During These Economic Hardships

It's obvious that notes and coins are never enough unless you happen to grow some in your garden. A thief will be eying for potential customers of his masterpiece in form of ngeta to get more for his pocket. If you have never been a victim of the so called ngeta pray to the supernatural that it is never sold to you at a price. You are either living in another planet or probably a foreigner non-observant being if you do not recognize this masterpiece called ngeta. For your sake, let me chew it up for you. A ngeta is a product of its kind, unique to the producer who goes by the name a thief. In simple terms a thief uses an art he has perfected for quiet sometime to get possession of your wallet illegally. It does not matter to him at that particular moment whether your wallet happens to suffer from malnutrition or obesity. It is after this professor of ngeta takes illegal ownership of your wallet that he goes ahead to declare it malnourished or obese at his own convenient time. A malnourished wallet is one that notes and coins which translate into money have not been generous enough to visit it. In simple language a malnourished wallet is usually a broke. On the other hand, an obese wallet holder happens to have implemented vast ideas of his own, wooing the generosity of the notes and coins into his wallet. I mean his wallet is usually bloated or rather loaded with legal tender aka money. Therefore, a thief  who perfects the art of ngeta by putting a lock on  your neck using an implement known as hands and rendering you breathless, prefers  the latter rather than the former during these hard economic periods.

Unlike the thief, a mafia billionaire never uses the art of ngeta to get more for his safe. A mafia billionaire is bound to have sleepless nights thinking of how to smuggle cocaine to make more millions. He would also be thinking of who’s next on the list to terminate. A mafia billionaire therefore perfects the art of eliminating cum terminating. An eliminator is someone who removes any barriers ahead of him by completely plucking them off. Barriers to this effect include fellow beings known as humans. Plucking off a barrier would translate to either dismantling it or killing it. You must have heard of mafia eliminators across the Diaspora or have seen one in the movies. That is the role of rogue billionaires. If you happen to be getting richer by day through vast business empires that you have created and you find yourself in the bracket of billionaires, watch out or you risk elimination. My advice to you is to avoid doing business with that trusted fellow billionaire. This is because posing a threat to the billionaire by competing with him for a greater catch, losing your life mysteriously is likely. If you are lucky to escape becoming past tense or ‘kicking the bucket’ mysteriously, I can assure you that cocaine shall be planted in your car or you shall find a dead being in your compound or car trunk leading you to being confiscated by the long arm of the law and eventually rotting in jail leaving your business partner at large. In simple terms, your fellow billionaire is likely to frame you for murder or drug trafficking and we shall declare you terminated aka eliminated. During these hard economic periods, do not double cross a fellow billionaire by posing a business competitor.

I do not live in Mars or Pluto but earth, the same planet that is domicile for thieves and billionaires, the same one that experiences economic hardships. It is why when economic hardships hit, I am not an exceptional. I do not keep my money in a safe or a strong room like a billionaire but in a wallet. If it cannot fit in the wallet, more room is created in my socks. If more becomes much, I wear underwear that I have personally customized by creating pockets in it and providing zippers for that matter. If much becomes too much, I turn to self proclaimed best keepers known as banks. I rarely have too much anyway; hence my visit to the bank is poor. My bank account therefore does not qualify to be issued with a bank statement on several occasions. This in effect, disqualifies me as a billionaire. I have not perfected the art of ngeta and I do not intend to. This is because I proclaim to be a staunch Christian and I confess the name of the supernatural. The gospel according to the holy book of the supernatural called the bible, forbids and disqualifies stealing. I am therefore forbidden from stealing or robbing hence unlikely to become a thief. Hopes of becoming a councilor and probably a member of parliament {M.P} later on were thwarted after I led my fellow villagers in seeking the golden handshake from the country’s top C.E.O prompting them to denounce me as their C.E.O. I cannot henceforth become a councilor or an MP which would have earned me free money exempt of heavy taxation ice caked with allowances cum bonuses without breaking any sweat. You will agree with me that politicians, at least from where I hail from, do not earn money in form of salaries for jobs well done but earn goodies in form of lump sums for jobs unattended to. They dare not do that during these economic hardships.

