming out of.
‘No way’, I said.
‘I’m sure’, he said, his disgust
shown with that agonizing frown on his brow.
Sitting in there is an agony of
its own magnitude, how in the world anyone can be talking in there, is
something that can be explained by the examination of the more than 30
inhabitants of the place.
‘Could it be the no. 17 guys?’
The ones with a thousand avocados
spread over an old sack in their room? Just as we mentioned their names; they
appeared, walking sullenly as is their nature, probably brooding over how they
could replenish their avocado stock.
It can’t be the pious guy in
number. The one who looked at you like you were are a devil, I hated the-you-are-going-to-hell
look in his eyes.
My friends in number three were
real “Tombinohs” and by that I mean screams and moans from their room every
night. So one day the pious guy in number two walks in as we were having a good
time talking in room 3 and with that heavenly tone says
‘Bwana asifiwe’
‘asifiwe sana’ they answered in
unison.
‘Bwana anawapenda sana’ he began
Silence reigned with a deathly
flair. We only stole confused glances to each other. And getting no response
from us he continued
‘Whatever you do at night will get you in trouble’,
but before he said anything further. The Tombinoh guy cut in
‘I swear I use condoms, hata juzi tulipimwa HIV!!
It wasn’t a stifle that came from
me; it was an uncontrolled burst of laughter. I couldn’t sit there anymore. I
walked out laughing, thinking how different and far apart our worlds were, how
different our morals were.
The guy talking in the Loo was
neither of the number 3 nor the number 2 guys.
‘Or could it be the pregnant lady in no. 6?’
‘It is a man’s voice!’ Allan, quick
with his response cut me short
So that rules out the ladies,
including the number 10 one, who was a self confessed tomboy. But it still could be the guy in number 6
living with his girlfriend, the mshamba one, their quarrels often forced me to
wonder how this guy keeps up with the shouts from his ‘wife’.
‘Get out of my room!’ she would
often be heard saying.
‘umechangia nini kwa hii nyumba?’
The number 4 guy was a big time loner,
his obsession with gym and weight lifting evident on the numerous biceps on his
body!, stocky he was. It was one person I didn’t want to mess with. At the tank
I always gave him way. It couldn’t be him either.
‘ama ni hawa wasee wa namba 8?’
It couldn’t be them, their woofer
was already blaring the same tune of
‘merimela kipenzi ulikuwa mpole….’
How in the world can anyone be listening to
the same tune for a whole two weeks without being bored? They sometimes
alternated it with their other all time favorite- kigeugeu. The speakers on
full blast; even when lying in my bed and their speakers off, the irritating
tune still continued playing in my ears. It wasn’t either of them.
The guy in the latrine was
animatedly talking now, we were sure he was speaking on his phone.
‘sisi tumeshinda tukilala tu
hapa…nikukula na kulala…’
Silence
‘Eeehe….’
Silence
‘Hapana, hata wakitaka wasirudi,
kwani ni nini wanatufunza?’
Silence
‘hahaha….si unajua, mimi nilioa
kitambo, hiyo kitu, nimeifanya mpaka imenichosha’
An elongated silence…
‘aaaii siwezi blunder hivo…lazima
nitumie CD sitaki kukufa’
We were outside our room now,
watching silently, listening to this one sided conversation. Size eight, the landlord’s
dog had also joined us. Watching intimately, like one also understanding the
conversation going on in the latrine. Excitedly wagging its tail like it was
impatient to know who the clown in the latrine was.
‘Who can it be?’
The Ombitho guys were sited
outside their room, rolling their evening meditation sticks.
‘These merimela guys are
distracting our meditation’ I heard them complain one day. Their definition of
meditation was something they alone understood.
It was already dark. The latrine
guy was someone we could not place in any of these rooms. It seemed like he had
forgotten about why he was at the latrine and taken on a whole new role of speaking
with his friend on topics ranging from how tired he was fucking his girlfriend,
to lecturers strike and how his HELB loan was now reduced to manageable amount.
We stood impatient waiting for him to come out. Moran, my other very tall and
lanky roommate too had joined us. No one was talking to the other. Seconds
ticked. The guy in the latrine too, like someone who’d sensed that we were
waiting for him to come out had stopped talking.
The loo’s door was pushed
forward. And we craned our necks along with its movement. Here he was, about to
walk out.
The silhouette of a man appeared
in that tiny doorway. He took several steps towards us and just as he stepped
into the lights from our room.
The goddamned lights went off.
Aaaaakhh fuck!
