One day, I sent a girl in our girl school a love letter. Our girl school was only a fence away from our school. Unfortunately, out of excitement, she opened the letter in her classroom to read in the presence of her friends. A teacher walked into her classroom and caught her reading the letter while her friends cheered on her. The letter was confiscated. It was traced back to me.

I was summoned to the staff room, whooped, and handed a two weeks suspension.

Along the way, while traveling back home, I was scared, nervous, and apprehensive of what was to befall me if I landed home to serve a suspension. Despite being very accommodating and friendly, my aunt was a disciplinarian when it mattered. She never hesitated to flog my bum if I was engaged in mischief.

She was surprised to see me back home barely two weeks after leaving home after half-term.

‘What is it again? School fees?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I responded. I was unsure of how to break the news to her. She had a temper when she needed to be. When her temper broke loose, she was capable of anything, including dismantling one’s dental formula. For this reason, I stood as far away from her while breaking the news.

‘What is it, then?’ She repeated.

‘I have been sent home.’

‘I can clearly see that. But for what reason?’ She insisted.

‘I have been suspended,’ I said calmly. I was trembling.

‘You have been suspended again? Do you ever learn? What is wrong with you kid?’ She raised her voice. The anger in her voice was mounting. Right away, I knew that was going to be a flogging day. She started walking towards me with the finger of her hands trembling. That was the venom of her anger that used to make her hands shake. She always shook her hands when she was about to slap me.

‘Why were you suspended?’ She asked, an inch closer to me, and visibly ready to slap my face.

‘For writing a girl a letter,’ I replied.

She stopped in her stride suddenly before she could have stroked the demons out of my face. She froze and turned to face the other direction where I couldn’t see her face. When she turned to face me, there was a silly smile on her face. The smile was confusing because a second earlier, she was angry and ready to slash my face into two.

‘Is she beautiful?’ She asked. I was more confused.

I nodded my head, ‘yeah.’

‘Do you love her?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Does she love you back?’

‘Yes, she does.’ I said, gaining courage eventually.

‘Then go and change your clothes. That was not reason enough to suspend you.’ I was very happy. I was relieved. We spent much of that suspension period talking about sex; Are you already sexually active? Are you using protection? Are you careful? She asked all kinds of questions about my sex life and all the nitty-gritty of sex education.

After two weeks, she accompanied me back to school. I was supposed to face the disciplinary committee consisting of my class teacher, the deputy principal, and other members of the school’s disciplinary committee.

When we stepped into the office, all eyes turned to my aunt. The way she was dressed, her youthfulness etc etc.

‘Mum, your nephew is not taking his education seriously. He spends time thinking about girls all the time instead of concentrating on what brought him to school. He wastes the money you pay as school fees. I want him to read the letter himself. I want you to learn what your nephew does in class while serious students are studying in class.’

The deputy reached one of the drawers of his office desk and pulled out a file. He pulled out the letter, written on a decorated writing pad and still bearing the perfume I had sprayed on it before sending it to my madam.

He handed me the letter. ‘Read it to your aunt. She needs to know what you do in class instead of studying.’ There was a seriousness in the DP’s face that was scary.

There was dead silence in the room as I fumbled to read the letter. Everyone’s eyes were on me. This made me more nervous and shaky. Before reading the letter, I looked at my aunt’s face. There was some rare calmness on it.

I cleared my voice and read,

‘Walapaz Clara.

I hope this letter finds you with the same beautiful face that I last saw during the drama festivals. Since that day, I haven’t stopped thinking about you. I have not slept because I spend the nights staring at the stars, hoping to see your star. If you look at the sky tonight, the brightest of the stars will be me staring down at you. Please wave at me…’ My aunt coughed at that moment.

‘Sorry,’ she apologized. She reached for her purse to retrieve a handkerchief. She wiped her eyes. I watched my aunt and right away I knew she was fighting laughter. Probably she found my letter to be hilarious or something. The cough was an indication of the battles within her mouth.

‘Go on,’ the DP said.

‘I have not eaten since I last met you because the only hunger that I feel in my body is caused by the longingness to meet you again.’ At that point, at that specific vibe, my aunt had no choice but to burst out into a pearl of laughter. She is the kind of person who has naturally long waves of laughter, like Gidi and Ghost. She doesn’t hold back when laughing.