Since I am disqualified as a billionaire and a thief, bearing these hardships becomes a huge mountain to move. Moving the mountain of a malnourished wallet prompts someone to come up with other ideas that shall translate it to obese. The only idea that I have implemented is starting a business. I can confirm to you that I am a proud owner of a business that specializes in supplying veve aka khat to potential taxi loaders. I call it the kangeta base kiosk. I have been running the kiosk for a while now recording supernormal profits by fulfilling my customers’ needs of getting them high until some governments decided khat was grass. At the moment economic hardships have hit and recession has visited my business leading to registering losses. I cannot wound up the business though. This is because I expect that things shall be looking up again after I come up with new ideas to maintain my kiosk in business. Going to my bank to request a small loan would definitely prove futile. I am likely to be given a stone face look by lending manager telling me that they don’t lend to people who do not lend to them. To save the embarrassment, I withhold the idea for the moment. Turning to other lenders like my neighbor Mwuara, I risk getting a broken nose since I already hold unpaid debts with him. In other words, I have virtually borrowed from every person I know including all my friends such that I am already a debtor with everybody as my creditor. So I dare not approach anyone among them for the moment. Mwaura included. I must say that these hard economic periods are not only huge mountains to move but also white elephants expensive to maintain.

I have decided to cut down on my expenses and probably mitigate the crisis at least an inch. I can cut on personal effects like tissue paper and opt for old newspapers or banana leaves. I could also opt for a natural toothbrush instead of the artificial one that would require toothpaste. In case you are lost on what I refer as a natural toothbrush, I mean breaking a small twig from a tree and chewing it up converting it into a toothbrush hence a natural toothbrush. I could cut on taking tea with milk and opt for black tea without sugar. A financial advisor would definitely concur with me that I could cut on all these effects but not on the maintenance cost of my prime minister-ess or rather wife to be. Cutting maintenance cost on her is tantamount to committing suicide. It would mean that she is bound to bring in a third party who is capable of withstanding the cost. This is why I prefer cutting on personal costs and translating them into her maintenance costs. Failure to this, a grand coalition with her as the prime minister-ess and I the president through marriage would not be forthcoming. At the moment, I have managed to afford her by cutting on my personal costs. I plan to continue with the idea until the grace of the supernatural I become a millionaire.

I am thinking of implementing an idea that just crossed my mind. I could get a sugar mama who is loaded with cash for my maintenance costs. I have already identified one and I will be approaching her soon. I shall tell her that, her beauty is still glittering despite the fact that she is all but wrinkled. I will also stress to her that she requires someone to drive her around to her private meetings during this time she is aging. If she happens to be married, I shall convince her that her husband has aged a lot and he cannot perform. Performance includes administration of conjugal rights. If the sugar mama happens to be widowed, I shall console her by telling her that it’s sad to have been widowed longer than necessary and it was time to go ahead and get herself a companion for her sake. I will offer myself as a potential candidate. Having done that, I expect to be absorbed into her government and qualify for budgetary allocation during her time of allocating funds to her various ‘ministries’. During these economic hardships, one requires super ideas from hand full brains like mine to survive. The idea of acquiring a sugar mama, I prophesy shall work. It has worked for the likes of Mbugua’s and Wambui’s during these hard economic periods.

Compiled by the tickler

Son of the unquenched

Kevin Murungi

murungikevin@yahoo.com

©Rights Reserved

An Attempt to Shake Hands with the Country’s Top C.E.O

On this day that was eagerly awaited by every being in the whole location including myself, I woke up early even before the early risers who happen to be the birds of prey. The supernatural being who baptized himself God, had done his part because I could feel my body had the desired stamina to encounter the day’s challenges that could cross my path. The supernatural had blessed me with good health on this great day. It was a great day because the country’s top C.E.O was passing through our location. Considering where I come from, one can understand that every man, woman and their products hardly had a wink of sleep the entire night, not when a man they perceive to be a god would be visiting their neighborhood.

Ignoring the breakfast, not minding that the only means of transport available was my ‘number eleven’ aka walking by foot, to get me through twenty kilometers of a journey, I set out to seek a handshake from the C.E.O. The whole village followed behind me with great anticipation that they too will get a handshake. On the way I was telling them how it would be a piece of cake to greet this man if someone who spoke some English sought audience from him. Since I happened to be the only one who spoke this foreign language that I learnt in my primary education, they had every reason to believe that I was the only one capable of convincing the C.E.O to shake hands with the whole community.

