Avalon Perpetual

SEVERANCE

Mwangi Ichung'wa — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 08:49:37 +0000

The man was under observation from the moment he got out of the HoverCruiser outside the seedy little hotel on Kirinyaga Street. Here, the sunlight did not quite reach the ground, condemning the whole place to a state of diurnal semi-twilight. He looked up towards the sky and all he saw were the shadows of Nairobi Consolidate’s CBD. The atmoscrapers soared five thousand feet into the air, blocking and absorbing most of Sol’s radiance for their own energy and that of the fifteen million or so who lived and worked in the city. Everything down here was unhealthy, even the stray cat (or whatever it was, one was never too sure these days) that crept across the street behind him looked pale, albino like. There were few people in the street; most of them too doped up on oopi-3 to even notice him, despite his fine suit and the large leather satchel he carried. Oopi-3 was the new strain of the original oopi that was brought here by the Regethe, those reptilian ingrates. This new drug turned human eyes a wicked shade of blue, a marked difference from the original green tinge brought about by the milder one. It also fried the brain into a veritable zombie state after about a month of use.
After his summary reflection on the state of the neighbourhood, he waddled his hefty way into the hotel, walked past the deserted reception and headed straight for the bank of house telephones. A few moments later he was waiting at the lift lobby, swaying on his feet, the large satchel cuffed to his wrist by a thin carbon filament chain swinging like a large pendulum.
The lift dinged its arrival and the man got in. There was a service robot in there, the automated concierge. The robot’s bodywork was dusty and its joints creaked as it stood there, not even acknowledging the man’s presence. Every so often, a circuit would sizzle from within the carbon fibre body of the machine and it would jerk a little. The lift clanked its way up the floors, stopping after every two and shuddering as if it dreaded the ascent. Presently it got to the fourth floor. The doors slid their sticky way open and the man stepped out into the dark corridor. The carpeting was rank and of unintelligible colouring, the lighting a flickering mess of incandescent and holographic luminosity that confused more than clarified one’s vision. It was eerie. There was no one to be seen.
The man pulled a scrap of paper from his jacket pocket and consulted it in the confounding light. He nodded to himself and proceeded down the hallway to where he thought the room would be. His footsteps echoed in the space and he stopped for a moment to see I he was being followed. Muffled and indistinct sounds came from the rooms he was passing; a rickety squeak here, a dull thump there. He tried not to think about it too much as he finally got to Room 1542.
He paused there for a while, collecting his thoughts. After a moment he raised his free hand to knock. His hand did not get there. There was a swishy sound behind him and as he turned to look something hard cracked against the base of his skull and everything went dark as he crumpled untidily to the floor. The last thing he remembered was that the carpet smelled like orange juice.
The fat man came to. He was lying supine on what must have been a bed; he was in a hotel room after all. There was a squeaky sound coming from somewhere above him and a searing pain on his right wrist. The forearm also felt strangely numb. He opened his eyes slowly and his vision starred. He blinked a few times and as his vision cleared he could make out the source of the squeak. A ceiling fan slowly turned above him, its orbit skewed so that it wiggled about its axis like it was dancing. It looked like it might fall at any moment. There was a gag in his mouth and from the taste and texture he deduced that it was a sock. He tried to move but soon realised that he was strapped down quite firmly; arms, legs and forehead.
There was someone in the room.
He tried to turn his head but the strap across his brow held firm. Regret flooded in. This is what you get, he thought, for soliciting prostitution through the low rent holo-sites. But he needed this lay, until now. This was bad. His wrist was really, really hurting.
The satchel! Where was it?
He could hear voices, a plaintive male one and an abrasive female one. They sounded young and scared and there was a particular urgency to their tones. They were debating on what to do with him. The female voice, which had some authority in it, suggested they open the satchel first and deal with its bearer later. The fat man panicked and began thrashing on the bed, straining to break his bindings. If they opened the satchel his life as he knew it was over. What was in that case was, well, crucial to rather malicious interests. If he could only reach the panic device attached to the button on the left cuff of his suit coat. The fingers on left hand began to wiggle. He couldn’t feel his right hand and it dawned on him, with infinite horror, that to access the satchel these people must have severed his right hand at the wrist as there was no way to cut the carbon filament chain. He heard the clasp on the satchel click. It was open. His fingers became frantic.
“What is it?” the man’s voice asked. He was young, the fat man thought. Pity.
There was a beat before the woman replied. The fat man could hear the awe in her voice. “It’s a…unicorn,” she said.
“Never seen one close up before,” said the young man.
The panic button was barely within reach. The fat man’s third finger was barely brushing it. Just a little more and this would all be over rather quickly.
“Beautiful,” breathed the woman. The button depressed with a slight click and the fat man could have sighed with relief if the sock wasn’t choking him.
The flimsy door burst open with such force that it ripped clean off its hinges and flew across the room. A small, silver cylinder, the size of a soda can clanked into the room and twisted open, hissing out a genetically coded gas that knocked the fat man unconscious. This took all of one and half seconds. Then the PDU squad burst in firing at anything and anyone left standing. The young man yelled his surprise and shock as he was lifted into the air by the plasma bullets and slammed against the far wall, his lower chest cavity and belly wide open, cauterized and bubbling from the incendiary projectiles. The woman was hit high in the chest, leaving her right arm dangling by shreds of charred flesh. She flung herself over her brother’s body as the squad leader advanced, his weapon at the ready, to finish her off.
“Get away,” she said, weakly trying to wave off the man with her left arm as she cowered over her dying sibling. “Get away.” She was gasping and a thin, bloodstained trickle of drool hung from her lower lip like liquid mercury. Beneath her, the young man coughed up a glob of blood and died in a profound spasm. A tear dropped from her eye onto his ashen face.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. The squad leader pressed the muzzle of his machine pistol to her forehead and blew her head off.