My teachers were stunned. They wanted the matter treated with the seriousness that it deserved, while my aunt turned it into a frivolous moment. That infuriated them more.

Her laughter was efficacious in making me laugh as well. I placed my hands on my mouth, faced away from the teachers, and fought the laughter. I did not want to anger them, for I knew this would have made them increase the intensity of the punishment that awaited me. I stopped laughing immediately.

‘Mum, we are asking you to treat this matter with the seriousness that it deserves. Your son has been reported to be sleeping in class during class lessons. Teachers are complaining that he sleeps a lot while they are teaching. Now I understand why. Because while others are sleeping during the night, he stays awake staring at the stars. Your nephew must be punished to stop this habit.’ My class teacher said in abid to restore sanity in the room.

‘I am sorry for my behavior. I agree with you. He must be punished before these habits persist.’ My aunt said after wiping the tears from her eyes, tears caused by the laughter. I was punished. I was whooped properly.

After the punishment, I was sent out of the room to allow other students to face the committee. While I was alone with my aunt, she resumed her laughter. ‘Dude, that vibe was strong. Ati, you haven’t eaten because the only hunger that you feel is caused by the longiness to meet her? Who says that to a girl?’ Bro, aren’t you the one who cleared my fridge the other day? Now you are lying to a girl that you don’t feed because of her?’ We started laughing again.

‘And your class teacher believes that you are sleeping in class because you spent your nights staring at the stars to locate your girl’s star?’ She laughed again. ‘You must stop sleeping in class, though, right?’

‘Sure. I will stop.’

‘Next time, tell your girl to read the letters from her dormitory. That is what we used to do. The risk of being caught reading a love letter in the dorm is less than when one reads in class.’ She advised, gave me pocket money, and left.

The next term, I was suspended again for a more serious mistake. The DP was very particular when writing the suspension letter. ‘Your son must be accompanied back to school by a more serious guardian to face the disciplinary committee after 2 weeks. The committee will not listen to his case if he reports to school with a guardian that is not serious about your son’s discipline.’

ANTONY MAINA

Last evening, my cousin and I left the house to do light house hunting in my hood. He moved in to live with me, and I thought we needed a bigger house.

We found a very beautiful, modern apartment. It has a single bell knob outside the gate. We figured out that the bell rang inside the caretaker's or security guard's house.

We rang the bell. Soon after, a man with an indifferent and gloomy face appeared at the gate. He looked so lugubrious, so furious, so cavalier, that I started suspecting that the bell must have pulled him from the warmth of a Sunday evening snack.

He did not talk to us right away. He looked at us, almost scheming like, from our head to toes. We were wearing Crocs and sweatpants. It was on a Sunday evening. We had been watching football, Tottenham Vs Aston Villa game. The first half was boring that is why we decided to leave the house to do house hunting before the crunch Manchester City Vs Liverpool game.

It is also January. The roads are dusty and windy. Naturally, we looked ragged. Our feet were dusty after making several rounds around our hood. Our faces and lips were cracked from the heat of the sun. Justifiably, we looked like street urchin, and perhaps that is the reason why the man looked at us in such a mean way.

"Hi," I greeted him.
"Hi," he forced the greetings. "Mh?" He said, signaling us to lay down the reason why we rang the bell.
"We are looking for a house."

He scrutinized us again, deeply, and said with a hoity toity and patronizing tone, "hakuna bedsitter hapa." It almost sounded like a threat, or he expected us to take it as a threat and walk away.

Damn. I look at my cousin's face and he was not hiding his shock. He looked at me and we burst out into a loud pearl of laughter. Man.
The man gestured to walk back into the house. "How do you know that we are looking for bedsitters?" I asked him.

"I was just saying, as a by the way. Just in case we don't want to waste each other's time." He gave us his back.

"We are looking for a two bedroom." He looked at us with intensity again. He was unsure whether we were serious or just bluffing. Eventually, he opened the gates and allowed us in.

The ground floor was reserved for parking. Man, the cars in the lot were insane. There was a white Land cruiser Prado parked next to a Subaru Forester XT, that was parked next to a dark blue BMW, that was next to red Mazda CX.