After trekking for three hours and the whole village behind my tail, we eventually reached the main road where we had to wait for the grand arrival. By this time, I was feeling that my stomach needed some company. Since I was short of notes and coins in my pocket as usual, it had to remain lonely for a little bit longer. We stood along the road for hours until our bodies became darker than usual and our faces wore wrinkles as a result of the scorching sun in collaboration with the lonely stomachs. It was 2 ‘o’clock in the afternoon and signs of hope were not eminent yet. To give my crowd some hope, I convinced them that the C.E.O was about to reach us, only that he was to take longer shaking hands with every citizen along the way.

In case you possess a handful piece of brain similar to mine and wondering who the C.E.O I speak of is, please lend me the ears and pay attention. First, let me say being a village C.E.O, in that everything I say to my fellow mates is correct, I happen to know fellow C.E.Os. The villagers therefore believed that I must know this particular C.E.O and I could convince him to shake hands with my loyal subjects. What they didn’t know was that this C.E.O never travels on his feet like we do neither does he use a bicycle as an advanced mode of transport like we village C.E.Os do. We do not require a battalion of armed men to protect us but he does. At least I was informed that this C.E.O was way above our caliber. In place of bicycles, he uses limousines. In these locomotives are men who wear ugly faces and don in camouflaged suits and uniforms such that sighting them became terrifying to onlookers. In short I am talking about the president and his convoy.

It was four in the evening that the long awaited moment was born. Signs of the president being around the environs were eminent when vehicles and motorbikes driven by kiganjo products producing loud screams emanating from the top of their roofs and tails respectively zoomed past us at the top of their speed. Questions came in multiples from loyal subjects with amazement and puzzled by this unfolding event with strange creatures. They were curious to know whether those cages that spent past us contained people in them and not aliens. They were also keen to know why the surface they trod on was not similar to the one they walk on. I was fast to apply my much needed intelligence and produce answers. I told them the cages were cars manufactured in another planet and were being driven by people called drivers. I also told them that the surface in question is called a tarmac and it does not produce the kind of dust they were used to. Since they found my terminologies a bit Greek according to the look on their faces, we simply settled that the surface was ballast fixed with glue, mixed with color for it to appear black. They bought it.

To stop further questioning, I warned them that they risked forfeiting the golden handshake if they did not conduct a choir for the president. Since they happen to be church goers, gospel songs came in surplus accompanied by ululations from the old ‘cucus’{grand mothers}. I was quick to counter them by intimating that the man they wanted to shake hands with was not the regular church elder and they risked spoiling the experience by singing gospel songs. Instead, I convinced them to repeat the words ‘KANU yajenga nchi’ {KANU builds the nation} several times in a desired rhythm and to flash the index finger in the air. I also told them that, in case they noticed that the man was trying to ignore them, they should stand in the middle of his passage and prompt him to reward them with some money as the KANU tradition demanded. However, my instincts told me that things might turn ugly if they tried to prompt this man for a golden handshake at a time he was running late to his destination. I ignored the malicious instincts!!

Singing they sung, flashing fingers they did but ignored they were. Being the loyal subjects they are and acting on their C.E.O's advice, they proceeded to block the passage of the highest C.E.O. It is at this moment that I sensed a smelling rat around the neighborhood. My instincts were about to proof themselves right. Slowly I drew from the surging crowd towards the opposite direction. My adrenaline level was rising insightful to my bladder that it was time to answer an emergency call. Armpits began oozing sweat to spell fear. In a fraction of seconds, doors flung open and men heavily loaded with their tools of trade were on the attack. Sounds of screams and cries filled the air. It was time to flee. The faster your legs, the safer you were. I could feel artificial rain over my head emanating from billiards harder than steel being propelled by these kiganjo products. Children who rarely had any pants on them, felt they had sat on hot charcoal in their mother’s kitchens. Their screams could be heard miles away but they had to learn to evacuate by themselves since their mothers were nowhere to be seen. Their feeble legs were doing a tremendous job. Their mothers could be seen vanishing into the nearby shrubs at the speed of lightening and at the expense of their little ones, their skirts halfway about the neighborhood of their waists.

