Beyond what you can see and touch

“Guys, you mean – “

“Thina waku nikii, whether we are or we are not? Ndugatureherere!”

“Kariakoo, have you forgotten that I am the chairman, the Most Senior Gossiper?”

“So –“

“So you respect the chair,” I was very bitter. I added, “One of these days, you will have your face deformed if you don’t control that mouth of yours Kariakoo.”

“Eheeeee! Ehe! Ehe! Not tomorrow,” he disentangled himself from a girl, likely the age of his last daughter – if he has any, as he claims – ready to cause mayhem. Placing a bottle top on the back his hand, he barked “tharia njata!”

“We know you can’t fight, or rather win a fight. Instead of embarrassing yourself, just warm your chair. Furthermore you are too old for such a ‘boyish-game’.” Marianna advised Kariakoo.

“Whom are you calling old?” he went back to his ‘fiancée’ and with concern asked the girl “swiry heart, am I not young? Ndi-i-i-i- mukuru? No anga ndi ndi ndi na mbui my d-d-d-dear?”

“How old are you Karias?” Siddie asked

“Count emergency, nineteen fifty t-t-t-two-o-o, miaka igana iyo?”

“Kariakoo, now we know. You are truly young –“Joshua said.

“At heart though –“Professor concluded.

I decided to mind my own business at a strategic distance away from the drunkards of the county’s circle, for a while. It did not require a nuclear physicist to hammer the naked reality to my medulla oblongata that I was the odd one out. The circle comprised of love birds only – two by two. God knows what Marianna – the celebrated town nurse was doing with Joshua. I will not dwell on the particulars here (for some reasons).If the manner in which  Siddie and Professor held each other is to be interpreted as ‘feelings’, no wonder Professors’ First Lady is well known in the village and beyond as ‘the woman of tantrums’ – always complaining openly about his unfaithful husband. On the other side, Kariakoo had decided, as he could, to please his queen (All the ladies that Kariakoo has been intimate with can form a trade union if they were to come together, as far as I know and heard). He held her by the waist line gently. In turn, she placed her hands upon his chest and looked direct into his eyes (I know Kariakoo will never admit that his eyes betrayed the fact that he was shy, but no problem).Mwendwa Lucy lyric started to play. Holding each others’ hands and in a slow movement, they made two steps to the left then two to the right before concluding the pattern with a classic semi rotation that climaxed by the girl resting on Kariakoo’s  hands as if saying ‘please do it again’. They repeated this pattern several times. Other patrons in Thirsty Throats Pub cheered the duo as they continued with their theatrics. The lyric began all over again:

Nawe mwendwa Lucy

Andu makwendete

ugithii na njira Lucy

mendaga o makwone

Magego na maitho maku

No ta njata utuku

Naguo uthiu waku ukengaga

Ta ime ria ruci-ini ……

“Cheers county drunkards…..”An overwhelmed Professor took to the floor holding Siddie by the shoulder. Siddie did not resist. He continued “Hei! Stereo-sound coagulator, give us a doooose of another track!”

“DJ iiiiiiii......” from the extreme end of the table emanated the voice of a drunkard Joshua.

“DJ aaaa…..” a shrill voice responded. It belonged to Marianna.

“Give us one of William’s or Roger’ pleeeeeease….” Professor insisted. The other bar attendant did not embarrass. For Professor’s sake – and other patrons who too were on the dance-floor – she played Don William’s “You're My Best Friend": 

You placed gold on my finger
You brought love like I've never known
You gave life to our children
And to me a reason to go on.

You're my bread when I'm hungry
You're my shelter from troubled winds
You're my anchor in life's ocean
But most of all you're my best friend…..

As the crescendos and the diminuendos of William continued, Kariakoo made many fragmented remarks. This remark was the most unique one: “utari na wake ni arie muringa wa nyina” it was clear whom he targeted with the missile. To say the least, it was a hurting remark.

I was capable of joining the dancing troupe but I chose not to. It is said (or is it ‘it is written’?) that when you are in Rome do as Romans do; that cliché did not apply in my circumstance fully among the drunkards. If you go to a mental hospital and find that all the patients are hard-hitting the metal grills with their foreheads, do you also expose yours to a similar excruciating pain in order to ‘fit in’? Well, there are those who would proudly say ‘yes’ to avoid being ostracized by the members of their social group. Some would not. I did not. Instead I decided to take a seat at the farthest table from the hysterical drunkards-turned-dancers.