When I saw the parking lot, for a moment, I understood the man's point of judgement. First, we walked to the gate on foot. Two, we exclaimed when we saw the cars parked in the lot. We were like two kids in an exclusive toy store.

ADOLESCENT VANGEANCE

BY ANTONY MAINA

When i was in class six, i fell in love with a class eight girl and she also happened to be our school head girl.

i had just turned adolescent and on the same night of adolescence , i discovered that, apart from passing out urine, i could get into a woman to give me a better sensation than the one i got when urinating.

so for weeks, i contemplated on how to get to racheal, a 15 year old girl with sweet young round protruding breasts like those of Arianna Grande. ohh my! she got me crazier anytime she addressed the assembly. i erected anytime i saw her, it is during those erections that i realised that my d**k had started expanding not because of urine but because rachael used to turn me on..

one day, armed with DB Tony dictionary (my own edition) and west life's songs, i drafted a romantic letter to her. a letter i believed was too hot and romantic for her to turn me down.

two weeks i waited for her reply in vain. i was almost giving up until one day she felt philanthropic enough to reply to my letter.

I remember that day i came to school only to find a mammoth of pupils reading the same letter i had sent her. She stuck the letter on the door of my class room using glue. That was not all, she had marked my letter and awarded me points like an english teacher would mark a composition.

and like an english teacher, she added remarks below the letter....

----> please check on your grammar and spelling.

--> improve your handwriting, even doctors wouldn't entertain your handwriting.

that morning was the most embarrassing morning of my life. i had nowhere to hide my face in school. i sneaked out of school to home, where i spent two days planning on how to take my revenge on the girl and hiding away from friends who would lough at me for receiving a public rejection.......

BY ANTONY MAINA

#newstory

After dropping out of campus, I briefly worked as a security guard in an apartment somewhere in Ruaka. I would perhaps be a security guard right now had I not quit because of what I witnessed or what the tenants made me do. One of the things that tenants turned me into was an errand boy. Some of the works I was asked to do were outrageous, some were flat-out criminal, and some were raunchy.

Initially, I loved partaking in such small errands because of the tokens I received from them. A generous tenant would pay me one or two hundred shillings for washing his/her car or refilling their gas. I loved doing them because it was from these payments that I afforded my fare and lunch or supper.

Some tenants paid me using food, fruits, or drinks. One or two tenants had unrestrained tendencies of paying me using unconventional means. One such tendency started with the D1 lady. Her sink blocked. She invited me to help her unblock it. When I walked into her house, I ended up playing a role that mirrored the title of a video on a website that you love visiting; “A plumber helps the housewife to unblock the sink. Or “The lawnmower trims the housewife’s outgrown hair.”

Most of the tenants were very generous when it came to compensating me for service or work tat I had done. Apart from one mean lady. She used to live in the house on the second floor. I had a huge crush on this babe. She was in her mid-twenties, or early twenties, or thereabouts.

She was plump, with a round face and a sizeable but. She rarely came out of the house. Unless she was picking up a delivery from her boda boda delivery guy. She loved wearing loose brief shorts and busters that enhanced the shape of her bre+sts every time she came down to pick the deliveries.

She lived alone most of the time. Occasionally, her father visited, but only over the weekend. She barely gave me attention, as other tenants did. For a very long time, I wished she did. One day, she did.

I remember the first time she invited me into her house, I was listening to my favorite radio show, Patanisho. I received a call from a strange number. The call invited me into house B3. Right away, it clicked in my mind that my crush had invited me into her house.

On my way to her house, I imagined all the possible reasons why she had invited me to her house. And none was as appealing as the thought of the title “The lonely busty tenant gets company from the security guard.”

Lewd thoughts went through my mind. They excited me. She opened her door in a bralette and a ragged booty-short. My mind went wild. The first thing that I spotted was a large wall picture of a five-star general framed on the wall. It was her father’s picture. It was so large and conspicuously mounted opposite the door for anyone entering the house to view it. In the photo, the general was holding a gun.

Once I was standing in the sitting room, she handed me one thousand, one hundred and fifty shillings to pick up a parcel from a place called Denderu. The one fifty was my boda boda fare, while the one thousand was the payment for the parcel that she didn’t name. She had not mentioned any form of payment. I knew and prayed that the payment would be in the form of your favorite website’s video title.