Although I had withdrawn from the crowd earlier, forsaking my loyalists, the wrath did not miss me either. Billiards rained heavily on my shaved head and I could feel that justice was at its peak on my back and the entire circumference of my bottoms. I had to accelerate farther and seek refuge somewhere away from these Talibans. I was running out of fuel though, prompting me to take a shortcut. I grabbed a certain plant in an effort to climb to the top imagining that it was a huge ‘mugumo’ tree, for asylum. You should be aware that not every plant with leaves and branches qualifies to be a tree, at least not when you need one to climb it. The plant that I climbed did not therefore qualify to be a tree but in my imagination, it was. The unqualified tree did me a brief favor to reach its peak. I grabbed one of its branches by clinging on it for a rest. I took a deep breath as a sigh of relief and to spend some time in my asylum nursing wounds sustained on the process of evacuation. It is on the verge of nursing the wound that the plant decided to communicate a message to me that it was a unqualified tree and that it would have loved to assist me but could not hold any extra weight except that of its branches. Simply, it couldn’t take it anymore.

It was immediately after the message was put across that the unqualified tree acted on its favor and decided to shed me off. Since the branch I was sitting on had betrayed its master, it had to accompany me down to where I belonged. The war zone!! I fell right at the feet of the commandos who have received extra training compared to their kiganjo counterparts and they were more than happy to receive me. I had no time to even feel how many broken ribs needed repairing because no sooner had I been received by these commandos at their feet than they geared themselves to enjoy fresh meat. I was in hot soup considering that the number of knuckles, kicks and billiards that raided me were countless. By the time these men called a truce I was immobile and writhing in pain. It took almost an entire day to wait for the country’s C.E.O but three minutes at most to become dented all over.

It is after their departure that my loyal subjects started emerging from nearby bushes looking extremely worn-out and terrified. With my little visibility I could see children coming down from better trees that are obviously qualified to be referred as such only that their uncovered bottoms seemed quiet blistered and swelled as a result of brief visitation by men in black. Everybody’s head was highly populated with noodles creating a bumpy look. One could be forgiven to think that a colony of bees had attacked them angrily for snatching their honey from their hives. I was not an exception. My injury resume was however a bit advanced since I could feel that in addition to a bumpy head, a torn skin at my back as well as bottoms, several broken ribs needed repair and I was immobile. My loyal subjects had to carry me on their shoulders at the expense of nursing their own wounds to a local hospital to seek attention from the modern herbalist. It took me a week to gain semi mobility but spent several weeks on my bed to regain hundred percent mobility.

After regaining my health thinking all was well with my loyal subjects and that they had forgotten about the golden handshake incidence, I got a rude shock. I was all to blame for telling them that a golden handshake from the country’s C.E.O comes with goodies and them being followers of ‘baba na mama’ party{father and mother party KANU},they stood a better chance to receive a huge amount of money that could feed the entire village for a month. The handshake however came with golden knuckles, kicks and billiards amounting to golden noodles on their heads and blistered behinds for their children. They fumed! They denounced me as their top C.E.O and as I speak, I no longer feature in the list of location’s top chief executive officers {C.E.Os}.They have appointed a elder instead. I am now thinking of suing the top C.E.O who is now retired for costing me my job. A little advice to Kogelo residents is; not to seek a golden handshake from President Obama in case he visits, at least not against his wish. Try and find out why darkness is an enemy of daylight. As for me, I have had an opportunity to shake the President’s hand not long ago, without breaking a sweat. Pleasure was mine UK!

(I remember those days of single party state, KANU, as we celebrate Kenya @50)

Compiled by the tickler

Son of the unquenched

Kevin Murungi

murungikevin@yahoo.com

@Rights Reserved

Friday Phenomenon, Monday Blues

I believe it’s not just here in Kenya where Fridays are exciting especially for the working class. This is mainly because; the day ushers in nostalgic weekend away from the bosses at work, and challenges experienced during the entire week. What makes the celebration of this day very different in Kenya from the rest of the planet members is how it’s done. The appropriate description here would be “Furahi Day” like one Mathenge alias Nameless put it. For the men married to “Kanyuaji” or rather beer as commonly known, the best description would be “Members day”. Members day, Kenyan style , is characterized by excessive wetting of throats from Kanyuaji and cleaning the contents of animal organs preferably from a male goat in the name of “Mbavu choma” or rather roasted ribs. It is on a Friday that men who believe they must be featuring somewhere in the Forbes magazine as among the wealthiest in the planet, are known or make themselves known. This group of men displays the capability of their wallets to vomit money by decorating the tables with bottles bearing the famous beer brands labels and an entire consignment of “Mbavu choma” for the rest of the members to feast on. It is also on a Friday that you realize bars and restaurants are a good investment in Kenya since they soar to capacity dominated by Friday members.

