Kill me

The lull after the storm,
The calm after the chaos.
No more weathering the storm,
Or an endless despair for dry land.
No more, no more!!!

The last drops of paint are now dry.
No more sketches on my clean wall,
No more incorrigible writings on the walls.
Pure white, whitewashed white, snow white.

My forest, my man-made forest.
Trees now growing in line like boy scouts,
Growing and maturing faster, like soft woods are meant to.
Bye hardwoods, bye bye disorderly trees.
I won't miss you, you grew too slowly anyway.

But....

It is not the hope of dry land that made the voyage enjoyable,
Nor did it prove the sturdiness of the boat,
Neither the tenacity of the sailors.

The neat whitewashed wall denies me the vigour of youth,
The beauty of splattered colours.
There are no messages in the worst of handwritings,
That point to a moment in time.
No colour, no collage, no beauty, no memories.

It takes ages to grow hardwoods, centuries even.
Then they have no order, no symmetry, just grow wherever and whenever they feel like.
But that's what makes a forest beautiful.

The promise of calm,
The spotless white,
The symmetrical artificial creation.

These are things cowards long for.
Nothing that the strength of love can give.

If you leave me, kill me.
For I cannot enjoy these.
I would rather the harsh storm, the badly coloured wall, the order-free forest.
For no his-story came from sailors who hated the sea and loved dry land.
No clean wall could tell her-story.
No man-made forest told their-story:

A love-story.

Don't leave me, but if you do, kill me!!!

We fix broken eggs and repair rotten tomatoes 7

Mutton stew

From time to time, usually more often than not, the chefs made mutton stew. This one was for the exclusive taste of the chefs and their close friends. They usually made it from meat picked from dying sheep. Usually after the sheep had been lived beyond its usefulness in regards to wool shearing.

There was usually a wool shearing season. The wool shearer a.k.a the taxman was in charge of this process. There was no escaping the big man. He would look for you, find you and take his share. Part, or should I say most of it, conveniently got lost when his friends visited his shamba and his stores. The wool was meant to make clothes for the population to help them survive the cold season. And the nights too. The woollen clothes were to fit from top to bottom but as fate would have it, the material ran out faster than a Kenyan marathon athlete. All that was left for a majority of the population was just enough material to make scarves.

Sometimes the wool shearing extended beyond the season. The sheep were sometimes forced to trade it in for a bit of fertiliser for their pastureland when their self produced manure was not enough to make the land more productive. It was an illegal trade since hay was the currency of trade but sometimes, in Africa....

Sometimes, the chefs couldn't wait for the sheep to age and decided to slaughter them at their prime. At other times, there happened to be a deficiency in wool since the chefs had cut off pastureland meant for the lambs to make space to set up food stands to sell their soups. The flocks would die of hunger and thus the wool debt.

On this particular day, one of the chefs, the deputy of Half-century, happened to conveniently extend his food stand into the pastureland. Men noticed. The women and children too. There was going to be some noise this time round. So the big boys ordered us to take our rungus and shields to go confront the mass of demonstrators. They wanted to fight for the animal rights and my employer, Half-century was having none of it. Adults and children were going to demonstrate. What do children know about animal rights anyway? A lesson in teargas will teach them not to get involved next time!!

Animal rights my foot!!!!

On the morning of the incident,  as I got into my anti-riot gear, I took my family's photo from my desk and had a good look at it. They are the reason I work everyday. My wife, my son and my daughter. All so beautiful. I usually did this as a ritual every morning before I started my day. Just to remind me, no matter how bad my job pays and makes me feel like trash, I had something to live for.

As I put the photo back onto my desk, I noticed a funny blur on the photo. I brought it closer and rubbed it with my fingertip to clear away the stain. Instead, the colour started fading and beneath the colour, a strange object began to reveal itself. First came the hooves.

I rubbed harder.

Then came 16 legs.

Four short tails.

Wool.

Round bodies.

Sheep. Four sheep. FOUR DAMN SHEEP!!!

MY FAMILY IS A FLOCK OF SHEEP!!!!

We fix broken eggs and repair rotten tomatoes 6

Aromat.

Everything is better with aromat.

