EA Friday Feature Anthology - September 2015

  When I commanded my limbs to move they disobeyed my orders. I felt like a commander in the battlefield whose soldiers had refused to take his orders. I then decided to do whatever I wanted my limbs to do myself. I couldn’t. I was bound, hands and legs. Plan A failed. Plan B was to scream my lungs off but when I opened my mouth I felt as though I had swallowed coir. What came out was a wheezing sound of my lungs expanding and contrasting.

  I tried to lift my head. I had forgotten how to do such basic human body things. I was in the Seventh Circle of hell. Or what else could explain the violence. The stench was overpowering. I finished taking stock and I lay back down, limp, lost in shock, horror, and fear.

  Was this someone’s idea of an April fool’s day prank?

  My friends trying to spook me on my birthday?

  Halloween night?

  But there was no answers to my questions. How could there be if those who were supposed to answer them were pitifully dead and roasting in the hell of the assassins, the tyrants, and the warmongers? I could as well see foul birdlike creatures with human faces making their nests.

  Perhaps I entered into a catatonic state or I died before the cool night breeze resuscitated me. When I came to, I could hear whispers of people around me, imaginary footsteps in the eerie darkness. Perhaps I was in a tomb and fellow ghosts were trying to have a conversation with me to kill time but I was not understanding their ghost-speak.

  However, my eyes managed to slide open, taking in a wide panoply of stars and luminous darkness and a familiar stench. The eyes wandered in the darkness and explored the night sky. I prayed to the stars to illuminate the way for somebody to find me just in case they were searching for me and were stuck somewhere in the night and wanted to give up. I felt lost and small, my mind and body shrinking and alone on a globe forever spinning like there was nothing going on. The stars moved according to the physical laws of nature, their dim brilliance only in my mind, a mind that was a concoction of fear, horror, and confusion.

  The wind began to blow. Clouds were on the move. Some were dark, blowing themselves up like froth. They intermingled with greyish ominous whirlwinds of heavy clouds not enough to make rain. It seemed as though it was going to rain. It got darker and darker. Then, the clouds formed a larger monster cloud that went across the night sky swallowing other clouds up.

  It looked like a dragon. I watched the dragon in the sky eat up everything on its way. There seemed to be no answer for my prayers anywhere: no one was looking for me. Maybe they had given up on the search and decided I was a statistic of those who went missing every other day, or I had eloped with a lover. Was I in a ‘Missing Persons’ report at Muthaiga police station?

  I heard a twig break, and the imaginary footsteps materialize taking the form of light ghosts. I knew then that I was going to be thrown into the furnace of hot brimstone and prepared to gnash my teeth for eternity, but I felt hands on my shoulder, and my heart exploded.

  ***

  “I don’t even know why I give these stupid interviews as though repeating what I always tell you will undo what happened to me…”

  “Jenny, it’s therapeutic. It helps in healing.” Doctor Oloo coughs and swallows the phlegm. “You are the only survivor of the ritual killings that have been going on in Nairobi. You have no one else to talk to, that’s why I’m here.”

  I swallow hard. I don’t need to be told how to deal with the trauma. If anything reliving it makes it worse. Why can’t they let me be? Fighting my own ghosts is what I should do. What commander goes to war and lets his soldiers fight alone?

  I’m alive, that’s what matters.

  “Jeez, you people suck,” I snort before getting up to go.

  ***

  Visitors of Warmth

  When I least expected, the Pope called me. It was a call a little too late, and the conversation was clipped partly because we the Poor Clares are not supposed to have cell phones and partly because the wing where my dingy cell is cell phone network is weak. All other Clares had been asked out either by Cardinals or high-ranking priests. The previous night I realized that I was the Cinderella of Santa Chiara nunnery of San Severino and that I wasn’t going to get my joints oiled by one of the rich and famous priests we always gossiped about in hushed tones when Mother Superior was praying her incessant rosaries in her refurbished cell. So, when I heard the Pope’s Chamberlain’s distorted voice telling me that I was wanted at the Vatican my heart somersaulted and landed in the pit of my stomach in anticipation.

