If all goes well, a smart scientist will one day come up with a device that can be implanted in my mind to record all of my fantasies and feed them into a computer in form of writing. I know that it's such a lame excuse but, it consoles me for I no longer have to feel guilty about being lazy and not doing what I have always loved to do. If the writer in me never gets to be born, then it won't entirely be my fault. The blame will be on that smart scientist who failed to make this great discovery.
Today's fantasy is a continuation of the one I was building on last night, and the past couple of weeks. I see myself in a highly cosmopolitan city, living on the 7th floor of an overly expensive apartment, driving a Porsche Cayman, attending a book signing and then signing a contract to have one of my novels reproduced into motion picture.
A few minutes later, as my fantasies start paving way for the real dream, I feel a tap on my shoulder. Is someone messing up with my sleep? Now I’ll have to spend another 30 minutes building on my fantasies, again, before I get that highly anticipated nap.
“Hey, do you have your bag within the library.” Whispers a girl I have never spoken to or seen before.
Startled, I respond confusingly. “Yes…no…what?”
I hate it when someone expects to start a normal conversation with you when you are still half asleep. I tend to blab a lot, but I’m thankful that I never blab about things that could land me in jail, or could be used to blackmail me.
Waving her hand in front of me, “What, are you sleeping in the library? Wow, this is interesting.”
“Shouldn’t I? I don’t see any posters warning us against taking a nap in here.”
“I'm sorry. See, I am in some awkward situation right now…mind lending me a tampon, or a pad? I totally had no idea that I was going to get my period today and…I'm still new here and yet to make friends so I thought you could help. Can you believe that I am 20 already and haven't mastered my cycle yet? Crazy right? Oh, sorry, I must be talking a lot, I tend to do that a lot. So, do you have your bag in the library?”
‘She seems nervous around me. God No, not another lesbian trying to hit on me. I seriously need to stop wearing baggy jeans and t-shirts.’
I hand her a tampon from my wallet. I had stolen/taken it from Caro's room a while back. She gives me a somewhat queer smile before starting to blab even more about how I have saved her day. I don't entertain her and she takes it really well. She leaves for the rest rooms.
It’s at this moment that it hits me, and I am scared! I too have never mastered my cycle…but, I sure can remember that it's been quite a while since I last had my period. I try my best to remember the date but, nothing. I am so poor at remembering things that have contributed towards making my life more miserable.
Tracing back on how everything had happened between Dru and I, I can’t clearly recall whether he had a condom on. But still, I should have taken measures to ensure that he hadn’t gotten me pregnant, or infected me. Could I be pregnant? Could he have infected me with something I would have to be embarrassed about for the rest of my life? It must have been as a result of the many things on my head at that time that had led me to forget; or maybe not.
After he had drained the best out of me, and burned over 100 calories while in the act, he had the audacity to tell me that I was not a virgin. Was this yet another line that men use after they have dishonoured the temple of the Holy Spirit?
He had later dropped me off at a far end corner near town before making his way into the city centre. Was I really that bad looking to be seen together with him in the big city? Or was he planning to pick up another girl after he had fumigated the seat I had been sitting on? Having not been born within the city or its suburbs, I had no idea where I was. I didn't want to ask for directions out of fear that someone would once more take advantage of me. Luckily, I didn't have any classes that day hence had more than enough hours to loiter, get lost, make new discoveries, and learn.
Right there in the middle of a big city stood a young girl abandoned by a man who had defiled her a few minutes back. I started questioning why I was different. Was it a must for every girl to bleed after she had sex for the first time? Or was it because of the active life I had while young; climbing trees and riding father's bicycle when he was away? Or maybe, just maybe, another man had hypnotised me before sleeping with me, and that's why I didn’t remember. So many questions raced through my defiled mind as I tried to locate any landmark I knew of, and try to cross the many roads and streets before getting near it. Yet, a part of me was thankful; thankful that he had taken me for a liar. It would have been worse had he found out that I was still a virgin, yet slept and dumped me on the streets like that. His nascent chauvinistic ego could have been over the top. It was better that way. It did hurt, quite intensely, but not as much.
On the brighter side, he had given me KSh. 3,000. The money could have been a way of saying sorry for the ugly treatment, or a way of compensating for my inexperienced services. It wasn't bad money, but it did make me feel more like a whore. Or was this one of those unexplainable moments where God answers your prayers? I had been broke for far too long and could no longer stand borrowing my friends’ phones to call my father only for him to use their airtime to insult me and clarify once again that he wasn't the Managing Director of the Central Bank of Kenya.
Reaching back to my one-roomed house, I had found the landlady with a handyman trying to break my padlock. I have been a witness to so many similar cases before but never had I imagined that I would someday suffer the same fate. Loads of people had gathered around waiting to fight each other over the loot. But what exactly was there to loot? I had always slept on the floor, cooked using a paraffin stove and owned a small Chinese imitation of Panasonic radio which is branded Panasoniax. Other than my books and thousands of papers with a million and one ideas, there wasn’t a thing valuable in that house. For the sake of safeguarding my treasure; my half conceptualized ideas and plots, I gave her every last note I had on me and was only left with 37 shillings. With so much going on, I completely lost knowledge of what had just happened to me that very morning.
