Now that love is in the air, let’s continue to have the masks on, and whoever said love is the key, someone changed the lock! What a week for love? It has been blows and eviction for it (love) for from the south of the country to the capital, love is unwanted. In the meantime, Northern side is peaceful and I hope that will be the case for long for I will represent the East and West. I hope Wangari’s son got to read his C.V. I am also here to drop one. I hope it has such remarkable qualifications in it and the job will be secured.

It will be rare in the life of a Rasta man to have to display a soft side as one to show he can be vulnerable. Stoicism is one of the attributes the street teaches you especially when you decide to pursue the ‘dreadlock’ ways. I will try spill only that which will show me as human as any other proper man for now being a single soul and searching, I need a proper woman for I am mingling.
I am sorry I did jump before the gun. I told you the end before the beginning, is that not what synopsis are for?

Her name today will be Silver. Thinking about Silver, evokes life and death. Life for I lived for another being and death for my heart was pumped to detest and repel betrayal, contempt and pretense. It is the collection of thoughts one litters in your mind, and going through the memory lane is like going through a family album seeing versions of you and your family members morph to what is at the present time.
I have but few happy moments and lasting bad times. Times when with the sunrise I would celebrate, walking out on my balcony to have the rays of the sun caress me as her face(Silver’s) I would see it on the surface of that orange object as it made its way out of the hills yonder. And moments when with the sunset I would long to follow it, for it was peace I longed, for I thought the sun had taken some break of sorts. For me it felt a gulp of air for a suffocated body, a sip of water for a thirsty man, all efforts dedicated to save a life as slowly life made its way to worlds unfathomable.

Silver was a bullet. One that when you had possessed it, to you it seemed a treasure for even to a vampire this was a deadly blow. Never one time in your possession would you think this very priced ornament between your index and thumb brought close to your face between your eyes as you admire it will one day be the strange thing to be in your body.
Silver was beautiful. Dark skinned, a body petite, such defined features, her hair would take up any style, and there was just no limits it could get to for the many, few times I got to see her, she had this vibe as if to have a new head every morning. Her legs were a killer. And when she walked you would bet I would be slightly behind not as an incorrigible manner less man to scout and satisfy strange desires but to have to see, what walking with grace meant. She looked light, as if walking on air. I tend to be convinced if she indeed in her graceful steps stepped on insects anywhere either they didn’t die for no weight was on them or it was promotion to glory. Her eyes, lovely to behold. Her nose well put and mouth well in place and all this was in not a long and neither short face that had these chubby cheeks I would peck every time we met.
I ain’t no insect; that is how she walked in my life. Beautiful story of when for once the mind and the heart worked in unison. For it was what the mind determined the heart pursued. It was a system of cogs in perfect synchronization, a perfect symphony in play, chords having to be the very right, light and touching notes, the rhythm soothing and luring that when I tried not to be in tune I paid the price with a chamber in my little heart. She occupied the four of them. Love stricken, feeling all lucky and loathing all gamblers and bet winners not because they did win handsomely but for how it was they celebrated such cheap winnings as compared to mine.

If slither is a bad word that is not what I did. Chronicles of the hunter started this particular day on a chilly morning when I first set my eyes on her. I am a patient predator. But this time I was to forfeit my every instinct I had acquired in the jungle and didn’t care whether my foot steps were loud enough or even that my waft scent had been given away. I seemed not to care to camouflage with my surrounding. I was announcing myself so loudly that caution was to the wolves. Love is blind, I sure couldn’t see, she was the light to my soul perceived and having had darkness for ages finally I would be free. It was that light at the end of the tunnel.
It was on this morning I said hi. In the evening we were under the light of the moon, the shadows of the acacia trees on a well elevated not completed structure wrapped in ‘shukas’ and there was endless chatter. I had led her away from the bonfire lit and our friends playing around it. We seemed not to care of the cold night for the only fire that mattered was this spark I perceived would burst into a furnace. Two souls were delicately weighing their words before they tumbled out. Say what you will dear reader, I believe in love at first sight and this was more than sight. I wish I did take the laughter from the hyenas at a distance seriously for if I had listened keenly they laughed at a joke they made, “It will end in premium tears.” But we had and deep in our world we were. In my head the story of the beauty and beast was repeatedly played for here was my salvation and finally to a form that I would be human.
We were camping in Maasai Mara. Stationed at Aitong’, a vast plain punctuated with hills strategically placed in the way of the sun in that in its rise and set there was a romantic reddening of the sky with it. And so it was for every morning and evening of everyday we were in this beautiful Maasai land two pairs of eyes set to savor this beauty from the heavens would religiously minutes before the either phenomenon unfolded be well stationed at a site for the sight was nothing short of exquisite.