At the pickup point, a guy in dreadlocks came out of an old bedsitter apartment and handed me a mid-sized pharmacy tablet dispensing envelope.

I did not check what was inside the envelope. Once I was back in her house, shockingly, she opened the parcel, pulled out two sticks of weed, and stretched her hands to hand them to me. I declined her offer and said, “Huwa sichomi.”. My revelation that I don’t smoke seemed to disgust her. She frowned. I kept on standing there waiting for payment.

“How am I supposed to pay you then? I don’t have money with me.” I wondered how the daughter of a general could lack money to pay me. She didn’t have the money. She promised to send me money as soon as she had some. I left her house disappointed. In my mind, I blacklisted her from the list of tenants that were eligible for my help.

A week later, she called my phone again. She had not paid me yet. But as a security guard, I always heeded all the calls from tenants. It was a rule. I entered the house and found her holding the same amount as before. She extended her hand, as before, and said, “as before.”

I protested and reminded her that she had not paid me for my previous job. She looked at me with a grimace, with violent sadness and disgust, as if she did not believe that I could turn her request down. She turned her face and stared at the photo of the general. I followed her eyes. The general’s photo was staring at me, menacingly. It always did stare at me regardless of the position I was standing at.

“My father will not be happy that you have been selling me weed,” she blackmailed. She shifted her eyes to a different location. With that threat, I picked the money and left to pick her weed. This became a routine. She sent me to pick up her drugs and paid me with threats. I was the poorest peddler in the history of peddlers.

Sometimes I wonder if there is a heaven for Nairobi Weemen.

BY TONY MAINA

Kui made a living from surreptitiously spiking men’s drinks in a club in Kasarani and robbing them of their valuables; wallets, watches, and phones. She had perfected the art. One day, the club’s management informed her that she could no longer work from their club because the police were on the club’s heels following persistent complaints from customers. They fired her.

A devastated Kui sought advice from her friend who had been in the trade for ages. Her friend suggested that she resort to the traditional form of prostitution; parading herself on the streets for selection. She was to guise herself as a street hooker, get picked for a night at the man’s house, sedate him and rob his home while he slept.

Kui lamented how she was no longer going to get free club meals, drinks, and compliments from club perverts. ‘Some of the men will cook for you in their house, some will order food and drinks for you. Remember, at home, you won’t be robbing wallets and phones alone. There are laptops, watches, shoes et al. Men who pick women on the streets drive expensive cars. They are sexually starved rich men seeking an escape from the sexual boredom from their wives.’

On this day, her first night on the streets, Kasarani was devastating cold. She endured the freezing cold night in her mini-skirt and an off-shoulder, V-nicked tumbo-cut top. At around midnight, when she thought she could not endure the cold anymore, a Subaru parked on the other side of the road. As other hookers ran to the car to negotiate with the pervert, she remaining standing unsure of what to do. Scrambling for customers had never been her art. In clubs, it is the men who picked her.

The Subaru man lowered his window and beckoned her. He ignored the other girls. They leered at Kui as she walked with a slow and calculated poise towards the man.

They left the streets towards the man’s house in Sportview Estate, Kasarani. Sportview Estate is the only estate with more rental-houses per SQ KM than bars, clubs, and wines and spirits shops. Kasarani has more alcohol joints than rental houses.

The house was well furnished and spacious. Her eyes darted steadily from the TV to the home theatre, to the laptop on the study table. She was spoilt with the choices to rob once she had sedated the man. She was nervous, and the man noticed it.

Once she was comfortable, the man locked his door and spanked her on his way back to his chair. At that time, the man hadn’t talked or bragged about his car, house, or whatever he owned. That was uncharacteristic of Subaru owners, who have a habit of pronouncing what they own or the price of their Subaru. Subaru owners are the equivalent of Alliance High school alumni. They are capable of walking to a stranger in the washroom of a club and tell him; ‘by the way, I just imported my Subaru recently. What do you drive?’

‘Empty your purse on the table!’ the man said with a cold tone.

‘What?’ Kui struggled to speak, pretending to not have heard what the man had said. It was a whisper.

