Fixing the Roof

Wambui let her thigh slither down the slick mat. The motion sent a slicing stab of pain through her belly. She ignored it as she did the tiny lifeless form by her knees.

That hole in the mabati was getting larger, she noted absently. She would have to get that seen to. Best do it soon. The March clouds were gathering already and there is nothing more annoying than cold water running into your bed at midnight. It would cost at least a week’s pay to get a fundi though. Maybe half that if she sweet-talked the randy one near the bus stop. But she didn’t have the strength to haggle just then, not even mentally.

Wambui sighed. She would probably have to fix it herself. God knows she didn’t have the money to afford new iron sheets anyway. She would stop by the junk yard. Maybe they could spare some old sufurias. Failing that, she would have to patch the roof up with thatch. Or banana leaves. That probably wouldn’t keep the rain out for too long but at least the rest of them would be fed.

The rest of them. That’s what they had become. Them.

They were like worms. They gnawed at her from inside and ate. Taking everything. She felt hollow. Like a voiceless shadow. They left her a wasted, frail shell that staggered about to sustain them. And some of them, like the one by her knees, used her and broke her to no purpose.

The child had not cried. It was wrinkled, ugly and blue in the face. She’d seen the like before. Thrice that she could remember. All had been her mother’s. Each time, her mother would cradle the thing for a moment or two, wrap it in as clean linen as she could find and put it in the earth. She would turn away then and say, “Best think of something else.”

A ragged tear ran down towards her ear. She swept it away angrily leaving a bloody smear where the tear had been. Her mother would have slapped her for that had she been here. She always said crying was a lazy woman’s shirking. “Pain comes. You deal with it quickly and think of other things.”

So Wambui sat up and shoved the corpse away from her by the feet. She ignored the wet sticky sound of flesh sliding against blood and afterbirth. And she did as she was told. She thought of the roof.

Silly Myopic Tony

Until last week, I was unemployed with no prospects. No one is chomping at the bit to hire untested scriptwriters. I got so tired of not having an answer to the question, "So... what do you do?" that I came up with the inventive phrase, "I'm between decisions right now." Everyone gets that he's jobless but take the easy out that the clever turn of phrase affords them. "Ha! Ha! Ha! And the weather's pretty great, no?"

So this week I had three interviews, two of which are for things I would actually want to do. The first one went great. Unfortunately it's a fledgling company that is sort of trying to figure out what it's doing. The second one turned out to be an occasion for the different parties involved to iron out out their differences as I sat around nodding my head. The last one is tomorrow. It's an editing job as opposed to a writing one so I'm not too jazzed about it.

Some days, it's enough to make you want a bank job. I could go apply for something regular that pays regular. High-minded artistry is all great when you don't have to worry about bus fare.

Gotta keep believing that when God says he has a plan for my life, He really means that. So I will go on every interview I have the privilege of getting called for. A few months from now, I will read this post and go, "Silly myopic Tony!" Until such a time, ahuntin' we will go.

Of Life & Massive Butts

(As a gesture of good faith, here's a really long post.)

I was sitting outside, enjoying some sunshine when an ant started to crawl up my foot. As I bent to obliterate the impertinent insect, it occurred to me how very cruel that would be.

Just think about it. That poor ant, let’s call him Ben, had been busy minding his own little ant life when suddenly comes along my big butt to end his brief but happy life. For all I know poor Ben had had to ran for his life, leaving his poor ailing grandmother to die in the shadow of my fast-approaching rear. Maybe Ben had a wife and two little ant babies. Or not because that’s not how ants reproduce but for the sake of argument, Ben had a nice little family unit going on and I may have pulverized them into mulch. Their tiny ant brains smeared against the ground. Oh the horror!

When you think about it though, Ben’s minuscule existence is a lot like everyone else’s. I mean, it’s unlikely that your present reality will be cut short by the appearance of a massive butt (unless you make a habit of walking behind a blind sumo-wrestler) but there’s plenty of potentially fatal surprises that could come your way. Chemical accidents, fire accidents, heavy-machinery accidents, all-forms-of-transportation accidents. You could take ill, the doctor could miss something, the pharmacist could be a quack, the wound could get infected, you could survive the fall only to pass out on the third floor staircase the next day. Earthquakes, tsunamis, erupting volcanoes, sink-holes, floods, mud-slides, collapsing buildings…  There’s a veritable array of massive butts. It’s enough to make you want to stay home and never leave.

But who’s to say you’re any safer there.

I’d like to think Ben knew all that. I won’t think any less of him because he happens to be an ant. I say: Ben knew he was probably going to die as he crawled up my foot. But he did it anyway because he had a family that needed food. Or he was just curious. Or he did it on a dare. Or it was hard-wired into his DNA. The reason doesn’t matter. Ben was living his life.

Alright I admit it. My metaphor is falling to pieces and it may have been shaky to begin with. But is there anything so scary as the unanticipated? Do we all live with a sub-conscious fear of our impending destruction? And so we save up for the inevitable arrival of that rainy day while doing everything within our power to keep it at bay for as long as we can. We lock our doors at night. We get insurance. We keep dogs.

I think there’s a lot to be said for the blind, stupid courage it takes to live your life. For Bens crawling up your foot. It’s probably easier to do if you don’t think about this stuff. But if you do spend time thinking about it, then you would come to either one of these two conclusions;

1. The world is a terrible, senseless place where horrible things happen to anyone at random, OR
2. It’s only by the Grace of God that you have survived this long

I prefer the latter conclusion myself seeing as creation speaks to the intelligent design of a creator but that’s a whole different story and I’d have to find another ant. But if God is still interested in keeping you around then He must have a reason. Why don’t you ask Him what it is. If he cares enough to give Ben a reason to clamber up my foot then He cares enough to give you a reason to leave the house in the morning. He’ll answer you, I promise. Not how you might expect but He will answer.

And so it Begins

Well, it begins again seeing as how I've posted here twice before.

I just looked those over and wow! Self-importance masquerading as "comtemporary african" whatnot. Luckily I've changed in the four years since. Now my blog will be about self-importance masquerading as not being self-important. This is all one giant exercise in self-delusion. (Notice how many times the word 'self' appears in this paragraph.

So join me as we talk about me! Hopefully this time we can manage more than one post every four years. But if we don't, I promise to make each post as mildly amusing as I can. Unless, of course, I'm feeling peevish that day. In which case, I shall proceed to crush any preconceived notions you may have about joy, love, life, hope and any other monosyllabic word that lingers anywhere near the boundaries of happiness.

Let's do this thingybob!

Why?

I think I'm going to like this. No one ever tells people what its like to be a contemporary African. So thats what I'm going to do. Enjoy!! I'm going to bore you to tears before I'm done.

Talk to you later!