not yet punditik

I never knew my parents.   I hear their death was tragic, I know no details.   Anyone I have ever asked about their demise, grows graven and tells me that we should let go off the past, and look toward the future.   Any insistence on my part, returns either a blank retreat into self or undisguised emotive pain.   I know I may never find out what happened.   I grew up living with various relatives, rotated and shuffled like a retread tyre.   At the end of my puberty, I was living with my aunty and her husband.   Between them, they had five children.   What was intriguing is that none of the children shared a similar mother and father, except the last one Kababy, whom they jointly had.   They were privileged children.   Especially Kababy.   They welcomed me into their home.   Told me I was their sixth child.   They never said that I was the house help too.   I did all the house chores as well as my accounting course at a college in the city. I met Maria when she moved in wit

She knows her life is crap.   Worse than crap actually.   There is no future where she is at right now. Her job is killing her.   Call by call.   Meeting by meeting.   Form after form.   Useless task after another.   Death by work.   She cries every day at work.   Because what she does is neither right nor enough.   Ever.   That is what the big boss man tells her.   He says she is an incompetent bumbling idiot and if she ever thinks she is going to get anywhere on this earth working like this, she must be a fool.   She believes she must be more than an imbecile.   He must be right.   Look at him.   He is filthy rich.   The write-about-him-in-the-dailies type.   Business-mogul label.   Give-him-awards kind of man.   Billionaire-under fifty or something like that.   He sits at the right hand of the business god.   Maybe she should go back to school, get her degree, another job. Her mother is dying.   She has been dying for the last 10 years.   She wonders why her dad died qu

When I grow up, I am going to be like my neighbour. Every day, early in the morning, Bonnie pads slowly and sluggishly down the stairs.   Blue pinstripe shirt, top buttons undone, tie hanging across the open neck, sleeves folded twice back.   Always clean shaven, rimless glasses, jacket slung over his shoulder. He rounds the block of flats, goes down the steps, to the parking where he gives Mutua the night watchman final instructions on the car wash job.   Bonnie is always in a hurry.   And Mutua is always slow.   Bonnie circles his car.   Panguza haraka Mutua.   Kwani usiku mzima hungeosha hii ngari. Lakini boss si umeingia asubuhi. Wachaa?   Ilikuwa saa ngapi. Hii dent imetoka wapi?   Ilikuwa hapa jana? They squat.   Squint.   Rub it.   Sidhani.   Hi ni rangi ya blue sivyo.   Kulikuwa tu na hiyo dent iko na rangi ya yellow.   Ya yellow ulirudi nayo Saturday asubuhi, na yule mama yellow yellow.   Ilikuwa siku ya yellow.   They laugh. Hala.