Outside, sirens wailed as the clean up crew arrived.

NETFLIX

Mwangi Ichung'wa — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:12:55 +0000

It’s three o’clock in the afternoon.
It is swelteringly hot in the city, and dusty. Very dusty. It should rain soon, or the streets will choke. The air, fetid from burst sewers and rotting trash in the gutters, ripples with noise; from matatus, the market stalls’ blaring music and human voices. Everyone is in a hurry and shouting, a seething maelstrom of cogs, each trying to address the machine in their own way. A flustered traffic cop on a pedestrian island takes off his cap and wipes the back of his hand on his brow. Somewhere, brakes screech and an angry horn blows. The handcart pusher who was almost hit by the speeding Nissan van shouts expletives in Kikuyu at the driver, and continues to push his cart laden with bales of flour at the same leisurely pace. The Nissan slowly drives around him and its driver yells something that makes the people nearby laugh. The traffic policeman shakes his head sadly.
At ten past the hour, a wine red Toyota Allion creeps slowly past the front of the Ambassadeur Hotel and double parks in front of the Bakers’ Inn. From his position, the old cab driver sitting in his ancient, claptrap Toyota DX at the rank across the street can see the driver, a young man, with his phone held to the ear. He is making a call. The young man speaks for a moment and then hangs up. He is impatient, the old man can tell, as he keeps drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. What is he here for, the old man wonders idly. Then he forgets and lights a cigarette.
The traffic cop has had enough of the sun and dust. He needs a cold drink and so heads for the Bakers’ Inn. His relative, a second or third cousin or something, works there and this guarantees him a free one. As he walks into the shop, his attention is colossally diverted by the young woman emerging from a staircase that leads up into some offices next to the Inn. She is wearing those skinny jeans and a strappy top, an ensemble that brings out her petite, lithe and curvy frame in gratuitously lust inducing chic. She is also carrying large satchel. The cop, distracted, slams bodily into an office messenger who is leaving the Inn, heavily laden with pastries and coffee.
The mess is marvellous.
The cop, who now has a large wet patch from his belly to his knees, and the messenger argue about whose fault it is. A small crowd gathers to watch. The cop points with his truncheon a lot as he yells at the poor man, berating him for not looking where he was going. The messenger tells him the same thing. He is much smaller than the hulking government brute, but he stands his ground, demanding in a loud voice for the cop to pay for the mess. Someone in the crowd yells that the cop has been on the street the whole day and would have definitely made enough from all the matatu bribes. A chant of he should pay takes on a life and the cop backs down. He and the messenger step into the Inn and are seen haggling at the counter. The Bakers’ employee who is mopping up the spill has an angry scowl on his face. He doesn’t get paid nearly enough for this.
The woman with the satchel stops in the street outside, indifferent to the accident she just caused. She looks around a bit before raising her phone to her ear and saying something into it. Then she heads for the red car and slips into the front passenger seat. She greets the young man and proceeds to withdraw a CD booklet from her bag. She sets this on the dashboard and then pulls out a small portable DVD player. As she does this, the man appraises her, eyeing her up in the confine of the cabin. She notices and glares at him for a split second. The look seems to say don’t judge me because I sell porn, I’m not that kind of girl. The young man stops ogling, but he knows what she is and that with the right kind of persuasion, she’d do with him what he will be watching on the discs later. He shrugs, physically and mentally. She then takes the CD booklet and opens it, showing the man the array porn DVDs within. The man picks six of them before she puts the CD case back in the bag. Then she plays his selection on the portable device, one by one, for his confirmation of their content. He says he’ll take all of them and she nods and voices her approval of his decision. He owes her twelve hundred bob and she makes an impolite sucking sound when he hands her two one thousand shilling notes. She doesn’t really want to come back down here to give him his change and asks, not politely, whether he has loose money. He shakes his head. She makes the sound again and exits the car. She leaves behind a ghost of cheap perfume, underscored by the faintest odour of sweat. The man turns on his AC before depositing the discs into his glove compartment.
He doesn’t wait for his change.

