genesis

when pen meets paper

everything turns into vapour

when pen meets paper

I cant help but feel much better

when pen meets paper

you will get to know me so much better

One day I sat on my father's favourite chair staring into space. My friend and brother were in the room as well talking but I heard nothing they said. My mind was too engrosses in the sad reality I faced. Something I had fought, toiled, sweated and bled for was at the verge of collapse. I could not explain how I felt at that time to anyone. I am not sure if it was out of fear of being mocked or misunderstood or if I was unable to verbalize this innermost feelings. I will never know for sure, all I do know was I could not talk about it. Yet this thing nagged me, gnawing in my insides until there was a physical manifestation of the emotional pain I felt. I wondered for a moment if this was a 'Dear Diary' moment. If such feelings inspired the people I had mocked to keep a journal. I was never one to share my feelings openly so writing them down and forever keeping them on record was definitely out of the question. But on this day I questioned my reasoning for dismissing journals, wondered if indeed such people had the right idea. Since I had no pen and paper available, I got the next best thing-my cell phone. I went straight to Facebook and decided to write a note, pen down my ideas. I had no intention of posting it;I used Facebook merely because it was the one feature that allowed me to write using unlimited characters. At that point I started typing away my feelings. Slowly I saw a pattern emerge, there seemed to be some artistic flow to the writing. My soul was bleeding through my phone and art was being created. I could not stop writing. When I got to the end, I looked at what I had written and using the little poetic knowledge I had acquired in high school, I broke up the sentences. That was when my first 'artistic piece' was born. Two days later I tried it again and the same thing happened. This was the genesis of my discovery of this 'talent'. I put this two things in inverted commas because I don't think I write poetry or have a talent-yet. But I am a work in progress.

That was three short years ago. Since then I have written countless 'artistic pieces' some better than the first some worse. I have tried all forms of writing trying to curve a niche, from poetry, to stories and most recently to songs. But I will always remember the first. The one that led to the serendipitous discovery of an ability, a way with words. The one that led to a passion that I now live for. I have a dream, I will be an accomplished author one day. I have started small, working on short stories, hoping to compile them one day and publish a book. But until that day, here is a sample of my first short story. Just the beginning to give you a taste. If you like it, I will send you the rest of it. Enjoy.

All James could think about was that quarter piece of chicken and fries that he was going to get once he got home. After a long day in school, he could devour a whole goat, however the Kenchic located between Prestige Plaza and Uchumi Hyper would suffice. He looked down at his watch and groaned upon seeing the time as he now had to decide what to go for first, football or food. Well, getting out of the madness of the city centre was his top priority; the rest would be decided when he got home. He looked to his right wondering where all the buses where. I bet most of these guys are waiting for a 32, he mused. He was standing in the midst of this mass of humanity at Kencom bus terminal in the centre of Nairobi. This was the heartland of commuters heading to the estates west of Uhuru Highway. There was Railways Station too but that was for those who liked matatus, which were not his cup of tea. Like most of the commuters, he was standing to the right of the newly-constructed shelters which were hardly used by anyone so as to get to the bus first when it was stuck in traffic. He reached into his pocket to retrieve his phone, but it wasn’t there. Panic briefly swept over him before he remembered he had thrown it into his rack sack when the Business Management 301 lecturer had walked into class. He took off his backpack, fished the phone out, logged onto Facebook and updated his status to ‘hiyo kuku porno haina bahati…’ He then connected his headphones to his phone, put the ear buds in his ears, and turned on the music.

Beatrice first smelled his cologne before she saw him. She looked around her in the typically overly-crowded Kencom bus stop to trying to figure out where the scent was coming from. How she was able to pick this smell out particularly in the midst of over one thousand bodies crammed into the relatively small area amazed her. Her eyes settled on this cute guy with earphones on and she surmised it must be him, who else could it be. She instinctively reached down to straighten her skirt and adjust another piece of garment. She wished she was wearing make-up today. Oh well, at least she had lip gloss on as she never went anywhere without her raspberry-flavoured one. She now wondered why she hardly wore make-up except when going out at night. Well, that was a rule she was definitely going to change. If all the guys in her class were looked like him I would go to school religiously, she thought. There were some cute ones but they were still small boys straight out of high school like she was, simply filling in the time between high school and university. But not him, he was cute and looked so mature and experienced, a real man who had lived life and had much to share. The things she could learn from him… sigh… Her reverie was brought to an abrupt end by the man who roughly bumped into her almost knocking her over. She struggled to regain balance throwing him a dirty look in the process.