She knew I was chasing and she kept and made it worth the thrill of the chase. She kept me in wonder of what she was thinking and even to get her digits I labored for them.

She was a principled lady and this I swore not to make her any less. I was not helpless romantic as Njoki would put it. Here was my tingle, a niggling urges out of my senses, damn cupid! His arrow messed me up.
She returned to the city earlier that the supposed time for my team and I. A dark cloud for the few days before we would return to the concrete jungle was not healthy for me. It was a bitter pill to swallow. This camp had to end before the wolves, snakes and the infamous hyenas in the city…this thought I discarded and dismissed fast as it came…
Fast forward to when in the city, my mind was made up. Creatives never lack ways to amuse a soul. After days that turned to months my intent was more clear than my reflection on my mirror. I felt sure that day if there had been a scale of surety my confidence was the maximum. It was two weeks to when I got my feedback. On one of the city’s tall buildings, this place being close to heaven with this more than good news, I was in heaven. So here was my start of keeping diaries, documenting the times and important dates lest I forgot and forced to apologies profusely, accompanying this, with bribes(gifts) for the next decade. I adored this lady. She didn’t make me go gaga, but I was madly in love. Poems flowed from the very fountains of my existence, Shakespeare clearly had nothing on me. Next to paying tithes was the joints I endlessly would scout and take my lady. Walking her on the streets to where she would take her train home, were priceless times: flowing conversations, completion of each other’s sentences, the bursts of the loud laughter we would have from the description of things we would see on our way through the avenues, the joke filled and sarcasm …Ah! This must be heaven!

Texts and calls were in loads. This woman was a treasure. She had this smile she knew I loved and she had it on unless when we were arguing. Troubles came knocking and out they went how they came. It was always us getting to the other side despite and in spite of. And so the highlight dawned, we both happened to be ‘sick’ almost in the same week and a vacation was reckoning. We took a flight. The land of coconut, palms and sandy beaches saw the best of us. The culmination of the days we spent in this ‘Wonderland’ would end under the stretch of the sky, littered with the twinkling stars, below the streets where no one would see the intertwining of two beautiful souls on the rooftop the night breeze bringing to us good tidings and what beautiful and positive vibes to shower us.
Back to the city our souls and body healed, the devil had a gift. My works entails lots of transfers and here was one handed to me to a land thousands of miles. A test we had not signed up for. However, we knew nothing would come between us. There we were at the airport. Like two kids, drenched in tears, devastated. I had to leave. A moment our souls sank to the lowest, at least for me.
Texts and call were in floods. Though in different time zones we did hack and with this assurance guaranteed than that of the insurances I was secure. It was to be for a couple of months and I would be back. By the second week there was the drop in the messages and calls. Not once did I call only to be notified to call later and my texts went unanswered. I tried to be in the city alternating weekends and each meet up was colder than the last. “What is the issue?”, “Do you still love me?” I never got the answers. I still held on. Could be her hormones.

On a surprise visit to the city with gifts from the distant lands, there she was. That evening she walked out of the glass doors out of the building and as I left the place I stood as to ambush her, I saw them. She hugged him with such familiarity. This was not normal. I decided to wait to see the whole drama unfold. My heart was wringed. All it’s life was gone. I needed Jesus, only HIM at this particular time knew what a ‘Judaical’ moment I was going through. A stab fits not the description. Paraded naked to the guillotine carries not the feeling of rejection and the famous plague of darkness was such light as to that moment of her and him. They kissed. I watched them exchange pleasantries and my turn around was one of a made up mind.

Solemn moment:
I asked to meet her the following day. There in a restaurant I had the imagery of a hospital. A life support machine switched off and slowly watching life ebb away. The room is silent apart from the faint breathing from he or she on the bed. No one prepares you for grief. There is a lump on your throat, tears have formed waiting for you to blink so they may roll, it will be a silent cry.
So out she walked. Having feigned anger, disappointment and brokenness. This was my silver bullet served on silver platter. This was to be the last time I would see her. I saw her dress fade in the distance, as the doves around flew to the heavens. I sighed, I promised not to die for I needed to see the sunrise and take out the bullet.