The only thing that is now running through my head is my cycle, maybe a pregnancy, HIV, public ridicule, life as a single mother. What if I am pregnant? That will kill my mother. She has always had so much faith in me as we both looked forward to the day I would get my first pay cheque and I would rescue her from the many miseries that her husband had forcefully put her through. I have less than a year left to make this happen, but, if I am pregnant, this will be the end of her hope in me, and my dream for us.
With not enough cash on me to buy a pregnancy test kit, I am thinking of going for a free medical check-up at the University Clinic, but then I remember that no one who works there understands the need to adhere to the patient doctor confidentiality code.
I could take a small loan from someone, but why on earth should I get myself into more debts when it is Chrystal clear that I am certainly breeding a new life inside me. The mere thought of it scares me even more. Strange enough, these semi-moments of fear are constantly interrupted by I visualizing a life with the two of us together. It makes me smile.
No more having to stress myself with where to get this or next month's pack of sanitary towels, or having to clog my vagina with old rags to absorb the heavy flow. It really amazes me how despite the harsh treatment I have given my vagina, it has never gotten infected. I know loads of women who have had very scary infections or even died after getting Toxic Shock Syndrome, yet, I have been using old and dirty clothes or pieces of spongy mattresses and nothing has ever happened. I actually had no one to teach me how to use tampons, I even didn’t know of their existence. My kind of queer vaginal experiment must be what led to the discovery of tampons in the first place.
If only my vagina could speak, she could tell stories that have never been told, talked about or discussed in any of the vaginal monologues. One day, she
too will find her voice.
Tokophobia
It's Wednesday morning. I have always loved Wednesdays. Wednesdays are beautiful, peaceful, blissful and wedding like. Before I found out that I was a Monday baby, I used to lie to myself that I was born on a Wednesday, still does. As for today, I have a strong intuition that this Wednesday is going to be a lot different; dramatic and harsh.
I am woken by my neighbours jamming reggae music that he blasts every morning taking advantage of the fact that most of us don’t have access to TVs or good radios. From my room I can hear the sweet sounds of John Holt's 'Sweetie, Come Brush Me'.
Apart from his egocentric character, there isn't much that I hate about him. I have always thought of him as a rather good looking guy who may have a thing for me. He must be thinking that he can use John Holt's songs to lure me. I too used to like him, a lot actually. He is not just the cliché-kind of the perfect tall dark and handsome guy, but he is does have a good height, good body, great skin tone, amazing looks and very long, clean and healthy dreadlocks. I love men with locks!
My feelings for him changed a while back. It all happened after I realised that he does nothing for a living yet is among the very few whom never collide with the landlady. I also overheard two of our neighbours discuss how he used to be, and could still be a member of the Mungiki sect.
Personally, I have never had a problem with the sect. I don’t understand why the Western governments hate on mungiki yet it is the exact of the Italian Mafia, the South American cartel groups and all of the American and European vigilante groups. Mungiki is in-fact the Kenyan definition of a combination of all superheroes, like Superman, Spiderman, Green Arrow and Batman or in other words, the Justice League of Kenya.
Its 10 minutes since I opened my eyes but still can’t get out of bed. I feel weak, sickly, my bones and joints are arching, my head feels very light, and my stomach is killing me. This is the exact way I feel whenever I am about to get my period. Could I have been wrong? Had it been a false alarm?
Maybe I am not pregnant. I have never kept count of my cycle but maybe the reason I missed my period was because I have been so stressed lately. I need to know what's happening to me! I take out the Techno phone Caro gifted me after she bought a new Samsung Galaxy and starts doing Goggle research.
Of course I am right! Missed periods can occur whenever one has a lot of things going on, is highly stressed, or has been starving for a while.
Now I’m certain that I am fine. I am not pregnant! With these early morning signs, I am perfectly sure that my period will start flowing in no time.
Just then, it clicks. Like every other day, I have no sanitary towels.
I start getting ready for class as I keep my fingers crossed that I won’t bleed as much this time round, for old cloths don’t absorb as much flow as an ordinary tampon. Plus, I would have to rush to the rest rooms every now and then to save people from trying to hide that awkward expression on their faces when they see me walking around with red polka dots all around my butt.
One hour later, I am yet to spot a single red stain on my white panties. I opt to wear black jeans trousers and hide bits of thinly cut pieces of clothes inside the pockets, for emergency.
Everytime I am on my period, I make sure that I arrive in class as the first and sit at the back row. I then have to leave after everyone else has left to make sure that I have neither left a mess on my back nor on the chair I was sitted on. I keep praying that no one masters this small secret of mine for many male students think that when girls’ are on their period, their sexual urge is on the rise hence can force them to do things they won't be proud bragging about to their pals. Male lecturers then assume that whenever a girl misses lecturers, it’s because she is on her period. I don't like my sexuality getting in the way of my normal life, and so, I always keep my fertility dates on the low.
