A day in the life..

A sense of anticipation.

It always begins with a thin film of perspiration on his forehead. It has been there all along, he only notices it's annoying presence when that sense of anticipation hits him. Always the perspiration. Sometimes when it is exceptionally sultry as it can only be in the tropics, a thin trickle of it traces an annoying line from his armpit down to.. Arrested development; the closely woven cotton of his white vest always stops it on it's lethargic journey.

He contemplates taking out the white tissue paper from his left trouser pocket to wipe away the perspiration from his forehead. On most days, he does so. Sometimes he lets the thought linger in his mind and hence his forehead becomes a shining beacon.. a magnet for the ever present swirling dust. 

With practised movement, he pulls out the white tissue paper, unrolls it and proceeds to dab his once acne-riddled forehead. He contemplates the now wet tissue in his hand with disgust but is at the same time filled with a sense of ease; the kind of sense-of-ease that can only be brought about by a dry forehead.

He lays back in his seat as the wheels churn up the traffic and eat up the distance speedily bringing him to his point of disembarkation. It is always at that confluence of two roads, when all the drivers' blood is at their hottest that he wonders about the distinct lack of road markings. Road markings that would definitely serve to bring all that boiling blood to an even simmer and perhaps to a cooling of exemplary humanity. The sight of unhealthy side walks and and an  even unhealthier roundabout bring him to the incongruity of a bridge without hand rails, that constant reminder of the city's hunger for ugali and steel.

That sense of anticipation comes to a head with the flood of humanity that his ingress into the city brings. An annoying press of flesh that is only made tolerable by the occasional if not frequent sighting of a beautiful, roundly shaped, female behind. Yes, booty makes the world go round, in perfect onion shaped circles!

(To be continued...)

Swords of Ice and Fire

Swords forged of Valyrian steel in the days before the Doom:

1. Ice. It belonged to Ned Stark. It was as wide across as a man’s hand, and taller even than Robb. Spell-forged and dark as smoke. A two-handed greatsword.
2. Heartsbane. It belongs to the Tarlys, bannermen to Mace Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden and Warden of the South. It is a storied, two-handed greatsword passed down from father to son near five hundred years. 
3. Longclaw. This sword originally belonged to the Mormonts who carried it for five centuries. It was bequeathed to Jon Snow by the old bear, Lord Commander of the Night's watch. The original pommel was a bear’s head. It was replaced with a pommel made of a hunk of pale stone weighted with lead to balance the long blade, carved into the likeness of a snarling wolf’s head, with chips of garnet set into the eyes. The grip is virgin leather, soft and black. The blade itself is a good half foot longer than those Jon was used to, tapered to thrust as well as slash, with three fullers deeply incised in the metal. Where Ice was a true two-handed greatsword, this is a hand-and-a-halfer, sometimes named a “bastard sword.”
4. Brightroar. A sword that once belonged to the old Kings of the Rock, the predecessors of the Lannisters. It was lost when the second King Tommen carried it back to Valyria.
5. Widow’s Wail. Forged from the greatsword Ice as a wedding present to Joffrey Baratheon from his grandsire, Tywin Lannister.  This sword was infused with crimson during the forging such that blended into the folds was a red as deep as the grey of the original steel. It has two fullers.  The arms of its crossguard are done as lions’ paws with ruby claws unsheathed. It has a grip of finely tooled red leather and a gold lion's heads for a pommel.
6. Oathkeeper. Forged from the greatsword Ice  as a gift from Tywin Lannister to his son Jamie Lannister. It is similar in all respects to Widow's wail only differing in size and and being less ostentatious. It is thicker and heavier, a half-inch wider and three inches longer. Three fullers, deeply incised, run down the blade from hilt to point. Jamie Lannister passed the sword to Brienne, the maid of Tarth, upon setting off on her quest for Sansa Stark.
7. The sword Red Rain. It belongs to The Drumm (Dunstan Drumm) of the Iron Islands
8. The sword Nightfall, adorned with a moonstone pommel. It belongs to Ser Harras Harlaw of the Iron Islands 

Nothing holds an edge like Valyrian steel. It is known.

To All Our Loved Ones Wherever They May Be...

To all those whom we have loved, are in love with and to those whom we are yet to love..

Ah, what folly this thing called love, to tug at our heartstrings, to tear away at the very rubric of our sanity.

To turn a grown man into a little boy, with pinpricks of hot tears threatening to gash out in a flood of emotion.

If love be a god, we hold her in the highest esteem. If love be a thing, then it be the most precious thing. But love is not just one thing, it is many things. Love is all around us. The scent from her comely form, the conversation that we delight in followed by the silence that is the sum of our joint existence.

If ever there was an elixir for life. To pour back the fluid of youth into our dry bones. To bring the memories back to vivid life and to take the sting away from the tears. To wash away the dredgery of regret and make hope what it is,..that eternal spring.

Yes indeed, love does conquer all.

LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING?

"Anyway, I am not as other private detectives. My methods are holistic and, in a proper sense of the word, chaotic. I operate by investigating the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.

Every particle in the universe affects every other particle, however faintly or obliquely. Everything interconnects with everything. If I could interrogate this table leg in a way that made sense to me, or to the table leg, then it could provide me with the answer to any question about the universe. I could ask anybody I like, chosen entirely by chance, any random question i cared to think of, and their answer, or lack of it, would in some way bear upon the problem to which i am seeking a solution. It is only a question of knowing how to interpret it. Even you, whom I have met entirely by chance probably know things that are vital to my investigation, if only I knew what to ask you, which I don't, and if only I could be bothered to, which I can't."