I do not know whether it is a phenomenon that the ugliest things related to Lucifer must happen on a Friday. I do not understand either, why people visit the weirdest of places on this day and indulge in the weirdest of things. Careful not to compromise the spirit of national reconciliation by bringing ethnicity into rivalry, I shall be lighter in my approach to issues. It is on a Friday that one Mr. Onkwonkwo Otero who believes that he is closer to one Mr. Bill’s liquidity, dramatizes what is wallet can do. He believes that he is the only man in the entire country who drives a locomotive as he calls it, of its kind. He boasts having a collection of such cars that he likens to his wardrobe variety of clad. You will hear him say "ile Mercedes yangu, ile ingine iko garage” What that means is, whatever he is driving on such a day is just but one of his fleet. He stresses he only imports from Germany! Otero is the kind of man who tells the waiter at the pub she should only cut supply of beer to all the revelers when they say so. He sits where everyone can see him and puts a collection of gadgets on display at his table. He makes sure that at any given time one of his many mobile phones is ringing. He tried running for an electoral seat as a councilor in the last general election on the basis of his lavish display of generosity to members but he got a smack on his face. When the returning officer was perusing over the infamous form 16A and announced the results to the electorate and the prospective political winners, Mr Otero was a proud garner of three votes! It is obvious who cast the three votes considering the logic existing in such a scenario. One was from his daughter who had just turned eighteen acquiring a voter’s card subsequently, his wife's and himself! Notwithstanding that he lost the seat terribly, he believes he won the election and since he loves spending, he has since filed a petition in the corridors of the honorable high court challenging the validity of form 16A on the basis of bought popularity.

That's Otero alias Oti fellow Kenyans. He aside, one Mr. Nyakundi alias Nyash enters into the phenomenon. Nyash happens to be a very good friend of mine. I salute him for his hard work and his ability to identify opportunities for acquiring extra coins. He is gifted in numbers that's why he has made a successful career as an accountant. I, on the other hand, carry a mathematics curse that I believe might be hereditary and therefore find the logic why I always need a calculator to help me determine the profit I make daily from my Kangeta base Kiosk. Nyash tells me that I could be the worst human in mathematics the entire planet has ever produced. I agree! However, on a Friday things are different. You might think otherwise amongst both of us. I believe Nyash is the greatest hooligan that this planet has ever produced when music in the name of Mugithi is played. I once suggested that he seeks a job as an event organizer for one Mike Rua since he happens to know wherever the man shall be presenting his Mugithi over the weekend. At the dance floor, you will notice that Nyakundi's shirt is unbuttoned halfway his chest displaying his hairy anatomy to the public. You would be forgiven to think the theory of evolution that dictates man originated from a close cousin, the ape, surely did exist. He dances to the rhythm of the lewd lyrics holding his bottle of Kanyuaji with his right hand while the left hand does a tour of women's bosoms. He yells at the top of his voice to crescendo. Later into the night, Nyash hires one of the skimpily dressed women to massage his body in a rented room until dawn. Hiring a woman, in his interpretation, means hiring the entire package that accompanies a woman from head to toe including her fingertips for the purpose of extensive massage effectiveness. Many times without number, Nyash has acquired a black eye after his fingers misbehave and walk into the wrong places of unwilling women.

Exit the weekend phenomenon enter the Monday blues. Mwaura thinks that the weekends end faster than working days. He argues that weekends are short of some hours and therefore less than the usual hours of a typical day. He says that if all days are made of 24 hours, then time flies during weekends. I understand him though, considering the work he does the entire week. Loading and offloading factory trucks, his days must be longer than usual. This is why he finds his time spent at Mama Pima's gone too soon. On Monday you are likely to hear Mwaura's footsteps as he leaves for work at four in the morning. The rhythm of the footsteps suggests that he's quiet sober but very angry and bored. You will hear him yawn like a bloated monkey suggesting that his stomach is lacking company and only feeling the pinch of dry liquor in it. I wonder how he survives an entire day at work loading and offloading the rigs on an empty stomach on Mondays. He quarrels his wife as he leaves saying she does not know the value of money and does not realize how hard it is to put some food on the table. He calls her a bad manager and a window shopper for the sole reason that she asked for some more household money having spent the entire, a thousand shillings given last Monday. She is supposed to spend it for two weeks! The fact that Mwaura has embraced the spirit of go forth and procreate by having a family that can easily form an entire volleyball team, isn't an excuse, he says. He walks away stamping his feet on the ground like the Godzilla and clicking his mouth angrily.