CONVO NUMBER TWO

Mwangi Ichung'wa — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:40:43 +0000

“Wait a minute, did you said your name was Kagiri?”
“Yes.”
“Are you by any chance related to Big Jim Kagiri?”
“Yes, he’s my father.”
“He’s your father?”
“I just said that.”
“You have quite the smart mouth on you, don’t you young man?”
“And you have quite the redundant questions in yours, old man.”
“He he he. I like this kid. He’s funny. How’s your father doing by the way? It’s been quite a while since I saw him.”
“He’s alright.”
“Good, good. So, what can I do for you?”
“Actually, it’s more what I can do for you.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.”

CONVO

Mwangi Ichung'wa — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:39:40 +0000

“Forget all that they have said to you. It is lies.”
“They are.”
“What?”
“You said ‘it is’. Since it’s ‘all they’ve told me’, then it’s plural right? So, ‘they are lies’.”
“Er, alright then. Forget it anyway. You cannot trust anything they say at this point, you hear?”
“Yes, I hear.”
“Good. Then let’s get out of here. It is about that time when they close down for the day.”
“Where are we going?”
“That depends on you. You’re driving. You still have the car, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go.”
“Where are we going? Seriously. I don’t feel like driving aimlessly around town at this hour. Let’s decide now.”
“Where do you wanna go?”
“I… Anywhere but here.”
“Anywhere is a big place, man. You need to be more specific.”
“Where is this conversation going?”
“You know what, let’s just go outside, get in the car, then we’ll figure it out.”
“That works.”
“Why are still standing here then?”

BYE BYE BIMA

Mwangi Ichung'wa — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:38:18 +0000

“You don’t want to do this!” the man shouted, waving his arms in emphasis.
“Move,” said the man with the gun. “Otherwise they’ll go right through you.”
The man in front of the car waved his arms harder. “There has to be another way!” he screamed. A small crowd had gathered off to the side, both fascinated and terrified. Someone somewhere was shouting for the police.
“The other way was for you to pay what you owe,” said the gunman. He was calm, the levelled MP-5 barely moving as he spoke. “But you, being the greedy motherfucker that you are, went and bought that.” He indicated the shiny black 7-Series behind the frantic man with his chin. “So, since its value is pretty close to what you owe Omosh, and Omosh doesn’t want it, I have to destroy it. You cannot reap where you haven’t sown. Even you know that.”
The owner of the BMW pressed his back against the car and spread his arms to try and cover the front and rear doors on that side. He looked like a child whose toys were about to be taken away. His mouth worked but nothing came out. He managed a mangled, tortured, “Please.”
“No,” said the gunman. He pulled the charging handle on the machine pistol. “Now, move or you will die.”
The other man shook his head stubbornly. The gunman shrugged and pulled the trigger. The silenced machine pistol juddered slightly as he raked the BMW, turning it into a collage of metallic punch work and broken glass. The tyres blew and the car sagged onto one side, the interior torn to leathery shreds. Glass tinkled and metal popped as the 120-round magazine emptied into the car. Then silence. A car alarm warbled somewhere. The BMW looked like a large carrot grater with rims. The owner appeared from where he’d been cowering behind a large concrete flowerpot.
“No!” he screamed, approaching the ruined vehicle. “No!” His hands were clasped behind his head, anguish on his grimacing face. There were large sweat patches under his arms. He walked around the car as if in a trance. He went around to the driver’s side and opened the door. Loose glass from that window rained onto the tarmac. The gunman was stuffing the MP-5 into a backpack, getting ready to leave, when the cops arrived.