‘I said empty your purse.’ His voice was colder and authoritative. Kui hesitated. The man leaned back on his chair, pushed his hand between the couch’s cushion, and pulled out a gun. ‘Now, I don’t love repeating myself for the third time.’

Kui emptied her purse on the table. She was horrified at the sight of a gun. ‘Hookers walk with lip bum, a packet of condoms, a mirror, and a comb. What are you doing with a bottle of Rohypnol, a strong sedative?’

Kui nodded her head. ‘I use it after my work. I have been struggling with sleep recently.’

‘And so you thought a drug that makes one sleep for 12 hours was the right pick?’ Kui said nothing. ‘This is not my house. This is a friend’s house whom you sedated and robbed in a club two weeks ago. He lost important contacts with the phone. He lost a business worth millions. I have been on your trail for days. I am contracted to murder you.’ The man cocked his gun. The cocking sound startled Kui. Her blood froze. For the first time, she noticed scary scars on the man’s face. They were freshly healed.

‘What would you like to say or do before I shoot your head?’ He raised his hand to aim his gun at Kui’s face. Kui did not winch a muscle. She did not respond to his question. He repeated his question while walking closer to her.

‘To kiss you,’ she said. Her voice was scratchy. ‘You seem a troubled man savored with solitude. Before I die, I want to show you some love.’ She added. The man blinked; emotionally. ‘Can I?’ She asked while moving closer to the man. He moved backward. For a second, the man ogled her cleavage. He blinked.

‘Stay where you are, or I will shoot you!’ He raised his hand to aim at her forehead. ‘I will blow your brain if you take another step!’

Kui gestured to strip. The man stopped her. ‘You are fresh from prison.’ She whispered seductively.

‘How do you know that?’ The man asked. He was unsteady.

‘I can tell it on your face. I just want to kiss you and give you what you have missed while in prison.’ She moved closer to him. He did not move back. His hand was unsteady. She pouted her lips, moved them towards his, and kissed him. When she pulled her lips away, the man was dizzy. His vision was blurred, his eyes heavy. In a short time, the gun fell from his hand. Kui grabbed him before he fell on the floor. She lay him on the couch and covered his sedated and sleepy body with a duvet that she picked from the bedroom.

BY ANTONY MAINA

oeodrstnSp8llhgl25 ghc31862a5fmi4tac0808yfJui9m1 f2lg922t,i0 ·

#newstory

A very beautiful lady entered the same shuttle that I was to travel with. Instantly, I imagined the possibilities that sitting next to her for a long-distance journey would present me. Maybe I would have convinced her to date me, or get her number. 8 hours sitting together promised a lot. To actualize the possibilities, I increased my pace to ensure that no one else sat next to her.

Just as I increased my pace, another man appeared from the opposite direction. His destination was the same shuttle that I was headed to. I imagined him having spotted the woman and having the same ambitions as mine. Rattled, I increased my pace again. Luckily, the man was walking sluggishly, like he was being forced to travel. I took advantage of his sluggishness and squeezed myself just ahead of him

‘Where would you like to sit?’ the tout asked me. I quickly peeped through the shuttle’s windows and spotted where she was sitting.

‘3B,’ I said, delighted. She was occupying seat 3A.

Elated, I bounced towards the door. Before I boarded the shuttle, the tout called me back. Had I paid less fare? I wondered. I walked back, angry that he was wasting the precious time that I would spend wooing the girl.

‘This man,’ the tout said while pointing towards the man whose life seemed to be succumbing to his mid-life crisis, ‘ is requesting if you can exchange your seat with his? He doesn’t like sitting by the window.’

‘Is he mad or what?’ I muted to myself, turned, and decided to social distance myself away from them. I wondered why such a man would want to sit next to such a beautiful girl? What chance did he stand winning the lady’s attention?

At the shuttle’s door, I was served with a rude shock. The lady had a kid on her lap. My heart ached slightly. She was alone, though, and that is what mattered.

The man’s laborious breathing behind me forced me into the shuttle. The lady moved slightly and pulled her baby firmly on her lap to create more room for me.

We held our gaze for a moment. Her eyes were restless, her lips were full-blown like a mature mushroom, her hair was neatly knitted into thick braids that resembled a black rope, and her baby hair curled on her face luxuriously.

She pouted her lips to offer me a warm grin, the one that people who are going to spend the better part of the day together exchange. I muted a “Thank You”.