The current system of serving food at the marketplace had grown stale. Men were tired of having to wait in line for their portion of omelette soup. It was usually on a first come first serve basis. However, the rules determining who came first were very amorphous. Too grey: a bit of black here and a bit of white there. Therefore, the cunningones and the strong ones always ended first. The shrewd ones too. Though the shrewd ones always got a bit of soup, whether they were in line or not. Their secret was very simple, make friends with the number ones after they had been served. That way, they wouldn't sleep hungry.

The luxury of sleeping on with an occupied stomach was not attainable to the majority. It was only a fantasy most could only dream of. The poor chaps would eat the bit they had been served that day (if lady luck shone on them) and make stories around campfires. Stories of hope and to some degree, delusion. The reality of "kukula ugali na stori ya nyama".  Or in this case, stori ya omelette soup. They could almost even taste it with their tongues. But it was just that, almost!!

So they got dissatisfied with this arrangement and as with all dissatisfied men, grumbling followed. It started from their stomachs, their children's stomachs in particular and generated into moans and groans.  A groan for a second liberation. They were tired of the omelette soup. At least they wanted a change in the diet. (Not the kind of diet slimming ladies want, but it could qualify since a majority were slimming and losing weight anyway). The winds of change had started blowing from the east.

The chefs came together. Interests had to be protected and viewers had to be entertained. The crowds needed more. More for their temporal gratification but not an eternal satisfaction. 

"Aromat"

"What is that?"

"A detailed scheme of how we can make the best out of it without injuring our interests."

"Explain."

"Just create a cheap portion and tell people it is an elixir. Add it to the food and increase the rotten tomatoes of economic inequality to the recipe. They are in plenty anyway. More people from the middle class section of the line will have their fill and their ears will be too full of our advertising jingles to be able to hear properly the grumbles from the nether ends of the line."

"What shall our jingle proclaim?"

"Everything is better with Aromat."

And that is how the New Aromat Ordinance of Twenty-Centuries-and-One-Decade was born.

The climb

To the lofty, my truth is inaccessible.
To the humble, he will see it.
For the pride of Man denies him perception
And his knowledge,  a barrier.

For a proud man is always looking down in spite,
And a humble man, his face lifted in prayer.
When he looks down, he has no view of that which is above
When he looks up, he sees only but just a spot,
A fraction of that which is eternal.

The higher you elevate man, the less his view of the sky.
The lower he descends, the wider his view.
The higher he goes, the more men he sees,
And vainly compares himself to them.
The lower he goes, the less of pride in men he sees,
And the greater the view of glory.

Higher up the ladder of pride,
Or lower the ladder of conceit he shall descend.
Either way, we are all somewhere along this climb.

We fix broken eggs and repair rotten tomatoes 5

Noses RuKia

The morphology of Blue Label to Half-century had already happened. It was quick and fast. Quite a swift change. One that caught the ignorant by surprise but again, put in a bit of flamboyance here and there and there you go!!  A new word. Probably leaves the script writer feeling like Charles Dickens. In case you didn't know, we credit a couple of words to that walking dictionary. The only difference with the Half-century script writer is that they did not spice up the language.  Though I must credit them with improving the visual appearance of the omelette and thereby psychologically improving the taste (in the eyes of the fans).

And in the midst of the script writing came forth Noses RuKia.  Usually known as Nonsense RuKia but the first name was too long to pronounce. And we shortened it to our liking. Like the way we would say Jay for Josephine because we got tired of pronouncing the name in the middle of that vocal journey. Which reminds me, why do we get tired during our vocal journeys?

She killed.
She kille.
She kill
She kil
She ki
She k
She
She.....
She killed me with her looks.

So Noses RuKia. When Half-century promoted one of the chefs to chief chef,  they made the mistake of employing that guy to be the cook. He was probably the worst act of them all. Noses couldn't try to pretend that he was fixing broken eggs or repairing rotten tomatoes. He on one hand wrapped the broken eggs in green paper, some 1000g heavy, some 500g heavy. Then plast them in eggshell like colours and lifted them up in the same manner Simba was lifted up in front of the wildlife on Pride Rock.  The crowd of course went wild and was convinced that the eggs were repaired. Eggs of tribalism and hate.