FUCK THE POLAR BEAR

Mwangi Ichung'wa — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:27:26 +0000

Paul tossed away the lighter in disgust after the fourth futile try. He rose from the seat and went into his tiny kitchen to get a matchbox.

“You need to get them Bic lighters, man,” drawled Jacob from his position on the carpet. He was lying on his back facing the ceiling, blowing a series of perfect smoke rings at the dangling lampshade.

“Yeah, well. Remind me when we go to tao,” Paul said from the kitchen. He found a matchbox and returned to the sitting room. He sat down and took a joint from the low coffee table and struck a match. He lit up and took a deep drag. On the incongruously large plasma TV screen, Al Gore was expounding on An Inconvenient Truth. The sound was turned low and Bob Marley was on the stereo telling the two men not to worry about atomic energy because it couldn’t stop the time.

“Look at this guy,” said Jacob slowly, pointing at the screen with his joint. “He believes in this whole global warming shit. What a bunch of crap; the world’s climate is in turmoil, we are all going to suffocate, we are all doomed for using oil. Environmentalists are such fucking wankers.”

Paul laughed and took another drag. They were pretty stoned by now, having been smoking weed for pretty much the whole afternoon. Paul noticed that what he thought was a darkening of the room caused by the THC in his head was actually the sun going down.

“They’re not,” he said. “Most of them do have a point. The whole greenhouse effect and shit, I think we should be worried.”

“Worried?” Jacob asked loudly, waving his arms in the air, tracing crazy smoke trails with the joint. “About what? You know, the problem with us humans is that we think we are the shit. We think the Earth cannot survive without us. We are the saviour of Mother Nature blah, blah etc,” he took a deep drag and held it. When he spoke again his voice was strained. “But we are not. We are smear in time and space. In fact, a smear is a compliment. We are nothing. And the sooner we realize it the better.” He exhaled the hit in a loud whoosh.

“So what you’re saying,” Paul started, taking a long drag himself, “is that we shouldn’t care, right?”

“Right.”

“And things will take care of themselves?”

“Right.”

“Even though we’ll be dead?”

“Right. You’re not as dumb as you look, Paul.” They both laughed as Jacob laughed as took another puff.

“Lemme give you an example, sir,” Jacob said, in that strained voice again. “The polar bear.”

“What about the polar bear?”

“It’s endangered and all that, right?”

“I suppose.”

“Do you care about the thing? Like really? If the polar bear became extinct, it disappeared from the face of the fucking Earth, would you shed a tear?”

“Er…”

“Didn’t think so. The polar bear is threatened by global warming. It hunts seals on sea ice and the ice, thanks to global warming, is receding and doesn’t last as long as it used to.”

“Really?”

“Yep. So, as good environmentalists,” Jacob pronounced the word carefully, “we should reduce our greenhouse emissions by not driving internal combustion engines. We should switch to solar power and cycle more often. Oh, and kill all the cattle on earth.”

“What?” Paul was shocked. “Why would we wanna do that?”

Jacob took another long drag. His joint had turned into a roach and he was pinching it between his fingers.

“Because, Paul-san, cows belch methane. Methane is ten times worse than CO₂ is for the atmosphere. So for a greener planet, no more steak. Pass me another joint from the table there, would you please?”

Paul passed him one. Cattle? Really? Jacob lit up and continued.

“Do you want to give up your steak, Paul?”

“Not really.”

“Your car? Do you want to drive around in a gay ass hybrid?”

“Not really.”

“Do you care about the blue whale, the polar ice caps, the Alaskan wilderness or the bloody polar bear?”

“Well…”

“Well what?” Jacob sat up and then slowly rose to his feet. He put his arms out as if for balance and then took another drag. “What?” The strained voice again.

“Well, fuck the polar bear!” Paul shouted.

“Good man.” Jacob stepped over and clapped him on the back. Outside, the sun had finally set and the flat had become quite dark. Al Gore was done and the Paul switched the channel to football. Manchester was one up.

CENTRAL LOCKING

Mwangi Ichung'wa — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:10:52 +0000

The Benz switched lanes again, swaying on its tired suspension. Jane wished the driver would slow down as they hurtled towards a busy junction whose traffic light was on its way to red.

