TRENDING HORROR STORY: The Kenyan UBER DRIVER picks a DEPRESSED 'KDF' ARMY OFFICER who has been working in SOMALIA "Around Nairobi One Night at gun-point"

 an extra large pizza, a two liters bottle of soda and plastic cups. He puts them all at the backseat, sits behind the wheel and drives slowly at 60km/h along Jogoo Road towards Nairobi Central Business District.

As we approach Buruburu, he changes the channel to Classic 105 and the song playing is Lonester’s “Let’s Be Us Again”

Kirinyaga Road, Downtown Nairobi. 00:46h

Charles stops the car at Shell Petrol Station along Kirinyaga Road facing Globe Cinema Roundabout and turns to me.

Him: I am hungry. We have an extra large pizza. You could join me if you aren’t in a sulky mood.

He grabs the pizza and the soda, gets out of the car, places them on the bonnet, leans against the car and starts enjoying his meal.

I join him silently and I don’t know what to feel about this whole night. Part of me wants to make a run for it, but he’s the man with the gun. He could just shoot me in the back.

Me: When we started dating, my wife and I, she had an affair with this choirboy which I came to know about. When I confronted her about it, she broke down and apologized profusely begging me not to leave. A few days later, she made me listen to that song, “Let’s Be Us Again.” I can still hear her voice in my head singing, “Tell me what I have to do tonight, coz I’d do anything to make this right. Let’s be us again…”

Him: And you forgave her and went ahead and married her. I dare even say that you married her because she cheated.

Me: Yeah. Two months after we got back together, I bought a nice ring for her and popped the question. She said yes amidst a stream of tears on her face and that sweet voice. “Yes baby. Yes. I’ll be honored to be your wife.” I guess I didn’t want to lose her, you know? She was the only thing that meant anything to me. My whole lifeline. Without her I felt like I was nothing. Do you know what I was thinking about as I went down on one knee to propose?

Him: Not really, but I can imagine.

Me: Yeah. I was thinking about her and the choirboy having sex behind the church. I was thinking about her facing the wall with her skirt up her waist, her panties around her ankles and him…

Him: Yeah yeah Danny. I get the picture.

As we enjoy our pizza and soda, a couple of street kids start hovering around, then their number grows to four, then six. So I start getting nervous.

Kirinyaga Road is lonely this time of the night. And when robbers commit their robberies, this is where they come to divide their loot. When cheap hookers get cheap clients who won’t pay for a room, it is not strange to see them having coitus under a lamppost along Kirinyaga Road. And here I stand with a complete stranger, enjoying dinner.

Me: Maybe we should drive up to Kimathi Street or something. It doesn’t feel so safe down here.

Him: Are you nervous? Are you afraid that a bunch of street children will eat our pizza?

Me: (Annoyed because he has this way of belittling everything and I find this irritating) No. I’m nervous that some armed gangsters might steal my car and shoot me for good measure.

Him: I am armed too.

 
Me: Great! It will be just you and six gangsters shooting it out. And you will be victorious, obviously because you’re a big bad soldier who has been involved in a big bad shootout in Somalia, right?

Him: (Chewing his pizza nonchalantly) No. I will emerge victorious because I’m the big bad soldier with the big bad hand grenades. (He fishes two hand grenades from the insides of his Trenchcoat and places them carefully on the bonnet) Do you feel safer now Danny?

Me: No. Not particularly. (Voice lost in various degrees of terror) Who are you?