So Noses was unskilled at this job. Or ignorant. Or just plain obtuse. I couldn't put a finger to it.  Always forgetting that broken eggs needed good presentation and that broken eggs needed to be hidden. Unfortunately,  for this brute, egg breaking was his speciality. And the Half-century crowd somehow loved it. Some hated it but for sure, he did stir still waters.
The tangerine crowd of course hated it.

Aberrant

There are nights,
Some shorter, some longer.
And this one, longer than I would like to remember,
For it is punitive for a man to experience an obsession once,
And forever dream of it,
But live in trepidation.

Embers of what once was,
A fire upon which melodies were refined,
And golden words came alive.
Where the cold was just but a rumour,
And the worries of the night far flung into Sheol.

That was when I met Her,
Hidden deep beneath the covers of lucidity.
She never showed her appearance in the day,
But in rare moments of darkness; on days like these, she came forth.
Draped only in splendour,
Dressed in odourful charm,
Footsteps so calm.
A gracefulness the beauty of the night could not match.

I couldn't hear her come,
Yet I knew she already was.
I couldn't see her, but I knew there in that moment;
There was none more beautiful.
A silent assault played on a minor key.
And yet, no refined orchestra could play a tune better.

"Come
Come with me."

*silence*
*tension*

She placed her chin on my neck,
And gently worked her hands on my tense muscles.
Working from the shoulder to the torso, lower back and slowly up again.
Till my mantle dropped, plumage and vainglory;
And all bulwarks undone.

"Come,
Come now, let us go...."

Disenthralled
Ecstasy
Rhapsody
Amorphous.

I could go on but I will not.
It would be wrong for a man to describe such delectations in one stroke.
Pleasures under the moonlight deserve no less than the finest in language.
So unfortunate that the Queen's language isn't enough.
To understate such feminine panache, I will not.
But I will give you her name

Delirious

We fix broken eggs and repair rotten tomatoes 4

Bored of the morsels. They wanted more. And the more they had, the worse the aftertaste. Eventually, the morsels stopped tasting nice. The crowd was bored and the chefs were once again in trouble.

The chefs had to think fast. Their Union was breaking apart anyway. Stories and rumours of undercutting were strife. Suspicion grew. Distrust matured.

And eventually, the tangerines retreated to their kilns. They needed a new strategy.

There was whispering in the now speculative crowds. Fingers crossed, fingers pointed at each other.

There was whispering in the Blue Label kilns. There was now whispering in the Tangerine kilns. Minds at work.

Then a shout came from the Tangerine kilns.
"We fix broken eggs!!!"

And a quick and witty response came from Blue Label.
"We repair rotten tomatoes!!!!"

We repair broken eggs and repair rotten tomatoes 3

STOP!!!!!!!!

You cannot behave in a manner likely to suggest that no form of education has ever been imputed into your systems.

"But it was their fault, they stole our eggs and gave us broken eggs."

"They gave us rotten tomatoes."

"We gave you fresh tomatoes and you swapped them with rotten tomatoes."

Hush!!!! We can work out something. Starting with you chefs. How can we make a combined omelette, one that at the least will leave some morsels for the audience?

Then began the negotiations that went on for two days. Finally, they agreed to use the kilns from the Blue Label side of the kitchen. The tangerine chefs crossed over to that side of the kitchen and started cooking alongside their "sworn fiends". Actually in class today, the word fiends is spelt as F-R-I-E-N-D-S. 

Meanwhile, the audience still remained in their seats. No one wanted to cross over and above make friends. But now, the omelette morsels were thrown occasionally into both crowds and the scrambling continued. They even went ahead to make idols of their chefs. They worshipped and adored them.

Up until they got bored.

We fix broken eggs and repair rotten tomatoes 2

The blue label fans now went wild. The crowd was ecstatic. Their team,  their chefs were now the heroes. They threw in another piece and like starving dogs from the heartland of kambaland, they once again scrambled for the piece. They were wild. Hungry and wild. Curious to satisfy the insatiable need to know how men with public opinions felt when they ate the omelet. As fate would have it, it was the best thing they had tasted in their lives upto this point. They wanted more and they were willing to fight for it.

A third piece was thrown into the crowd and the scrambling started again. There wasn't enough and I had to get a taste. Then scramble turned into shoving and into vicious fighting. But I didn't care. I would rather hurt my neighbour. My needs came first anyway. Teamwork ends here.