A whale of a time indeed!...& I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Douglas Adams puts the capital H in humour. Of course, his brand of the funnies is not for everyone. If you can't stand Silly, I-will-bash-my-head-in-if-I-keep-reading-this kind of slapstick humour, then I suggest you keep your feet planted firmly on terror firma and leave the musings of Life, the Universe and Everything to all those crazies that Nancy Njuguna cares for in Gotham's Asylum or was it Nairobi's Mathare¿? I forget.

Well if you are so inclined to take a keen interest in the mechanics (quantum or otherwise) of the co-relation between the wiley coyote, Mzee Kobe and Tom (of the Tom and Jerry fame)in their endless almost futile pursuits, then I suggest you get hold of a Douglas Adams. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy would be a good place to start.

Nancy, remember, DON'T PANIC!

A ride unto Death...

We have demonised the Kalashnikov. We have loved the Kalashnikov. We have waxed romantic about the Kalashnikov.

We have demonised the land mine.

We have demonised the cluster bomb.

We have demonised the machete in the hands of drug crazed rebel militia.

I dare say not all is fair in love and war.

It is not just in war that we castigate, blame and demonise. In our everyday lives, the beast lurks ever beneath the surface. But we romanticise the Hecklers and Kochs of this world, the Smiths and Wessons that we brandish in full flourish, the Bensons and Hedges’ whose toxin imbued smoke we inhale with so much relish. We love them yet hate them. We Kenyans unlike the very litigious Americans have not embraced the power of the class action suit. This remains one for the dusty tomes, a preserve for barristers in training.

Perhaps when we do turn our collective attention to these instruments of law, we shall exercise them against a very unlikely target. Akio Toyoda’s Toyota. That most giant of corporations, the very epitome of mass production. As ubiquitous in Africa’s dirty wars as the Kalashnikov and machete. Only, not as famous.

This luck of fame or infamy has always surprised me, considering that these improbable instruments of war (from a country with a pacifist constitution no less) come emblazoned with their maker’s moniker for all to see.

Like the proverbial chariot of fire, they ferry their human cargo hither and thither, bringing death and misery wherever they tread.

The Toyota Land Cruiser 70.

The technical.

Sown in half, stripped to its bare essentials and like the black horse of the apocalypse, bringer of death, mounted with a .50 calibre gun usually of the soviet variety, a 4.5 litre V8 diesel and a mass of Kalashnikov totting rebels.

The “TOYOTA” still in its original factory red is clearly visible across the tail gate.

Somalia. Chad. Niger. Mali. Darfur.

Why is it that we have failed to recognise Toyota’s contribution to the sum of Africa’s armed conflict? The evidence, anecdotal and factual is right before our eyes. It is quite possible to find a direct correlationbetween the intensity and spread of an armed conflict and the availability of these technicals.

So, as we go after the Trafiguras of these world, the money launderers who help squirrel away Africa’s fortunes and all other demons of our past, present and future, spare a thought for Toyota, the not so humble Landcruiser and all the spilt blood it has left in its wake.

LIVE AND LET LIVE..

They say that youth is wasted on the young.

I have finally shed that clock of invincibility, where death is a distant notion and the body can handle all that can be thrown at it.

The shedding of that clock is the unintended consequence of my mellowing. Every so often and more so now than ever, the thought of death comes knocking at my mind’s door. Oddly enough, what worries me most is not what I am yet to accomplish (and great things I do have in store for myself) but the number of books I haven’t read.

There I am, lying on my death bed and my biggest regret is that of all those tomes in my library lying unread. Ah, what sorrow! To lie at the fountain of knowledge and watch the waters recede. Poseidon vanquished!

Time, time, time.. To slow it, to reverse it, to hold it still and savour all those moments that I consider memorable; to hold that tome and let the very words leap from the pages in the creation of life as yet unimagined. My refuge, my solace, my escape; the written word.

When it comes to books, I have the mentality of a ten year old. That unbridled excitement to try something new, to unwrap that shiny present, that timid first kiss. Oh yes, I do remember my first kiss, Khadija, just as I do remember my first serious author, Kenyan no less, Meja Mwangi and I’ve never looked back ever since. There have been a few disappointments, women as bad as a story with an unwieldy plot and books as bad as a shallow, self involved damsel. The worst is the kind that after a few pages leaves you as thoroughly disappointed as a bad roll in the hay.

So until that day that death finally has its victory, it shall be wine, food and a good read! No,  I did not forget. Aside from the aforementioned three delights, I shall afford myself the delights of those that are deemed fairer than I.

Pages will turn.

DREAMS

That will o' wisp, that wraith that slips through your fingers but for the briefest moment takes you to Nirvana.

It is an idea, anything more than a whisper and it would vanish.

The ideal we aspire to. Perfection.

It is our Galatea. Stay Aphrodite! Do not breathe life into her just yet. Let me revel in her perfect ivory form.

She is the dream. He is the dream. The dream made manifest. Hand in hand you walk towards that Utopian sunset.

But do not confuse dreams with diabolical desire nor with lust.

Put her atop that pedestal that you may spend eternity in pursuit of Nirvana, that ideal. Perfection.

Now go ahead and close your eyes.

I dare you to dream..