The back story

According to y'all, these are the posts you loved the most. Being the nice guy I like to believe I am, I will take the liberty of explaining to you the genesis of the genius and idiocy in these posts, from the most loved, and through the top five of your all-time favorite posts. To be honest, there is a couple of posts I believed y'all would have loved a tad bit more, but I don't know you as well as I thought I did. Anyway, here goes.....

When I wrote In Arsene we trust, I was going through the emotions of love and lies, the trust in a great team that makes me weak on my knees, the hope of re-living through the era of the invincibles, and fighting the knowledge that our past is just that, our past. I talk of how beautiful our football is, I protect the nakedness of my favorite team with it's glory days with tales of grandiosity of it's past but my excuses for them were sounding more and more like broken records. I guess I needed to convince myself that we can go back to the days when Arsenal used to give me that fuzzy warm feeling more than I needed to convince y'all. By the number of hits it's got, I can confidently say, am not the only one who needs reassurance.

Good girls magnet.........so I've heard,  wasn't me thinking out loud. It was the thinking of this cool dude I met when I moved to Molo,  who used to roll with my cousin. After he moved into my neighborhood, every once in a while, we'd hang out, light a joint and bounce ideas of each other or just try to figure out women, love, and life in general. One evening, in between sessions, he told me he had finally figured the whole "girls and bad boys" mystery.  According to him, every time he had tried to play nice, he always ended up single with dry spells running into months but as soon as he unleashed the dogs, women flocked. I know the post sounds kinda feminist, but he swore on personal experiences, those of friends and relatives, and to be honest, he truly believed women like a man they can take care off. I think their (the girls) logic is if they can take care of him long enough, he'll become dependent on her and she'll be in full control, but that's just one of my flawed logic....

Moving on,Don't send me to hell, I mind if you forget me was one of those "in hind-sight" moments. It was more of me wondering if it was within my power to control social cause and effect than it was an "in hindsight moment" when I think about it. It was the couple of things in my house that I can't seem to throw away because of the memories they carry. At the same time, losing religion had me trying to figure out what some of the religious concepts symbolized, especially the heaven and hell control. I guess my minimal understanding of death still haunts my sorry ass. Then there was the call from an old friend who called to say hi, after listening to a an old cd I made her for her birthday.

This was more of an out of the blue kind of story. We were rolling some at the beach with Mr. Lee and he was telling me of his history with drugs, the good, the bad and the ugly. At 70, he had tried almost everything, natural and synthetic. They lived in a small town where people always passed through, they never stayed, rarely stopped. When they did, on the rare occasion, venture into the local gas mart to ask for directions, they were met with kind smiles but not much conversation. It was a good place to raise children. One day after school, he was hanging out with this girl, the kind of girl that gets your name whispered around town, but she was the only pretty girl who'd talk to him. In an effort to please, he had his first cigarette. The first time he smoked a cigarette, at 16, he did it to please a girl. This was one of Mr. Lees' many stories. Retracing was my version of the stories of Mr. Lee.     

Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult. Spin, Run and Choose, I have no idea where this came from, but the direction it took reflects some of the fears I live with.  The fear of living a half baked life, the uncertainty of death both in timing and afterlife possibilities drummed in my skull and the possible outcomes of choosing either of the extreme uncertainties. Without religion, this is supposed to be an easy decision but it isn't. It is the choice between walking away from societal norms which enhances survival or be a lone back packer and live a full life. I know am not supposed to blow my own trumpet (please don't misinterpreting this ^^^), but I believe this is one of the best pieces I have ever written.

 PS: I,ve heard word on some awesome folks with some awesome stuff .You can swing by Kilimanjaro Art | Facebook  on your way from here and see for yourself.

PPS: The photos have nothing to do with the story.....

The beginning

At first, the rhythm was more subtle but you could dance to it if you listened more keenly. I didn't expect to find this many people at the party but with an open invitation, it was bound to happen. Free booze has a way of attracting the weeds. Anyway, the choice of music was pathetic and the girls were a little too needy for my liking. I didn't mind since the booze was on my to do list and the girls were more like the pirate's code; to be thought of only as suggestions. Am aware that the list is in a weird way self-regenerative but at the end of the day, booze being the big stones had to go first in to the jar before the small pebbles, the college gals, filled in the spaces.