But he barely noticed the look, let alone young girl he had just bumped. Firstly, because there were so many people it was impossible not to bump into someone. But mostly because he was completely lost in his own world, focused on the job he was going to. Paul could not believe that this is what his life had come to. He had big dreams when he left his village and headed to the big city to pursue his degree in Economics. His family, as well as his entire village, was there on the day he left patting him on the back and encouraging him. Everyone was beaming with pride as though his accomplishment was shared by the collective. He was to be his family’s saviour from the abject poverty they suffered. His father had gone to great lengths, sacrificing an arm and a leg, to ensure his fees were paid for in full. Friends of the family had organised a harambee to make up the difference. His school fees were basically covered for the next four years. He excelled in his studies and passed with Honours. However, that was where the success well ran dry. He had been jobless for the past 6 years since completing his undergraduate degree and was at the brink of despair. He had worked so many menial jobs to make ends meet while looking for better things. Somehow, degrees accounted for nothing here. He stopped walking at the edge of the pavement and waited for a bus. Just behind him, he heard a mature couple having a discussion in hushed voices. They reminded him of his parents and he was engulfed with sadness.

the forked road

remember when I was your everything

when without me you were nothing

I was who you ran to for something

and for me you would do anything

now its time to put to test this thing

When I was a teenager, right around the time I discovered my 'manhood' was for more than passing wastes, I found that I had this insatiable appetite for women. I did not have the typical kind of appetite the average teenage boy has. Mine was of a more harmless nature; this need to befriend them. I would spend days chasing them, courting them, embellishing them with sweet-nothings, but most importantly I listened to them. See, from an early age I already feared and hated being 'normal'. I was an individual and I would go to whatever lengths to prove it. I had to be unlike other teens and not chase after skirts for relations and relationships, but for meaningful profound friendships. Out of this situation I honed and perfected a new ability, a super power if you will. I knew how to get them to let me in. I daresay I had not met a single female who did not allow me to peek into their deepest darkest crevices of their souls, regaling me with the most intimate details of their lives. I knew things about some that even their boyfriends would never know. I tolled developing this skill foolishly believing it would be my way in. The end result was a string of girls who thought me closer than a brother. So automatically nothing beyond long intimate conversations would ever transpire between us. This is when I was introduced to the infamous Friends-zone, every red-blooded man's nightmare. Nothing makes a man's testicles shrivel faster than those words uttered by a woman of his desires, 'You are my friend, nothing can happen...'. The lonely room that one is sentenced into with the 'purest' intentions and the sweetest smiles. Where one walks in with his head hang, knowing that any refusal to do so would render him labelled 'that bastard who just wants sex'. No not me, I would never be referred to as 'one of those guys'

In order to counter this friends-zone phenomena, I developed a principle-never date a woman who was not a friend. Such was my ignorance that I would boast and brag with such pride of this principle. In my short-sightenedness I had failed to see the flaw in the plan. Before we became friends, I could not touch her because I didn't know her. Once I was friends with any girl I was in the zone so I was a no-no to her. In short my teenager years were littered with a host of female friends but no girlfriends. I was the King of the Friends-zone and I had so many subjects. It took me many years to see the error in my ways before I abandoned this principle. I then embraced my 'humaness' and 'maness' to the fullest. This was after I noticed that all my subject in the friends-zone had something in common, we listened when the spoke of these 'bastards' but they always went back to them. We basically watched others live life, offering a shoulder to cry on and sound advice. I had to call upon my inner 'bastard' to get off the bench and into the game. I left friends-zone vowing never to return.

Fast-forward some years later, I met the 'one'. She was everything I could hope for in a single human being. She was so perfect she was flawed, those flaws making her all the more perfect. We became friends fast, so fast I still struggle to figure out how that happened. Then I fell. Now came the forked road, keep quiet and begrudgingly stroll back into the friends-zone with no hope of anything coming of it or be forthright early on about my desires and probably lose this person. How does one reject the friends-zone in search for something better without being put in the 'bastards' box? Is the possibility of losing a great friend worth the risk of gaining so much more? How do I show her that the inner 'bastard' now manifested in my actions is a mere mask I wear to get by in life, without being reverted into the friends-zone? How do I seamlessly transition from being just-friends to more than friends with as little change as possible? This business could life, if only there was a manual...