  After the three-hour ride, the chauffeured limo bearing Vatican diplomatic plates glided down Via di Porta Angelica and connected into Largo del Colonnato but veered to the right to a network of streets and lanes that led to the Passetto, the secret passage between Vatican City and Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, Italy. The limo parked outside the church and an aide guided me through the secret tunnel from the tomb of the Roman Emperor Hadrian to the papal apartments where there was a party going on.

  It was a day of ‘consistory’ when the pope promotes cardinals. After the formal celebrations at St. Peter’s Square, the newly elevated cardinals hold a private party. Selected nuns, commonly known as visitator di calore (visitors of warmth), are invited to warm the church elders’ beds through the night. Anything goes this night, from binge drinking and strip dancing to unprotected sex. Now you know why that nun gave birth and didn’t know she was pregnant until she was taken to hospital after a stomach cramps attack.

  I did not know I was the one to warm Pope John XII the Young’s bed. After the meals, which were served on a naked nun lying in front of each crème de la crème of the Roman Curia officials like an offering, the Pope gave an awkward short speech with his hand around my waist. When he was done, he pulled me to follow him through the adjoining doors after telling the guests that they could leave at their own pleasure. For the rest of the night I was the high-class call girl nun I was supposed to be, the warmth of the Holy Father’s bed.

  Growing up in the capital of Kenya my parents tried to raise us in the best way they knew: baptism immediately the umbilical cord was cut, Sunday school, catechism and first Holy Communion at the age of eight, Church schools, confession every Sunday, the rosary, and the Crucifix which hung over our beds like a talisman. They did not see the contradictions in Catholicism. The priests were celibate but were caught in bed with married women, impregnated schoolgirls, sodomized altar boys, or they had secret families. The nuns dressed like the Virgin Mary yet they ran bordellos in the name of convents. Adultery was a crime punishable by stoning to death but my mother visited her toy boy every Wednesday afternoon. And then there was the confession; you hadn’t sinned unless you had committed a mortal sin of which many a time I had to fabricate sins when I went for confession so that when I recited the Hail Marys and Our Fathers I was told to for my absolution I really felt God had forgiven me.

  I whom was touted to be the Great Prostitute of Babylon right from Sunday school became a nun, while my sister whom everyone knew was to bring salvation to our family when she became a nun surprised everyone when her butt naked photos surfaced on the internet. Within no time she pumped her boobs and ass with silicon and with all her LL.Ms she became the perfect definition of a socialite according to the Nairobi urban dictionary – a young beautiful woman with tantalizing titties (anterior), big ass (posterior) and no brains.

  During my candidacy and novitiate I was counselled out of it because there was still time not to take the bold step, but when I took my temporary vows against my confessor’s advice, whom I was screwing, even the Mother Superior was convinced that I was truly called and chosen to be a nun. Then I took perpetual vows and instead of giving myself to God, I offered myself like burnt offering to the lusty ordained men of the Roman Catholic Church.

  I did not know what the Church in Kenya saw in me that I was chosen to join Santa Chiara nunnery in San Severino, Italy. I knew I was going to serve the church in the Order of the
Poor Clares, like Saint Clare of Assisi, the founder, only to be initiated into closely guarded secret church escort service.

  This night, Pope John XII the Young shagged me rhythmically, as if having sex with an African was a mystical ecstasy. When he looked into my eyes, I wondered what it really felt to listen to people’s sins and no one listened to yours. When he emptied his holy seed in me, he rolled onto his side panting. I almost called his personal doctor afraid his heart was attacking him.

  In the silence that followed, when he was beginning to breathe heavily, I asked him, “Why John XII the Young?”

  After a long silence, he spoke.