I sat at the far end of the counter across the room and looked around; she was on the dance floor. Basic instinct, initial intention, curiosity of that guy that drives him to her kicked in. She was your average college girl with everything that they come with except for one thing, enigma. She was composed and had a sense of self-control, two things maybe. Mysterious, meditative, unapproachable, three things maybe. Feet. Those were the first thing I noticed. Her satin heels put emphasis on the beauty of her calves. Her perfectly tanned legs seemed to glow in the lil light in the room. On a normal day, my instinct would automatically lead my eyes up to check out the rack but at this point in time, it was the legs that mesmerized me. I watched her hips sway to the beat, the rhythm was clearer now. She was like a jeweled dancer, dancing upon a pavement of gold. Her thighs, tanned beautiful thighs. Her thighs beautiful and tanned go straight to the top. Good grief they're fabulous and all I could think about is the lots of warmth within just glowing from fun. Can you imagine moonlight in liquid form? Now, can you imagine yourself immersed in a pond of liquid moonlight? Now imagine all that liquid moonlight seeping dip into your essence. Watching her brought that feeling.

"I think I'll take another one of those shots, double vodka"

Where did she go? My mind deftly swerves from the frivolous mood to profundity and even the jerk of inertia was non-existent. I had turned for only a few seconds and she was gone!

"Hi"

I turn around and she's standing right next to me with this inscrutable smile.

"Hi" with a measure of composure and a hint of nervousness. I hadn't noticed her face until now, she was familiar. I had seen her a few times.

"You're more of a loner than most," she said with a pitiful look.

"I'd say the same applies to you," I said trying to act confident. My heart was now in a sorry state as it had not being beating rhythmically and had skipped a little too many beats in the few minutes past. The effect of her scent, sort of like a rose geranium but sweeter, was intoxicating yet cleansing and purifying.

"Nice perfume"

"Thanks, how women did you say that to today?"

"Three or four, but they all smelled good. You're more like cherry blossom,"

"Oh really" smiling sheepishly, "I almost thought no one would notice,"

"Let's just say every man in this room would relish the chance to say that to you, if you didn't look so astoundingly beautiful, I guess I get to be the lucky one."

"How long have you being watching me?"

"I almost thought no one would notice," Smiling warily,

"I did, at least in the last three parties I have attended. You want to tell me why you've being following me?"

"Following you? You must have mistaken me for someone else." I was getting nervous now and couldn't help myself from a quick scan of the place. Most of the revelers were either drunk or getting there, except for one guy sitting at a table with a direct view of me, and another one who was two tables behind him also
with a direct view of me. I needed to compose myself.

"Okay, am going to be honest with you,"I started, "You are a very beautiful woman, and I know you are way out of my league. All I wanted was to watch you dance, in a weird way, it helps me sleep at night."

"Pervert!" She said walking away. I jumped off my seat and rushed towards her,

"No, no… not in that sense. I mean, if your days happen to be as terrible as mine are, your nights aren't exactly peaceful. I just need one beautiful scene, a smile, dance; I'll probably take anything just to go to bed and not think of blowing my brains out. I just want a moment I can relive in my dreams."

"What do you dream about?"

"They are just dreams, and you're not exactly a genie, I mean except you talking to me, I doubt any of my dreams will ever come true."

Then it hit me, she was no different than I was. She came in alone as I did, and almost left alone every time, she seemed as much out of place as I did, and she was talking to me and not the others……she was
talking to me, she…..

"……………where would I go?" she was
waiting for answer.

"aaahh"

"Let's start over. What's your name again?"

"Serge', Serge is my name, and you
are?"

A mango tree and a lady to scream at goats.............

I want to retire in a ranch, anywhere in this world but in a ranch. I want my wife to haul insults at my goats like my grandmother does, while I sit under the mango tree a couple of steps from the cowshed and tell stories to my grandchildren. Exagerate the facts about the war against the Al-Shaabab, ''the first attack took place a couple of days after we attacked them'' I would begin. The grenades will turn into bombs, the casualties will increase, hell, I will even be there. I will tell stories the way my grandfather told them every Christmas, under the mango tree.

Some 18 years ago I lost my grandpa. My grandfather couldn't stand hospitals, he believed that when you step in one, you won't come out in one piece. He was paranoid around the white mans' things, they were poisoning the black man to take back his land, he did not trust the white man or his ways, or his things and that included their hospitals. When we took him to hospital, he ran. At 82, he walked for 6 days from Murang'a District Hospital approximately 160 kilometers to his house. We looked for him only to find him at home talking to one of my aunts drinking milk after we were almost out of places to look. A couple of months later after having lived a full life he left for heaven.

I want to sit under the mango tree and tell stories of my childhood, my teenage years, the scares of the second coming of Christ, the war in Somalia, the bomb blast in 98', my first job, how i met your grandmother, stories that tell my grandchildren that I lived a full life.

Am not the most religious freak but I believe in God. When we talk I like to ask him why, with all his wisdom, he created so many dumb people, he doesn't answer though, so I speculate. Heaven I want to go, but not the mythical one, but the real one. To be remembered in good light, to have left a mark in peoples' hearts, by telling great stories, stories that tell people that I lived a great life. I want to be in my grandchildrens' thoughts 18 years after my demise.

Now to get there, I need a lady to insult my goats.