If you met Nyash on Monday morning leaving for work, you may think he would not want to see your face for the rest of his lifetime. He wears a face that suggests you are the only enemy contributing to his woes in this planet. His face appears older than he is, forming wrinkles on the forehead, large enough to be qualified as furrows or ditches. His eyes seem to be popping out of their sockets suggesting that he could be a victim of a malignant illness about to escort him to the grave. This is because; he hardly had a wink of sleep during the weekend. I then imagine him meeting his boss in the office in that pathetic condition. He probably gets a pile of files on his desk waiting to be attended by him. I wonder if any mathematics comes into play on a Monday. It's not just Nyash but all weekend members who go clubbing and translating themselves into beer tanks in the name of having fun. On Mondays you will find this group of Kenyans at a bus terminus with their mouths talking less, mum like they haven't spoken in their entire existence. The look on their faces suggests that they are attending a burial somewhere in the city, perhaps the cemetery. When they board the bus they doze off and snore away to their places of work.

Since I am my own boss at my Kiosk, Mondays are ilk to any other day. I dictate when I wake up for work. This makes the likes of Nyash and Mwaura envy my Mondays tempting them to quit their jobs and become own entrepreneurs. This is however short lived since I intend to procure a job that will earn me extra coins. I will therefore save the best of Mwaura's and Nyash' hangover ordeals for the last since I might soon be wearing a similar shoe!

Compiled by Tickler

Son of the Unquenched

Kevin Murungi

murungikevin@yahoo.com

©Rights Reserved

The Grand Finale

The Grand Finale

Under their feet, deep under, the iron fist,

A colonial master, a power imposter,

An Englishman thrived, a slave trader,

Kenya once a colony, entangled by trader,

She’s the eastern ace, once humbled by master,

Beckoned rude awakening over master,

Twentieth Century, Sixtieth third year, twelfth December,

Independence and self rule was the grand finale.

A long walk to freedom, torturous as was,

Salute for the kings, the jungle warriors,

Legend has, and history too remembers,

Our Mau Mau veterans, freedom fighters,

Triumph over colonial monster, the trophy, own masters,

Honor for them kings, the nation makers,

Salute for the iconic leader, Kenyatta, the kingmaker,

Hoisting of Kenyan own flag, was grand finale.

Turning our heads, o’er the shoulders, success,

We crawled, now we walk, and without recess,

In the spirit of Harambee, reigns o’er challenges,

Economic progress, by far, and without digress,

Sweet taste of freedom, fruits suffice,

Once muzzled, and once a novice,

Political gains, democracy, now emergence,

It’s a voyage well on course, towards a grand finale.

While I take stock, can’t help but smiles,

Our voyage, the Kenyan worth, extends miles,

Exit the medieval laws, a new constitution rules,

Fifty years after independence, we command presence,

Destination, our vision and jubilation of essence,

External forces of impediment, retaliation to face,

Self rule, own rules, our new tradition is own justice,

Sovereignty at fifty, grand jubilee begins another grand finale.

Compiled by tickler,

Son of the unquenched

Kevin Murungi

murungikevin@yahoo.com

©Rights Reserved

(Celebrating Kenya @50, the grand jubilee after self rule)

Coup De' Tat. Tail Turns Head

COUP De’ TAT. TAIL TURNS HEAD

By Tickler; Son of the Unquenched.

A military overthrowing the government is a common phenomenon so is a rebel or a militia. The coup is a bloody affair in most times and that’s what makes the whole ordeal unpleasant and unfathomable. Consequently, you rue tenure as a president when such an occurrence arises during your reign. Catching wind of a brewing coup as a president of a country sends shivers of cold sweat down the spine. However, since a military coup has been there since time immemorial when a human was thought to be a cousin to a primate or a Neanderthal, in the Stone Age, it’s not perturbing. At least in my opinion, I do not find a political coup perturbing.

Military coup aside, a serious coup has taken prominence and this is perturbing. It’s a coup involving humans at the smallest unit of society, the family. A coup de’ tat involving spouses, commonly known as head and neck of the house or better still, family. I prefer head and tail for the purpose of this story. The good book of the Supernatural famously referred as The Bible, created the head to mean husband and the neck in reference to wife. The Holy book, which I pledge my allegiance to, claims that the wife originated from a single rib of a husband who was once called Adam, therefore giving forth to a being in form of a woman from a man. Since the Bible created the head and the neck, some era before Christ was born; it has not been updated albeit eons have passed to get us to the current century .The 21^st Century to be precise. I therefore tend to propose to the most eminence that inspired the content in the good book to consider these trying times and update it consequentially with these times. What I am asking is a new edition of the 21^St Century!