  “Story goes that Pope John XII, who ruled from 937–964 AD, gave church land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife,” the Holy Father said. “He was not pretentious, hypocritical. He was just human. There is no one in the world that lives without sin.”

  ***

  Mira’s Love Affair

  Ever since I was branded the newest kid on the block of Kenyan music, I have been making headlines. The fame is like canonization. I am a saint of sorts. The popes of hip-pop(e) beatified me in front of the crowds of boys who tore their shirts off for me to expose their dad bods and loyal overly hormonal women who threw their thongs at me on the stage. But before then there are ups and downs, untold unsuccessful attempts at this noble profession of gangster-wannabes.

  Being a hip-hop musician is romantic, brassy, healing and rejuvenating. The rapping, the rhythmic and rhyming lyrics endears you to women both young and old. You are their fantasies come true, a god they can worship and sacrilege with.

  Mira was the best of them all. When she bared her boobs during one of my performances at Carnivore, my mouth went like ‘Whack!’ stopping me mid-lyrics. Her perky breasts pointed to heavens as though her bust was thanking the gods of beauty for such a blessing. After the show, we went to my crib where we stood the whole night and the morning after I told her I wanted her to be mine for keeps. She knew the myriad ways of lovemaking, a woman so true to herself that I was a liar before her eyes. Her beauty was beyond convention, defied description.

  However, Mira, the truest free-spirited woman I had ever met, told me in words so plain that we couldn’t be on our fifth date.

  “I was hungry for you, but now I think I don’t need you anymore.”

  “Why do you say that, Mira?” I asked.

  “Because we both have had what we wanted, there’s nothing more left to want.”

  “Mira, I am sorry about my impulsiveness and haste. You can forgive that, can’t you?”

  “Yes, I can, but what I can’t do is have a boy with me.”

  That stung, and I gave an exasperated sigh, wiped a thin film of sweat on my upper lip and continued.

  “I’m afraid I love you. Hell, I love you, Mira.”

  Mira’s mirth defied decorum. It was mockery.

  “Come on, Dill, or whatever you call yourself. You are too naïve. That’s why I said I can’t be with a boy.”

  “I said I’m sorry for what I did.”

  “You are such a drool. I have a family, for fuck’s sake.”

  “You’re a big girl, Mira; smart and intelligent. I am sure you know what to do.”

  “And then what? Will you marry me?”

  I didn’t reply for a while, then I said, “Look, I…”

  Mira stopped me with the wave of her hand like a traffic cop.

  “I have a family, Dilman. I wanted a nice time. It’s over. Limp on. In my world there’s nothing like love.”

  “I can’t help what I’m feeling for you. I want more…”

  “Listen, my marriage may be on the verge of incinerating itself, I may not get what I want from my husband, but he is still my husband. I’m still married. I love him in my own way, and he does love me. We love each other. I can’t give up all that to be with you. We wanted a good time, we have had it. Now let’s move on.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do, but something always comes out of the blue and gets to me.”

  “Don’t be stupid, hip-hop boy. I’m not one of your female fans who throw their pants at you on stage…”

  “That’s why I’m saying I feel something more for you.”

  “I may have cheated on my husband, I may be the cougar all the lot of you are chasing after to further your music career, but I am not that vile. Precisely said, I am not the type of woman you shag for her husband’s hard-earned money, celeb boy, all for carnal pleasure.”

  “What makes you think I am not any better?”

  “You are behaving like a school boy who has just had his first kiss.”

  “So, what was all this about? We are going to be like it never happened?”

  “For jove’s sake, a woman needs to be safe. I am safe where I am. I can’t throw away years of marriage for stolen times…”

  “God, Mira…”

  “I’ve a family, Dilman. A husband and children I love very much.”

  “Look, I love you, and I want to be with you. I give you what your husband doesn’t…”

  “Yeah, drugs,” Mira said, snorting. “You turn me to this fantasy girl I barely know. Truth is, I love this girl. That’s what I want, but it’s not what I need.”