“Could you, you know, drive a bit slower?” Jane asked in a small voice. “There is no fire.”

The driver didn’t speak. He did not even look at her. The heavy car flew through the junction, missing a minibus by a whisker and leaving an angry cacophony of air horns in its wake. Jane sat back and cinched her seatbelt a notch tighter. Clearly there was no telling this guy. He was following orders in the way which men who worked for her father often did. Without question.

Sneaking out of Mr. Ojoo’s house the previous evening was no mean feat in itself. The household staff lived in awe of the man. They were all from upcountry and there was absolutely no doubt as to where their loyalties lay. Jane knew she would be reported, regardless of how big the grin flashed on the gate guard’s dark face was as he swung the enormous wood and metal edifice open to let her out. He even wished her a good evening.

The nearest bus stop was at least a twenty-minute walk away. Her luck had been in for she had found a matatu immediately and arrived in the city center inside fifteen minutes. George, Seth and Christine were, as agreed, waiting for her at the Kencom stage.

Jane Ojoo was young and old at the same time. Growing up with a gangster cum politician father, whose solution to every problem was a wad of cash (in crispy new thousand bob notes) and a pat on the head meant that she had to figure out a lot of stuff by herself. Her mother, who had gone insane when Jane was about eight, was locked up in a care home somewhere in South Africa. Jane had been sent to boarding school in Class 6 and only went home three times a year until she finished high school. She came home, three weeks ago, after her last KCSE paper to find her home turned into a veritable fortress. Her father, after giving her a brief hug, had explained that due to some security concerns and her now voluptuous womanliness, she was to never leave the compound without his express consent and even then, not without a security detail.

Jane reflected on all this as the Benz sped onwards towards Mr. Ojoo’s wrath. The conversation she had had with dad before this driver was sent to pick her up from Seth’s place held all the warmth of an arctic pebble. There was hell to pay.

The evening had been great fun though. The jolly foursome had hit quite a few pubs in the city before moving on to Carnivore where they danced pretty much the whole night away. Jane remembered how, at some point, they were down by the bonfire and Seth had put his arm around her and kissed her. She thought he was the coolest guy she’d ever met, considering that the list was rather short. She thought she was in love. They left the club at five in the morning and since Seth’s folks weren’t home, they piled into a cab and went there.

Jane’s phone was ringing. She woke up and groggily reached for the blasted thing.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?” Her father, Mr. Ojoo was a man of few words.

“I’m at a friend’s house. I’ll be home soon,” Jane said. “I know I…”

“Where are you?” The voice was deliberate, slow and careful. It meant Mr. Ojoo was absolutely furious.

“South B.”

“You will tell me what estate, the court and the house number. Now.”

Jane did as she was told.

“Stay there. Someone will be round shortly to pick you up.”

“Dad, look…I’m sorry OK. I just wanted to go out with my friends OK. It’s boring being home all day. I…”

Her father had hung up.

So here she was, being sped back home to the fortress that Mr. Ojoo built, to lots of money and the occasional supervised weekend outing to spend it and to the house with no warmth.

The Benz was old and the central locking system was shot. Jane’s door was not locked. Maybe she could show her dad that she needed a life. Maybe she could do something that would make him care, make him feel something for her. Whether pity or love, she didn’t care. She just wanted him to feel something. In one move, she unclasped her seatbelt, pushed the door open and jumped out.

THE FALL

Mwangi Ichung'wa — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:23:50 +0000

Njuguna woke with a start. Something had scratched his left forearm. Not a scratch really, it felt more like a firm running of fingernails across the skin. He sat up in the large circular bed, sweating, convinced that someone or something was in the room with him. This was the fourth time he had been roused from his sleeping pill induced slumber by this eerie sensation. He looked around his bedroom and saw nothing. It’s a dream, he thought. Just a bloody dream. A soft glow from the security lights outside filtered into the room through the heavy curtains, giving an ethereal feel to the room. The fancy alarm clock on the nightstand said it was five past two in the morning.