At the end of the day, I still have the same cramps, though the pain is much intense. My joints feel as though they are suffering from arthritis, my stomach feeling as though someone is playing cat's cradle with the intestines and with my head feeling so light and dizzy reminding me of the very first time I got drunk. I am now wondering whether this could be a sign of I being pregnant, or I experiencing bloodless periods. Can one really experience bloodless periods?
I need to do more research. The campus cyber café is always full, but being an Internet-addicted fourth year student, I know almost everyone who’s as addicted as I am. It wouldn't take as much time to flirt my way into getting a computer, but I am terrified that someone may peep over my screen and see what is keeping me busy. This would instantly ignite a newer Season premiere of a dirty rumour, about me. I'm not afraid of rumours. What I am actually afraid of is if the rumour turns out to be true.
A few years back while in my first year, I learnt how befriending bitchy girls and being friendly to young boys with raging hormones could act as a free ticket to a life full of miseries. I was still very young, pretty (I believe that my prettiness has long been overtaken by my being beautiful), and innocent. Many people find it hard handling such a package. Due to this, a lot of jealousy, envy and hate speech is born.
One night you go to bed feeling on top of the world only for the next day to see people giving you funny looks, shutting up when you get closer and starts giggling when you pass. I had no idea what was going on until Caro being the paparazzo she is came to personally confirm if the rumours were true or false.
“Please tell me it’s not true.”
“What’s not true?” I had innocently asked, not knowing what she was talking about.
“Don’t act smart with me! Everybody is talking about it.”
“What is everybody talking about?”
After utilising her natural lying detector on me for a few seconds, she was convinced that I was clueless.
“You have no idea do you?”
“I have no idea what you are driving at. What’s up?” I had asked, a little bit agitated.
“Stuff is being said about you. That you were messing up with that bouncer guy…you know, Jack right…and that he got you pregnant…then ditched you…so you tried killing yourself…”
I was in shock. How was it that my name was trending everywhere without my being aware of it?
Every rumour has got a certain percentage of truth in it, but this one, that percentage was far below average.
“That's all? Or there’s more?” I had enquired.
“Kinda…”
“Kinda?”
“Well, I just heard about it this morning, so be prepared to have people keep up with talk for another week or two."
“You said there was more. What are they saying?”
“Oh, yeah! There's more. I shouldn’t be the one telling you this but I will, to save you from being in a dilemma. They've given you a nickname…Miss Suicidal. Others are calling you Neema suicidal.”
It was hurtful, and like many girls who had previously fallen victim of similar rumours, I could tell that many people expected me spend the rest of the semester locked up in isolation, fail my exams and seek a transfer. But I didn’t. I remained strong, let the bouncer guy find satisfaction in being given the privilege of sleeping with me, getting me pregnant, ditching me and watching as I allegedly attempted to take my life because of him. In reality though, I could see how much that the lie was killing him. Everytime we crossed paths, no matter how much he tried, there's no way he could hide his guilty self from me.
I found it interesting, that people could start rumours about me being pregnant and having procured an abortion when I was still as virgin as the Virgin Mary. And trying to kill myself? I can neither confirm nor deny that, for that was nothing but a very normal episode, an episode that almost all of us have faced, fought and overcome, but are ashamed of sharing, so we simply call it a bi-polar episode.
Had I been born in a more privileged country, and among more empathetic people, they could
have put me under counselling and made me take some expensive pills to cure my condition. A condition that kicks in when my two polars collide and my alter ego resurfaces, The Scientific Neema, she who is impulsive and likes experimenting with everything, and anything. God knows that anyone in my shoes could have done the same, only that after my alter ego had driven me into swallowing some pills; she vanished and left the real I wondering what had just taken place.
No one could make sense of what I had just done, so they formulated questions and filled in the gaps with whatever they thought made sense to them; another abortion gone bad.
The stronger and more focussed Neema had resurfaced and taken responsibility, sought immediate treatment and after a few days, was back in school, watching as everyone talked behind her back as though she was clueless on what they were talking about. At times she wanted so badly to join their circles and offer to give them an exclusive one on one interview.
When you do a crazy thing in the life, and are left just there, not knowing whether death will pluck you from life, or if life will fight to take you back, you learn the difference between surviving and living. The very same way a rich person can never appreciate wealth if they have never been poor, or how someone who has never been hungry takes food for granted, is the same way someone who has never attempted to visit the other world can never appreciate the beauty of seeing a brand new day.
After all, there's nothing wrong with attempted suicide, it becomes a problem if you over-do it, and doctors fail to resuscitate you.
A couple of months later, I started thinking of how much money I could have made by suing the institution for speculating and broadcasting my medical condition. That would really have marked the end of my financial problems. That semester though, for the first time ever, I scored a clean 4.0 GPA. That’s just how much not caring about what people say about you behind your back pays.