still 27

You stagger home in the middle of the night. As the Uber you and your friend chartered pulls off you try to find your balance. The analogy of one step ahead and two steps backward is no longer an imagination to you. You are living it. You gather what’s left of your center of gravity and trot slowly to the front door. You call your brother to open up but he walks up behind you and in astomishment whispers ‘nilidhani wewe ulikuwa home? Hata nilikuwa nakupigia’. You call your sister but she is also mteja. You dare not call the owner of the house. Your brother starts telling you about the crazy night he has had, of the ladies he danced with, the binging he has had, to the cops he has evaded. Everything suddenly becomes funny. You try to contain the laughter, even try to force your mouth shut with your hands…you try to breathe out, then in again but the bugger is far too elusive, he escapes without notice. You find yourself rolling on the floor probably laughing your ass off…but the skinny jeans keeps it in place. Your brother weirdly enough does a good job at keeping his laughter at bay whilst trying so very hard to whisper ‘shhhhh!utaamsha watu!’ His ‘whispers’ finally get the job done. A light in the first floor turns on. Your eyes see the light, your ears hear the door opening, your heart senses the tension, but the brain…the brain is still at 1824, maybe. The door opens and the laughter bails on you. Probably knew that things were now out of hand. With a stern face the older gent standing at the door says, ‘I want you to move out of this house next week’ and walks off.

That was not funny anymore. An exuberant grin turns to a frown, a drunk mind turns sober, the legs? The legs were still trying to find their center of gravity. You want to claim you know your rights but you realize that no primary school playing ground was being grabbed, you are 27 years old and the old gent is your father!

You are bent on showing this old man that you no longer need him, you pick up your phone and google, ‘bedsitters in Nairobi West’ because your friends live there, it’s closer to town…in case of njaanuary you can walk to town, you can stumble into bed at any time of day or night and greatly because it’s very close to 1824. You stumble upon a lot of offers. You are in awe at the photos. The prices? Drop your jaw even further. So you decide to make a call. The receiver is a lady. You are happy because ladies are usually genuine. She tells you the house is still vacant. But she tells you that she has just shown it to someone who is rushing to the bank to pay as you speak. So you panic, your body turns cold and limp for a second. Your fantasies of binging to 3am in the morning and stumbling into your own at 3.30am with a catch are slowly fading away. Not the fantasies…anything but the fantasies. Just before all hope is lost she offers you a glimmer of hope, ‘If you can pay before they pay then I can send my driver with the key to you.’-they all have drivers. A glimmer of hope, however slight, proves sufficient. You are not about to bid farewell to your 1824 fantasies in 2017. You have the money, she is a lady, she speaks so well, she has a driver, she must be genuine….did I mention she has a driver? Anyone with a driver is legit.
So you take a leap of faith, and hope to God that someone catches you. MPESA CONFIRMED. You can now take a breath. You have a place to call yours. You inform the lady that you have indeed completed the transaction awaiting the key from the driver. The lady promises to send the driver. You hold your position. An hour passes, the lady says the driver is still coming. Two hours, three hours, four hours pass by, by the fifth hour you cannot get through to her and the driver is still not here. Maybe she is in a receptionless place and the driver is stuck in traffic…but you realize that it is a Sunday and you are in Nairobi.So you pin a donkey tail on your back and you stagger again back to Syokimau with your legs still wobbly. And you? You are still homeless, still 27.