  I touched her and she trembled. I wondered whether it was from the cold blowing from her car’s fan or it was desire.

  “Stop it! STOP! Nothing more happens. This never happened,” Mira screamed.

  “But you just cheated on your husband.”

  I wet my lips when I said this.

  “Don’t you dare blackmail me,” she said, smiling even wider.

  She knew something. She had her secret wild card to play.

  “You, of all people, should not be thinking of playing that game, especially when a career like yours is pegged on business…”

  I squinted at her and then everything tumbled on to me.

  “That’s it, celebrity kid. I appreciate you loving me, but boys love their mothers.”

  That stung like hell, but she wasn’t supposed to know that much. Whether I had let my guard down or she had spied on me did not matter. Dating a cougar who could possibly further my music career was one thing, but that cougar knowing I was not just a user of the drugs I used to give her so as to have multiple orgasms was another thing.

  She could talk. Women gossip every day. Who knew whom she could loosely talk to? Someone stumbling on such classified info could ruin political careers. Heck, the government could tumble if it was revealed that it was being run by a drug baron.

  In my bag was a dirty bomb which was meant for one of my boss’s rivals. It was too bad Mira had to die, but in war, there is collateral damage.

  “OK, fine,” I told Mira. “If you want it that way, OK. I will go.”

  But I knew I was not going anywhere, she was.

  I got out of the car and headed to my house. As the gates closed electronically and her car’s taillights disappeared round the corner, I dialed the number that was to detonate the bomb. Mira’s car exploded. A fireball went airborne. It then plummeted down. I heard a deafening crunch, metal against asphalt.

  ****

  Stories

  By

  Dora Okeyo

  ****

  Rosemary

  The house was along that street.

  The address she stole from his computer had to be right. She held onto her bag and headed towards the first gate. She knocked and a face appeared right above her through a blank space.

  “Hi, I am looking for a house and I think I am lost.”

  The face and the blank space disappeared then she had a clicking of metals before seeing a whole body. His eyes traveled the length of her body and settled on her behind taking in the diversion until they finally found their way to her eyes.

  “Yes Madam.”

  She looked through her purse and then gave him th
e address.

  “What do you want from the people in that house?”

  “My boss sent me to deliver these flowers and chocolates for his wife and it is my first job. He said they should get to her by eleven o’clock before she leaves for work and I am lost.”

  The man looked at her again and then adjusted his belt. He pointed at last house in the lane on her left.

  “Asante.”

  “Karibu.”

  She looked at the flowers and smiled. She hated red roses. Whoever said that red roses were the perfect declaration of love had clearly not seen white roses! Maybe he had but he was too attracted to the red to think clearly. She looked back and smiled again. No one ever questioned the delivery personnel. The security guard had been taken by her butt that he forgot to ask about the chocolates.

  She walked on until she came to the gate and this time she could see through it. She saw an old brick house with a wooden door and a black metallic post box right beside it. There were flowers and a garden but her eyes could not see that far. She waited.

  No one attended to her and so she reached for the button and pressed it. She did not know what to expect or how the lady would treat her, but she needed to do this. Her friends had told her it was stupid but she knew it was right. No one ever said that the truth was easy.

  She adjusted the strap of her bag as the woman approached her.

  The woman had a petite profile, short hair and was clearly beginning to show.

  “Yes, how may I help you?”

  “Hi.”

  “Yes…”

  “Um, listen…okay, I am sorry to disturb you. I think I got the wrong house. Thank you.”

  She took a step back and was ready to turn and run but she heard the lady’s voice pick up.

  “Okay, it happens. Bye.”

  She stopped and turned back to her again.

  “Do you need my help?” the woman asked.

  “Hi, my name is Rosemary. I work, better yet, I worked at Imaging Consultants Limited.”

  “Yes, my husband owns that company.”

  “I know you do not know me, but I had to come here and face you because I know that it is wrong to simply think or live as though no one else exists and…”