I write sentences for a living. My writing used to be an entertaining enterprise until the day a woman confronted me in town with a folded umbrella (on a hot sunny day), for portraying her in negative light. In the spirit of throwing objects, I knew I would be ’umbrella-ed’ proper. True, the umbrella made me a target, but it missed. I took to my heels with the woman promising to teach me a lesson.

Speaking, oops, writing about lessons – I am coming to realize that a lesson will catch up with you at it’s own will, discretion and pace. I am very wary of people who boldly proclaim, ‘I will teach you a lesson!’ My mother, for instance, was good at offering lessons. “Respect your elders”, she would say, “and if you must belch or fart, find solace and a private moment to engage your winds”. Some of her lessons were extraordinary though. “Never give alms to hand/legless beggars”. That makes sense today. Unlike the present, when robbers escaped with serious gunshot wounds, back then they would get away with serious machete/jembe wounds, and since it was not unusual for body parts to be picked up in the villages, when it comes to where these beggars came from, your guess is as good as mine.

Mother insisted that I should make an effort to learn all that I could as it would prove beneficial at the right time in posterity…so I’ve been learning all along…

It took the untimely death of my beloved cat ‘Pakapower’ to realize that something was terribly amiss at the home-front. Much as I dislike cats, our relationship was a mutual agreement that was neither written nor spoken. I was to provide her accommodation without paying rent, and as a responsible ‘cat-izen’ she would take care of the rat menace in my house. She was charged with the responsibility of policing, tracking, ambushing and subjecting any rat that trespassed into my house to ruthless extra-judicial execution.

I walked into the house one day only to find the darn cat dead! And as much as I had anticipated an explosion of vermin, with the now uncontained rats finding it easier to breath, the exact opposite happened - rats were literally ‘dropping dead’ left right and centre in my house. I was in horror when the same started happening to cockroaches. It was only then that I thought it wise to plead for divine interference (not intervention), in order to establish what was transpiring in my house. I engaged in a brief mental commission of enquiry…and then Bingo! I had my Eureka moment!

It was simple; these creatures were dying of a condition known as GER - Global Economic Recession. The condition had entered my house through the back door and was exterminating life. GER emerged because my purchasing power had been severely dented, and my financial freedom vandalized to the point that I was unable to afford any left-over scraps of food to sustain these animals, all of whom heavily depended on those. I literally starved rats and roaches to death (what an embarrassment!) It was then that I saw ‘Pakapower’s ‘death in a different light, kumbe the cat used to thrive on my meat and had established a diet that meant instant death when the meat supply diminished.

These events called for emergency adjustments; I knew that if GER had murdered these animals, she was on a purge. I didn’t want to guess who would be next to go! She would teach me a lesson I wasn’t willing to learn. After a quick mental review, I discovered that GER has some clear cut symptoms. You simply can’t afford to buy what you were able to previously, your bills would pile up and quarrel with you, and sooner rather than later, money would leave your pocket in such a hurry that it would make having a wallet redundant. Advanced GER would lead to unwillingness to pay your bills.

I was at this advanced stage, and the idea of paying my bills had lost any form of attraction – my landlord also had to get a feel of GER. Rent would not be paid, because God owns creation and the created, and nobody would subject me to the slavery of forking out my little cash for land and space they didn’t create. In advanced GER you hallucinate and entertain yourself with the prospect of a spending-free world. I started leaving the house AT DUSK - after the first cockcrow, only to return past midnight. I’m told my landlord did indeed search for me, in fact he launched a manhunt.

I was determined to dodge. And dodge I did, for three months without paying rent until I persuaded myself that I had outsmarted Kamau the landlord. I remember this particularly cold and dreary night when I walked into the house way past midnight and proceeded to spread myself on my bed. It was bizarre. When I looked up, I could actually see the stars!! That cunning Kamau had outsmarted me and my rent-dodging ways and removed the roof from the house. Before I could say roof, it started to rain buckets!

Email (will not be published)

Name

Title

Comment
 remaining characters

Post