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"

they are stopped by a kid. The kid is about eight to ten years old and she is cradling an elderly gentleman in her arms. The man’s legs are missing and from what Wangu and her company can see, his stumps are still fresh. He must have been a victim of an IED. Improvised Explosive Device. Nasty things those are. So she instructs a Sergeant to grab two soldiers and get them off the road. But that doesn’t happen because as soon as they disembark, the man and the little girl go boom.

Me: They explode?

Him: Yeah. They just say “Allahu Akbar” and their little bomb jackets just blow them and a bunch of soldiers to smithrens. Then bullets start raining on Lieutenant Wangu’s convoy like rain and brimstone. It’s a bloody ambush. Of course they return fire but the terrorists have the advantage of surprise and that of higher ground. They’re just raining bullets and missiles on my men like it’s open party. And my soldiers are on the menu. About 85% of them die on that dirt road that day. And those that make it back to base don’t really make it, you know? That night I cradle Wangu in my arms one last time. See, she caught this shrapnel in her throat that just had to come out. And she bled out as I watched. And she said that joining the army was the best thing she ever did because then she got to see me again. That Somalia to her was more beautiful than the most beautiful festival night or poetry slam at Alliance Francaise because I was in Somalia not Alliance Francaise. And the moment her eyes lost their light and I shut her eyelids with my fingers, I knew I was done with this war. I knew I was done being a soldier. I was done with the rules of engagement and the Geneva conventions could go fuck themselves. So I took three soldiers I trusted, put them in a humvee without the Commanding Officer’s orders and we went to that village in the middle of the night. If they weren’t insurgents, they sure were collaborators. And as we drove around that village, I opened fire on everyone and everything I saw using one of those .50 calibre machine guns. I didn’t care about children or women or legless old people. Anything that could wear a suicide vest had to die. And so I stood behind that fast spitting machine gun and pah pah pah pah pah pah pah… And the more you shoot, the more you disassociate yourself from your actions. You just as well might be playing a video game. The more people you gun down, the higher the score. We launch missiles in that village and by the time we’re leaving, no soul is left breathing. I go back to base with over two hundred kills to my name, expecting court martial but that doesn’t happen. I’m issued my orders by the CO and it’s business as usual.

Me: What? What about the news? What did the press say about the massacre?


Him: I don’t know. What did you hear about the massacre?

Me: Nothing.

Him: Exactly.

Me: So what are you going to do now?

Him: As soon as you drop me off at a yet to be determined point, I will shoot myself in the head and join Wangu in the afterlife if there’s one.

Me: That doesn’t sound like a good plan.

Him: Daniel?

Me: Huh?

Him: I’m kidding. (He reaches into the backseat where he retrieves an envelop which he hands to me) At exactly 05:00h, you’re going to drop this off at the Nation Center.

Me: (Taking the envelop) What is it?

Him: It is none of your business is what that is. Drive off to Karen. The Hemingsway Hotel.

03:28h. Hemingway Hotel. Karen.

Charles has stashed his gun and his two hand grenades somewhere inside the backseats and he has done it so well that not even the security check discovers them.

He points me to the parking lot where I park and he invites me to a meal in the restaurant.

This is one of those hotels where I only drop and pick people but I have never really been. My job doesn’t get me past the parking lot. So when Charles invites me to the restaurant, I am pleasantly surprised.

We’re not hungry because we devoured huge chunks of pizza along Kirinyaga Road but Charles informs me that though the food here is great, it isn’t much.

And at that time of the night, the restaurant doesn’t have much in terms of food. But the kitchen, after some convincing by Charles, manages to scramble up an omelette, some bacon, pancakes and sausages for us, which we wait for at the bar.

The place is exquisite. The cream walls seem like the walls of Paradise in the morning lighting and the thick carpets, the shiny piano at the lobby, the thick curtains, the shiny furniture… I have never seen anything so magnificent in my whole life.

Him: You know what you need to do? You need to come here during the day and have a cup of coffee at the balcony facing Ngong Hills. With someone you love. Then you need to dress down to your boxers and jump off the balcony and right into the swimming pool right under you. It’s glorious.

Me: Is that something you’ve ever done?

Him: Yeah. Wangu and I did it once. We had come here on a poetry event. Couldn’t really afford it here then. But we had the maximum amount of fun because we were being sponsored by some Dutchmen.

We take some overpriced shots of some Scotch whose name escapes me and Charles asks if I can play the piano. I can’t.

Him: But can you sing?

Me: I can croak.

Him: I’ll play and you’ll croak.

He sits at the piano with his glass of Scotch and starts playing. The tune sounds very familiar and I find myself singing more instinctively than consciously

Me: Tell me what I have to do tonight,
Cause I’d do anything to make it right,
Let’s be us again.
I’m sorry for the way I lost my head,
I don’t know why I said the things I said,
Lets be us again.

Charles joins me in for the chorus and there’s a glint in his eyes that I haven’t seen before. I imagine him and Wangu seated at this very piano singing a different song. A song about Africa. About where they come from and the essence that connects them. The energy derived from Mukurueini wa Nyagathanga that brings them together in a bond that no war, no bullet, no bomb and no distance can separate....CONTINUE READING>>>
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