“Decorate this place with seven bottles of the strongest concoction” I requested the lady-In-Red (Though she had worn nothing that could be described as reddish on that day as far a those  attires in public domain were concerned –  you know there are other ‘small’ but vital wears which I am deliberately avoiding to comment about here, don’t you?). After serving my order, she turned to leave, yet I needed her companionship.

 “You don’t have to run away from me dear, welcome for drinks”

“Thanks!” She replied “A moment please” she left. This was not the first time she had used that phrase. Many a times she had excused herself by repeating the same phrase ‘a moment please’ never to come back again. The fact of a lonely evening in a place full of people was gradually becoming a reality. She could be seen chatting with her colleague. It dawned on me that somehow gods of fate had found a soft spot on me. They had decided to psychologically terrorize me.

“How the hell did I come to this place today?” “Lord have I sinned against you?” “If you can hear me, great grandfathers from the silence of your cold graves, tell me whether you too did not brew and drink the brew? Tell me!” “If it is not your will that I am here my dear guardian angel, then show me where I belong?” I would have continued with this self-aggrandizing nonsense, blaming every blue sky and every wild beast for my fate had the Lady-In-Red not taken a seat close to mine.

“At last you’ve come, welcome once again” I emptied the content of one bottle into one of the glasses and handed it over to her. “Eeeemm Msoo, You are Msoo…. She is also Msoo….Ahem! How is that dear? (I avoided the ‘The-Lady-in-Red’ name tag as I could though it was synonymous with me. This was a more serious moment calling for some decorum by dropping some prejudicial names. Thanks to my brain. How the name Msoo came to my mind, only God knows)

“I am Msoo senior, having arrived here ahead of her while she is Msoo junior.”

“Oh! I get it. In short you are the pioneer, so to say?”

“That’s it.”

“Wonderful! From now on I will be referring to you as Pioneer”

“As you like it,” in a relaxed posture she said as she continued to take the concoction, bit by bit.

“I am their Chairman only that at times they rebel as you can see. They call me Senior Gossiper.”I continued, “In this caucus we keep neither records nor minutes; everything is written in the heart. Ok, Pioneer, before you landed here, you were working where?”

“Ha! Ha! Ha! Pioneer! Anyway, it’s a one long story –”

“I don’t mind even if it takes the whole night to narrate. I will listen to every turn of event. “I interrupted.

“And not very appealing” she asserted.

“I have listened to narratives where men – normal men – have butchered other men and feasted on their kidneys and pancreases. Is your story more bizarre than that?” I teased her.

“Ha! Ha! Ha! Noooooo! No! No! Not like that” she claimed. “It’s like this SG. As a little girl, I harbored dreams, big dreams, just like any other up-country innocent young girl. I would dream of a future as a successful woman in a virtuous country; a country that values justice and peace. I remember how (as a young girl) I felt whenever I had an opportunity in the morning  to watch the sun as it struggled to break-free from the bondage of the sky, to brightly shine  illuminating a beautiful stream of bright yellow rays; Oh! Such resilience!  I saw my success mystified in those rays. You can imagine how I felt whenever I saw it being re-captured by inconsiderate clouds on the other side, not to be seen again for quite a number of hours.

“No, I can’t imagine but please tell it to me,” I did not know how to participate well in this narrative. I kept nodding the head in agreement, at times facing her at times facing the table. She went on.

“That was more than 20 yeas ago when they used to call me Stella the Star. Fast forward to today….Ahm!...” She paused. Her memory had opened a sore wound. I looked at her as if urging her to go on. Despite a strong inner voice that urged me to say a word, I ended up saying nothing. She looked at me. I looked at her. 

“A moment Please,” she left. I looked at her as she joined Msoo junior to serve the patrons. A communion song which was sung last Sunday by Saint Bakhita Catholic Church Choir pre-occupied my mind:

(Mioyoni mwetu tumebeba makuu

Mungu mwenyewe ndiye anayejua)

Mioyoni mwetu tumebeba makuu

Mungu mwenyewe ndiye anayejua)

(Tumwite Yesu Taa inayong’aa

Ataleta upendo na raha tele)

Tumwite Yesu Taa inayong’aa

Ataleta upendo na raha tele