Njuguna left his large warm bed and wrapped himself in his silk kimono nightgown. He grabbed his pack of Camels and headed carefully down the ornate marble staircase, holding tightly to the gilt baluster. His hip was still tender after the surgery and he didn’t want to risk a tumble. He limped into the large fitted kitchen, full of the latest German technology and realised he didn’t quite know where the coffee was. After all, that was what servants were for, right? By the time he was pouring himself a mug, all the cabinets were wide open, evidence of the fifteen minute search. He leaned against a counter, gratefully clasping the hot mug and lit a Camel with the gas burner, having misplaced his prized silver Zippo lighter somewhere in his office about two weeks ago. The smoke detector began to beep so he moved to the living room. Maybe he’d watch some TV and drift off. Yeah, maybe.

******

The police investigation had absolved Njuguna of any wrongdoing in the torture and murder of Samuel Bosire, a prominent businessman who had categorically refused to sell his haulage company to Njuguna. Samuel’s company had won the lucrative government tenders for transporting produce from the government’s ambitious agricultural schemes in the country’s semi arid areas and Njuguna, a patron of the previous regime, had lost out badly. After Bosire’s refusal, Njuguna organised for his abduction and torture, trying to get him to see sense and sign Njuguna’s company as a sub-contractor. He was tough, Bosire, and even after being electrocuted, half droned and having all his finger and toe nails pulled out with pincers, still swore that he would get his revenge on Njuguna, in this life or the next. Njuguna, the smart man that he was, had the torturers, some henchmen he’d hired, killed and their bodies dumped in the Nairobi River. Bosire’s body was burnt.
Bosire’s wife had visited Njuguna at his plush office three days after the discovery of the body and solemnly promised him that he would rue the day. Njuguna laughed it off and told her to get bent. That was a fortnight ago.

******

Njuguna jolted awake, dropping the half empty mug on the fluffy, pearly white carpet. This time he was sure he wasn’t dreaming. His forearms and the left side of his face actually stung. His heart rate soared as he saw the blood welling from the small parallel gouges that ran down both forearms. He touched his face and his hand came away wet with blood. He heaved himself awkwardly to his feet, wincing at the sharp, electric pain from his hip, leaving bloody handprints on the immaculate white leather recliner he’d been sitting on. He looked wildly about the room, suddenly a very frightened middle aged man. His silk nightgown hung askew on his frame.
“Who’s there?” he blustered. Nobody answered. The curtains rustled a little bit and he jumped. The hip protested. “I said, who’s there!”
Njuguna was not a man given to superstition but after the coffee mug rose into the air on its own accord and smashed into the overly large plasma TV screen, he gave a small squeal and hobbled up the stairs. He had a gun somewhere in the house and figured he would need it to deal with whoever was trying to fuck with him. As he ascended, a loud crash came from the kitchen and as he turned to look, he trod on one end of the gown’s sash, lost his footing on the slippery marble and tumbled backwards, his mouth open in a silent nooooo. He landed on his side, slamming both his head and hip on the hard marble floor. His vision started to grey at the edges as a fine mist of exquisite pain filled his mind. He couldn’t even scream, it was so bad.
Something kicked him. He tried to open his eyes but the pain consumed all his senses and he couldn’t see. It kicked harder and he felt something in his chest crack. He wanted to scream but another hard kick crushed his lips and broke his front teeth. His dislocated jaw dangled to one side and suddenly he was choking on his own blood.
You will rue the day.

Njuguna’s housekeeper found him, curled up in the foetal position, dead. A pool of blood had formed around his head and his face looked like it had been pounded with a pestle. She screamed and ran out of the house.

Outside a small ramshackle hut in Nyamira, Bosire’s wife’s driver handed a thick envelope to a wizened old crone who stood in the hut’s doorway. Despite the pouring rain, he had politely refused her offer for him to come inside the hut. He did not want to see what was in there.

Calabashes, goat skulls, dead shrivelled lizards, little bits of bone

He wanted to leave as soon as possible for the recent heavy rains had made the dirt tracks leading here almost impassable. She took the envelope and secreted it somewhere in her thick sweater. As the driver left, the old woman turned and entered her smoky hut. The fire in the middle of the single room had burnt down to the embers and she needed to relight it. She pulled out a shiny silver Zippo lighter and bent over the fireplace. She hummed as the flames caught.

THE LEDGE

Mwangi Ichung'wa — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:21:06 +0000

The wind is biting. It whips across my chest, changing direction every second; like a maniacal surgeon running razor blades across my torso. It’s dark and the promise of rain hangs heavy in the sky. My feet are getting numb from the cold. I’m glad it’s my feet. I’ll get worried when my fingers follow suit because the notion of plummeting from this ledge, thirteen floors into tarmac, is not appealing. But right now, my hands are still warm from all the adrenaline that is still coursing through my veins. They’re still arguing in there. I can hear them.