Him: (Waving off the subject like it doesn’t matter) Thing about sex with many people Daniel is, it starts to lose value after a while. You meet a woman in the morning, you have a conversation during which some chemistry is realized, you have lunch and supper together and you spend the night together. Next week, same thing happens with another woman and before you know it, you’re sleeping with three women in one week. And since you have realized that sex comes easy, you stop valuing it. It becomes something you expect from every woman on the very first night you meet her and if you meet a good one who doesn’t want to give it up on the first night, you walk away to another tree where the fruits are lower and more accessible. You even become too lazy to go on an actual date because your objective is to get laid and you know you can and will get laid by someone without even having to buy her a cup of coffee. Soon, you find yourself thinking you should get laid by any woman with whom you have some sort of chemistry. Like it’s your right. I mean, you’re clicking four or five women in a week. And they are not prostitutes either. No. They’re just women who you meet at work, or during a night out or at a training in some big hotel. It starts getting to your head. You Are special. Especially because the reviews you’re getting are along the lines of “You’re amazing!” If even three out of the five a week decide that you’re good in bed, it must be true. Then one morning you wake up feeling empty and sad and you can’t call any of them for a chat because you don’t even like them. You evaluate yourself and your life and come to the conclusion that you really are nothing. You belong to any one who will open their legs for you. You’re not special. You are cheap because you can be had by any one. We’re you currency, you wouldn’t be a thousand shillings note. You’d be a twenty shillings coin. And there’s nothing worse in a man’s life than to wake up realizing you don’t value sex anymore. When sex is just another thing you do, like brushing your teeth or taking a shit or shaking someone’s hand in greeting. You find that you have grown cold, emotionless, inconsiderate. You find that you have turned into something you thought you’d never be.
Me: Is that who my wife is? Someone who doesn’t value sex with me anymore?

Him: I don’t know your wife. You’d have to tell me.

Me: She has been carrying on an affair for the last three years. She thinks I don’t know about it but I do. I keep waiting for her to show up with the divorce papers but she never does.

Him: You’re still desperate for her. She’s still your entire lifeline.

Me: Yeah. At first I thought I was sticking around for the sake of the kids. But truth is, I can’t stand being alone.

Him: But you’re already alone. But who am I to act marriage counsellor? I’m not married. Just do whatever you want. Spend your boring little life however you want to spend it. It’s your life. That’s what freedom means.

By now, we’re full and Charles passes a huge chunk of the pizza to a few street children hovering around. I notice that he passes the slices to the youngest of them and warns the older and the bigger ones not to steal from them.

01:34h


I am now the one behind the wheel and Charles has instructed me to drive to Alliance Francaise where he just sits in the car and stares at the place blankly.

Him: To me, this place is the soul of Nairobi. When I was younger and before I enlisted in the army, I used to come here to recite poetry. One night I met a girl. Wangu was her name. She seemed so exotic, you know. Her hair was short, she wore no make-up and was always dressed in something African. Made of Kitenge. Either her trousers, or top, or headgear… She had to have something African.

First time I said hello, she smiled and gave me a peck on the cheek. Then she asked to rehearse with me because she would be performing in a jiffy. And her poem was about her. About who she was, how she felt one with the soil of Mukurue-ini where she came from, how she respected the elders who had informed her of Wangu wa Makeri. How she was this true African empress, endowed with all the honor and glory that came with that. When she recited the poem, she received a standing ovation that lasted about five minutes. And I knew I loved her. Especially when later she rushed into my arms, hugged me and asked how she had done. Like my opinion meant more to her than the five minute standing ovation. And that Daniel, that was the last time I cried. She saw in me what nobody else had ever seen.

Me: What became of you two?

Him: I ran away from her. She seemed mystical. Like I didn’t deserve her. She was too good for me and if we started dating, one of two things would happen. (A) I would want to change to be better so as to deserve her. Or something. I know it doesn’t make sense but relationships change people. (B) She would change and be more like me. I don’t want A to happen and I would have hated for B to happen. So when the army opportunity presented itself, I couldn’t take it fast enough.

Me: You just let someone you were in love with and who loved you back go? Because you didn’t want to grow up?

Him: That was the idea. But she joined the army too. I didn’t know that until we met in Somalia.

Me: Second chances don’t come to us all.

Him: Let’s drive to Lang’ata barracks....CONTINUE READING>>>
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