Meanwhile, tangerines were having a problem. They hadn't made enough to distribute in the manner blue label were doing. And their oven was slower than that of their competition. So they now had to find a new strategy. They now turned the heat on blue label. Blue label had been stealing their eggs anyway. So the focus now turned to Blue label. The fans and the chefs all of them accusing blue label of unfair practice. The fans started shouting and wailing. I started shouting too along with my fellow tangerine fans. Then I threw a sponge into blue label's fans.

The sponge hit me. I got a mustard seed and threw it into the tangerine crowd in retaliation.

So began the acrimony.
So began the hate.
So began the war

We fix broken eggs and repair rotten tomatoes 1

"We fix broken eggs and repair rotten tomatoes."
I didn't believe it till I saw it.
They actually do fix them and repair them. I saw it with my own eyes, my own two eyes.

The process was an intriguing one. A short one too as a matter of fact.
They broke eggs and harvested rotten tomatoes. Five day old eggs and fifty day old tomatoes.
The chefs were in a race to make omelets. Hell's kitchen was the factory. Public opinions were the destination. And not the public opinion that the poor hold, no, not that. The kind I am speaking about is the kind located around the central province. The bigger it is, the less the visibility a man has of his feet, and probably the ground too upon which his footsteps rest upon. The kind only a well fed man can relate to.

There were two sets of competing chefs: blue label and tangerines. Blue label being the current title holders of the competition, we're obsessed with retaining the title. Tangerines on the other hand, had seen the opportunity to capture the flag. And so the fight began. And the spectators watched on, cheered on.

As the competition went on, a strange thing began to happen. The spectators were no longer cheering. They always cheered the team with the bigger omelets but now,  their cheers had receeded into resentment. Maybe so because they did not get a chance to taste the omelets. Then they started pointing fingers at the teams and the teams could no longer make more. The omelets were enough, but it was just not in their character to share it with the audience.

They knew their game was up. They needed a new strategy.

Blue label by this time had made more omelets than tangerines and decided to throw a piece to their disgruntled fans. The fans immediately scrambled for the small piece of omelette.

Treasure

If a man knew what it would take,
The cost of his heart's desire,
Then he would pursue it with all his might.
He would scale the highest heights and swim the deepest depths.
For his ultimate happiness depends on it,
The joy of his soul.

He would devote all his energy,
All his wealth in the blink of an eye,
For nothing materialistic can buy the treasure he holds so dearly.
And when he has spent all he has to acquire that which he seeks,
He would yet be richer ten times over than a king whose throne is built with sapphire and gold,
Whose palace is built upon onyx and silver,
Laced in splendour and grandeur.
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Her smile

Courtship

A heartbeat so loud I cannot hear my thoughts.
Hot blood gushing through my veins driven by the incredible pace my heart is working at.
I am tense.

When she opens the door,
What will it be this time?
Lazy eyes, excitement, fatigue or energy that will open the door?
Calmness or secrecy, secrets the heart cannot tell.
Either way, my heart cannot settle.

Will it be a hug? A long one, a short one. A tight one, or a tight one.
Will it be a kiss, a peck? A short one or a long one.
Either way, I want to see her.

We had an argument two hours before.
We laughed two hours before.
We were excited two hours before.
We were mad at each other two hours before.

But that doesn't matter now. Of course it still may, but it doesn't.
For when our eyes meet, when I behold her beautiful face,
In that moment of madness and admiration, all else is forgotten.
Eternity stands still in that moment.
All emotions cease.

And nothing but love and worship for her majesty fill the moment.

And so, I knock the door

Avion

An imagination, a dream.
An absurdity, a wish.
Madness and hope,
Fallacy and prophecy.

What joy would it be if we could move without our feet touching the ground.
What awe would strike man when he could finally touch the stars.
The freedom that birds feel when they travel unrestrained.
The power to drive chariots of fire drawn by wind.
An imagination, a dream.

An absurdity, a wish.
Madness and hope,
Fallacy and prophecy.

The word avion apparently came about when man was imagining of flying way back in the 17th century when even cars hadn't been invented yet.

Poem for a friend