It started out well enough. We work together, see. So after all the office flirtation shit was over and we decide to just do it, we didn’t know it would go this far. What was intended as a, er, friends with benefits thing went and became a full blown affair all on its own. I had never met a woman like her. I mean, hey, I have had my fair share of ass. This is Nairobi, man. But this one. Dude, I lost my head. I used to laugh at chicks in high school who were so enthralled by the plastic romance in teen romance novels. I scoffed at those annoying romantic comedies starring all pretty white people anytime the current snack wanted to out for a movie. I didn’t think romance was for me. I didn’t believe in it. Then there was this woman! Argh! I hate her. Kinda. Well, not really.

So we snuck around, doing it in the office, the lifts, her car, my cars, my house, her house and so on. You get the idea, right? The one thing was, she was married. She was fucking married to some guy who works for national intelligence. Funny to think we have that. Anyway, so she didn’t tell me she was married. And no one, surprisingly, at the office knew she was either. She did not wear a ring. She kept to herself; politely of course, she was in no way aloof and she her office was directly opposite mine. So we said hi in the mornings and shared lunch on the balcony as we were the only people who ate in the office. Everyone else was couldn’t wait for lunchtime to dash out and go somewhere. So we started talking and I found out what an intelligent and witty person she was. From there the requisite bullshit flirtation began. I say requisite because it’s there everywhere. Why is that by the way? Anyway, so we bullshitted for a while and then this one day, we were working like really late and the third person in the office decided to take a nap in the boardroom. She was in my office and said she was oh so tired. So I offered to rub her neck. The rubbing went beyond the neck. Afterwards, we decided it should not happen again and we’ll stay friends. OKs all round, shake hands, fine. But it never happens that way, does it?

The image of a raging whirlpool, tree limbs and drowning wildlife viciously swirling into an eternal abyss is what comes to mind when I try to frame what exactly happened. I was an insect, she was a carnivorous flower. Her essence, scintillating it was, drew me into her poisonous petals where I partook and got hooked. Like heroin, she occupied every fibre of my being and made me crave and drool and I knew I’d never get enough of her. So did she, by the way.

Anyway –hmm, need to stop saying that. OK, so we shagged a whole lot in a whole lot of places and soon enough, she told me she was pregnant. Shit. Now, my usual way of dealing with this is to give the woman cash and tell her to get rid of it. If she prefers to keep the little bastard, then she can count me out of the equation. There’s like six women who really loathe me somewhere. What? It’s a free country. But I couldn’t do that to her. I loved her. There, I said it. I did. I also felt a responsibility towards her welfare and so I was all for keeping the kid. It was she who told me we had to get rid of it. I was stupefied. The woman of my dreams wanted to kill our kid? No! Absolutely fucking not! And I told her as much. She told me that it was for our lives’ sake. I asked her what the hell that meant and that is when she mentioned the husband.

It’s bloody cold out here. I’ve been clinging to this ledge for about twenty five minutes now. The voices inside have quieted down and all I can hear now is the wind whistling in my ears. It’s also quite dark. My teeth are starting to chatter. Maybe he will go away and I can climb back in and dress and leave. I never want to see her again. This shit is not worth it at all. If I stay out here, my fingers will freeze and when I can’t hold on, I’ll fall to my death. If I go in there, a man with a legal firearm and a government mandate will put another hole in my head, probably after castrating me first. My options are just great. Wait a minute, was that a bang I heard?

The husband knew. He knew from the start and had his boys following us around from the third week of our little liaison. There were pictures, audio and all that other evidence stuff that makes denial pointless. He confronted her, was apparently very reasonable and she promised to end it. We stayed apart for another month after that before we started jumping each other again. She told me she was leaving him. That she couldn’t stand his control anymore. I was over the moon. But she lied, man. She lied like an African politician.

So that’s how I have come to be on a ledge in the middle of the night, literally clinging to life. To sanity and all the other good things therein. I came over to her place tonight because the man was in Mombasa. Or so he said. He was here. He knows I’m here because I can hear heavy footsteps approaching the window which is not fully closed. I can glimpse, from the very corner of my right eye, a hand reaching to part the light mesh curtain. The gun and angry face are not too far behind.