Shortly after, the man, whose jacked smelled like burning chicken feathers, sat on his seat. His seat was on the same row as ours but separated by the alley.

His face looked like he wished to swallow me alive. I ignored him and readied myself to officially announce myself to the queen. To gain the mother’s trust, I winked at her kid. The kid responded by smiling. I made other funny facial expressions that earned a wicked smile from the baby.

I remembered a piece of advice I once received from a Wiseman. That the road to a mother’s heart is through the happiness of her child. The kid kept on smiling wickedly, and I thought I was doing it right. I made different faces to ensure that he laughed more and more. However, the harder I made the funny facial expressions, the more I realized that the kid was not amused by my face. I followed the gaze of his eyes, which led me to the man’s face.

Indeed, his face was funny. His forehead resembled the appearance of SpongeBob SquarePants characters. His nose was large and ugly as the character of Patrick Star of SpongeBob SquarePants. He made me understand why animation creators gave animations ugly virtual bodies.

To win over the baby’s attention, I downloaded the Baby shark doo doo dooo song. Immediately, the baby got baited and started making dancing moves to the songs. The man frowned. His hairline receded deeper onto his head, giving him a look of a low-budget Pres. Mwai Kibaki.

I wondered why he didn’t travel with his wife if he desired to sit and have the attention of a woman. When I turned my attention back to the kids, he was singing along the song. He even gestured to his mother that he wanted to sit on my lap to watch the video as well.

‘That is his favorite cartoon,’ the lady said. The intonation of her voice made me wonder if the god that gave her such a beautiful voice is the same God that gave my ex-girlfriend a voice that made her sound like Henry Desagu. The boy moved onto my laps, took my phone, and started watching the baby shark video.

The shuttle was just one passenger away from leaving. I was taking my time, just waiting for the appropriate time to announce my intention to the beauty. The man bought a newspaper and started reading it. Meanwhile, I initiated my initiative to build a bridge to her heart. While the baby watched the video, I readied myself to introduce myself. When I turned to say, ‘hi, I am Sakwah’, I lost my confidence and realized how hard it was to initiate a chat with a lady in a shuttle or a matatu. I postponed the initiative.

At around 8 AM, we left the shuttle’s stage. The baby fell asleep on my lap. To earn more admiration from the mother, I pulled off my trench coat and wrapped it around the baby to shield him from the ravaging Nairobi’s morning breeze. At the expense of winning the mum’s attention, I risked contracting pneumonia. The lady appreciated my gesture by muting a “Thank You”.

The shuttle moved like a turtle because of the morning traffic jam. In the jam, my head was burdened with thoughts about how to keep the lady engaged with endless talks. I wondered why suddenly I had lost the courage to talk to a woman. I kept on encouraging myself that I was not intimidated by her looks. Then an idea hit me; someone must have written a blog or an article on how to strike a lasting conversation with a woman in a bus. The lady was scrolling on her phone.

I skimmed through several blogs on the topic. About thirty minutes later, the shuttle had moved as far as the Koja rounder-about. At that point, I thought I had gained enough knowledge and courage to approach her. I created scenarios inside my head on how the conversation was going to play out.

Brain Cell 1: Hi (smile), I am Sakwah Ongoma, and you? What is your name?’ Most of the blogs had advised to keep the conversation simple and to start with a greeting and the name. I turned to face her eventually. I met her eyes staring at me as if she was anticipating that move. Her eyes were sharp, I felt intimidated but quickly shrugged the fear off to talk to her. I pouted my lips to finally make my move.

‘By the way, it is very dangerous to operate your phone in Nairobi while sitting by the window of a matatu. Haven’t you watched the famous videos that captured Nairobi’s phone snatchers on camera?’

She muted another “Thank you” and hid her phone in one of her pockets. I lost a great chance to introduce myself. I rued the missed chance. I went back to the drawing board to gain my courage again.

One of my arms was hurting because the kid’s head was resting on it. I endured the weight of the baby just to impress the mother. After we left Nairobi into Kiambu county, she pulled out her phone and started watching TikTok videos. Meanwhile, I was burdened by the weight of a sleeping baby on my arms and building my composure before attempting to introduce myself again.