I should also tell His eminence the Supernatural that since He created the head and the tail, a lot has changed. The ‘tail’ as men believed and still do when it comes to considering women, has since refused to remain at the posterity of the heads. The woman thinks that the so called head has wagged the tail one too many times and she is fed up to wherever. The head has since been overthrown by a coup de’ tat arising from a tail that shed off its old skin from a beast known as empowerment. The head’s existence save dominance is threatened.

The head will have itself to blame for its demise. I being a head by nature makes my heart skip a series of beats when I comprehend the tail’s resilience and total impeccable chest thumping. I blame fellow heads for the suffering of ego and dignity within our perk. One of such men with a hand in igniting our doomsday in form of a coup de’ tat against heads is my friend and neighbor Mwaura. Mwaura is suffering from alcoholism for his frequent visits to Mama Pima’s den for kanyuaji. He has had one too many of Mama Pima’s glasses of illegal brew to the extent of sending his body nerves, hormones and muscles into a state of irresponsiveness and total slumber.

He earns peanuts from his employment whose designation is a truck driver cum loader. That does not deter Mwaura from wetting his throat at Mama Pima’s over the weekend. The kind of brew that he utilizes would not pass a lab test anywhere on this planet let alone in a lawless country like our neighbor Somalia. The brew steams and evaporates from the glass and dries up if not swallowed instantly as fast as it was poured in. He gulps a series of such glasses over the weekend before embarking on a journey to his house at dusk. I call his walk home a journey considering the time he takes from Mama Pima’s, a stone’s throw away to his house. In the state of intoxication, a two kilometer walk for Mwaura is a journey. It is a journey of a thousand miles and thousands of steps. On reaching his doorstep, amid staggers, falls and recuperations, he knocks the door with his foot and parks at the foot of it. Parking in this context means sliding against it with his back, sitting on the floor and leaning his back on it as he awaits his wife Wangeci and his herd of children to open the door. Snoring may even follow suit.

Often, I overhear quarrels with Wangeci and her pile of a husband as she calls him whenever they pick up a quarrel. Since her husband has turned out not to be a professional teeter taller, he has earned himself several names that aren’t pleasant. Once the door falls ajar, Mwaura’s herd of children and their mother drag him into the house against the scurry floor. No sooner does he get into the confines of their small unit of a house than the whole family rises upon him with blows, kicks and tantrums. He mourns in pain like a toddler. I have in so many occasions played a good neighbor and offered help to my friend seeking to save him from fury of a scorned woman and it hasn’t been pleasant to me either. For every dent received from this perk of predators by my friend, I received my share too. I have healed too many of those scars arising from the beating administered by his wife and children and I can no longer be of assistance. I have had enough!

Instead, I have learned to enjoy the tantrums from Mwaura’s wife towards her husband. They are a rib cracker! Apparently, my dear friend can no longer attain an erection let alone sustain one if by any chance it comes to heed. Mama Pima’s brew is the main culprit for this as his wife alleges in high pitched tone of voice heard across the board. Wangeci complains that her man can’t fulfill his conjugal obligations and that she is in a state of sexual starvation. She continues to blame Mwaura for forcing her into bearing too many children and restricting him to a household budget of a thousand shillings per week. She continues to remind him that she hails from Tetu in Nyeri County and risked his life if he continued in a manner that is detestable. She gives an example of their youngest child depicting the malnutrition that has engulfed the children due to lack of enough food. Wangeci claims her dowry arrears entitled to her parents and reminds her husband that he doesn’t own her. Her last action to her beloved alcoholic is to frisk her husband’s pocket for any remaining cash before ordering their six children to drag their father into the bathroom and run the shower with his clothes on. She promises that he is bound to spend the rest of the night there until he gets sober. “After all, I do not need a log beside me on my matrimonial bed” Wangeci says. That statement suggests to me that truly, my friend and neighbor can’t neither attain an erection nor sustain one! Coup De’ Tat, tailor made from Nyeri County!

Compiled by Tickler,

Son of the Unquenched

Kevin Murungi

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