Shit.

TRAFFIC INCIDENT

Mwangi Ichung'wa — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:21:11 +0000

The tea girl stumbled on the raised, badly installed door frame of Inspector Mwiki’s office and a little tea spilled from the cups onto the tray. Mwiki frowned but said nothing. She set the tray on the edge of his crowded little desk and left quickly, mumbling an apology on her way out. Chief Inspector Kimwa, sitting across the desk from Mwiki, took a cup from the tray and sipped the hot liquid appreciatively. “You need to get that fixed,” he said, pointing at the door with his long chin. “So what happened then?”

Inspector Mwiki also sipped his tea. The milk-tea ratio was off, again. And the sugar was too much. He set the cup down on a low table next to his chair. “The matatu driver, his friends call him Jamo, told me that after he got back on the road, he noticed the Land Rover was moving slowly on the outside lane, like its driver was waiting for him to pass. Once he overtook the Land Rover, the guy sped up and came very up close behind him and started hooting and showing him, er, rude hand signals.”
Chief Inspector Kimwa laughed softly.

“Jamo ignored this and drove on. That’s when the Land Rover rammed him from behind. He lost control and veered off the road. The Rover screeched to a stop in front of him and the driver jumped out.”
“What happened then?” asked the Chief Inspector.
“It’s a bit unclear,” said Mwiki, grimacing from his latest sip of the tea. “Some of the passengers say the guy had a pistol, but Jamo tells us that when the guy was approaching the matatu, he had no weapon in his hands.”
“Who got shot again?” the Chief Inspector wanted to know.
“The conductor.”
“Ah, continue then.”
“According to Jamo, the Land Rover driver came up to his window and started shouting all sorts of abuse at him. Jamo says he was really frightened at the time because he figured he was dealing with a mad man. He tried to roll up his window but his engine had stalled as he ran off the road. The Land Rover guy pulled him out through the open window and beat him.”
“He beat him?”
“Badly. Broke his jaw, collar bone and his right forearm.”
“What were the passengers doing then?”
“Apparently nothing. Kenyan complacence, you know.” The Chief Inspector nodded. “Until the conductor slid open the door and rushed round the front of the matatu to help his driver.”
“That’s when the Land Rover guy pulled a weapon?”
“According to the front seat passengers and Jamo, the driver, yes.”
“Apparently the conductor had a blunt weapon of some sort, a jack or something, so Mr. Rover pulled a pistol and shot him in the left thigh.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah, and then he jumped back in his Land Rover and sped off.”
“Nobody got the Land Rover’s number plate, description, anything?”
“Now, my friend, here’s where it gets a bit weird. One of the passengers in the front seat actually took a picture using her phone, you know, those ones with the cameras? She took a photo of the Land Rover, the guy and the number plate as the car sped off. We do know it was a grey vehicle.”
“So why don’t we have the suspect? If you have the registration, a picture of the guy himself and the car, why are we even discussing this?”
“The images the lady took were, er, unusable.”
“How so?”
“You know the way they blur out parts of a picture on TV, like if it’s an interview and they don’t want to show the interviewee?”
“Pixellation, yes. What does that have to do with this?”
“That was exactly what happened with the images she took. Everything else was visible except the Land Rover, its driver and its…”
“…number plate,” the Chief Inspector finished.
“Well, yes. I got some graphic designer to look at the photos and see if they were doctored in any way. He assured me they hadn’t. We even used the lady’s phone to take some test snaps and they all came out fine. It’s all very strange.”

“Yes, well,” the Chief Inspector rose to leave. “Keep me informed if you have any leads. We can’t have people shooting each other over traffic incidents. Thanks for the tea, I think.” He smiled as he opened the door and stepped out of Mwiki’s office, almost tripping on the frame as well. “Get that fixed!” the Chief Inspector yelled from the corridor.

Inspector Mwiki leaned back in his hard wooden chair and looked at the pile of papers on his desk. He took another sip of the (horrible) tea He searched for the case file in the desk top morass in front of him; wanting to go through it one more time, see if there was anything he had missed. He opened the folder and his jaw dropped, spilling some tea onto the front of his shirt, like a baby’s dribble. His investigative report, all his carefully typed pages, the eyewitness statements, crime scene photos and printouts from the lady’s camera phone were all blank pieces of paper. There was no record of the case. None.

Inspector Mwiki left early that day. He had developed a serious headache.