At Kimende, Limuru, one of the coldest places in Kenya, I decided to strike again. My mind was brimming with courage. On this occasion, I intended to go hard with my introduction.

‘Hi. I am Sakwah Ongoma. Do you love reading books? I am a published author. I am an author like Ngugi Wa Thiong’o with two titles under my name.’ I thought this introduction was going to move her head.

I cocked my head on her side. She stopped scrolling on her phone and faced me as if she was anticipating me to say something.

‘Say it, tell her your name,’ my brain rallied me on.

‘I have been wondering, why is Kiminde this cold? How do people who stay around Kimende, Limuru, and Lari survive the freezing all year long?’ I felt my brains click and curse at my cowardice antics.

‘I guess they are used to it. They have an extra layer of skin to protect them from the cold, probably,’ she shrugged.

‘You have her attention, now introduce yourself, you coward,’ my brain scolded me. When I opened my lips to speak again, her attention was back on TikTok, smiling at a funny clip. Her attention had crawled away from me, again.

I cocked my head on the man’s side. He quickly lowered his eyes to pretend like he was busy reading his newspaper. He must have been watching me struggle to introduce myself to the beautiful girl. He had a wicked smile on his face. Were my woes amusing to him, or was he reading an amusing article in the newspaper?

The shuttle moved slower than I would have wished. My mind was in turmoil. When the baby woke up, he grabbed my phone to continue watching his video. He started crying when I tried to resist. Such an entitled little spoiled brat! I was forced to play the baby shark song for a long time until my phone went off.

I resigned myself to my cowardly spot. Sometimes as a man, you have to accept defeat. Going head-on collision to introduce yourself to a lady to impress her is not as easy as people think. But, there was one way, get her number.

For the better part of the journey, I conceived means of getting her number. Eventually, an idea struck me.

‘I would like to call someone, but my phone is off,’ I told the woman. ‘Can I use your phone, please?’ My idea was to use her phone to call my phone. On reaching home, I would have retrieved her number from the ‘I tried to call you!’ text from her number.

While the lady was reaching for her purse to give me her phone, the man decided to kill my vibe. ‘Here,’ he said with an extended hand. ‘You can use mine. I have storo bonus talk time from Safaricom.’ His phone was already in my hands before he was done spelling out his offer. I called my number. It was off.

‘He is off. Thanks!’ I handed him back his phone. My face was lugubrious at that time. I wanted to swallow him for taking away that chance. Because of why was he doing this to me? Is it because I denied him the chance to sit next to the lady?

When I looked at the man, he had another devilish smile on his face. He was enjoying my agony.

Still, I did not give up. I thought I still had one chance to get her number. When we touched down at our destination, I felt pressed. While everyone was retrieving their belonging from the shuttle, I left my suitcase with the lady. I rushed to the shuttle’s office washrooms to relieve myself. I conceived another idea on how to ask for her number.

When I came back from the washroom, I found the lady in the company of another woman. She had come to pick the lady. As I walked back, I eavesdropped on them talking.

‘Let us go, what are you waiting for?’

‘Some guy rushed to the washrooms. He left me to look after his suitcase.’

‘A guy? Good-looking?’ her new company asked.

‘That depends on a lot of things.’ My knees weakened at this point. I tiptoed and hid behind the shuttle. Shame became my companion.

‘Why are you helping him then?’

‘He helped me with Kylian. It is fatiguing to travel with the baby on my laps for all those hours.’

‘I see. Is he hitting on you?’ The friend asked.

‘He seemed to be interested. I saw him googling some stuff on his phone. He read some blogs on how to pick on a woman you’ve met in a matatu. I expected him to make a move, but he didn’t.’

Her new companion started laughing. Hysterically. ‘He googled what?’ The beautiful girl joined her in her laughter. I was in the mud, swimming in their unforgiving ridicule. I lacked the courage to face them. Eventually, they got tired from waiting. They left my suitcase with the shuttle’s driver.

I charged my phone when I got home. I received two messages from a new number. One of them was an ‘I tried to call you…’ The next text was provocative and diabolic.

‘Hello, son. You are home yet, or you still don’t have the courage to go home yet? Coward. You should have asked for tips on how to approach a woman in a matatu instead of googling for the same.’ The man chose violence.