April 1999
Kayole, Nairobi - Kenya
His cousin who worked at Kenya Airways came driving an old school maroon Volvo car. He packed it outside the one storey flat and galloped the stairs to the red oxide corridor then into our house. My mother looked at him, a refracting tear ball forming at the base of her eyelids as she watched him twitch and gasp for breath weakly in the unspread bed.
His cousin helped her carry him like delicate sack. He held his trunk downwards and my mother clutched onto his black leather jacket that would threaten to slide from his emaciated body. They carried him carefully downstairs and into the rear seat of the maroon Volvo where they helped him try to sit straight as they tried to fit his turquoise pair of trousers well on him as it had slid to the hind and the hind to the front. He looked at me and forced a smile that seemed to say that he'd be fine and should he depart to the land of no return, then well and good, life is just a trip, even death has a reason.
My mother told our neighbour, Mama Evelyn to take care of me and my little brother should she not return overnight. My brother was at this age where children crawl and feed on anything their fingers can grasp including soil and what can be its contents not excluding crawling arthropods. The Volvo dashed away into the yonder near Kayole One primary school as I carried my brother back to the house.
In the evening, Mama Evelyn took us to her house at the ground floor where we slept on her daughter's bed (Evelyn's bed) as she wasn't around. She was my childhood crush by the way but tonight I didn't feel a thing for her smile, brown skin or fluffy nature that sapped cheekiness out of my anatomy.
In the morning, I heard our door slam from upstairs then painful wailing pierced the thin and silent air. It was my mother's voice. I looked at my sleeping brother, he was unaware and probably dreaming that he's playing with butterflies. I ran upstairs to our house and when I saw my mother's face and heard the words of peace and comfort that one or two neighbours who were already there saying to her as she sobbed, I could tell it all.
My artist was dead
My father was dead
My life he'd fled
Tears I shed
[ B.o.B A Whoof Deh - R.I.P ; Return If Possible, April 2017]
Kayole, Nairobi - Kenya
His cousin who worked at Kenya Airways came driving an old school maroon Volvo car. He packed it outside the one storey flat and galloped the stairs to the red oxide corridor then into our house. My mother looked at him, a refracting tear ball forming at the base of her eyelids as she watched him twitch and gasp for breath weakly in the unspread bed.
His cousin helped her carry him like delicate sack. He held his trunk downwards and my mother clutched onto his black leather jacket that would threaten to slide from his emaciated body. They carried him carefully downstairs and into the rear seat of the maroon Volvo where they helped him try to sit straight as they tried to fit his turquoise pair of trousers well on him as it had slid to the hind and the hind to the front. He looked at me and forced a smile that seemed to say that he'd be fine and should he depart to the land of no return, then well and good, life is just a trip, even death has a reason.
My mother told our neighbour, Mama Evelyn to take care of me and my little brother should she not return overnight. My brother was at this age where children crawl and feed on anything their fingers can grasp including soil and what can be its contents not excluding crawling arthropods. The Volvo dashed away into the yonder near Kayole One primary school as I carried my brother back to the house.
In the evening, Mama Evelyn took us to her house at the ground floor where we slept on her daughter's bed (Evelyn's bed) as she wasn't around. She was my childhood crush by the way but tonight I didn't feel a thing for her smile, brown skin or fluffy nature that sapped cheekiness out of my anatomy.
In the morning, I heard our door slam from upstairs then painful wailing pierced the thin and silent air. It was my mother's voice. I looked at my sleeping brother, he was unaware and probably dreaming that he's playing with butterflies. I ran upstairs to our house and when I saw my mother's face and heard the words of peace and comfort that one or two neighbours who were already there saying to her as she sobbed, I could tell it all.
My artist was dead
My father was dead
My life he'd fled
Tears I shed
[ B.o.B A Whoof Deh - R.I.P ; Return If Possible, April 2017]
