Except you, no one else cared
By MUSYOKA NGUI
Before I had you, I had a fascination for seeing trees and
ground move under my feet. So much was the desire that I wondered how I’d balance
gas and gear.
But then like all fairy tales there was a dark side to it. I was
just a message and you were the channel. The three of us weren’t exactly a
trinity but as we jumped the bumpy patch, I lost count of how long time stood
and where my hide will be when the pendulum rests.
It was on Christmas and doctors were on strike. I lay on a
stretcher with strings and stiches on my left leg. My nurse called it overindulgence
in the party the previous night. Which party? The all Seeing Eye had missed a
great detail.
Then another night while chasing a contract my conduct was
blurred. The sharp bend was so near that I my judgment was rushed. And when it
was all over my annual leave became a sick one. Worse, except you, no one else
cared. And they keep insisting tuko pamoja yet they eat meat and us swallow
saliva. Okay, that’s fair enough.
You made much sense at first. With familiarity that comes
with closeness I started neglecting your service and one day, like all days the
in-laws come calling I was caught without a guard. I had no gear and I was
doing a four and the adrenaline was nothing imaginable. Then we rolled. My knees got soaked, not because of kneeling
but because of the hard surface landing that I had no clue about to happen. Again,
that day doctors were on strike. Such coincidence was unfair to put it mildly.
The first wife is normally the true love. My instinct had it
that even if time will come for us to part, I’d never move on. Because you represented
my spirit, my effort and determination. When I see you I remember ancient
civilizations and ask why Africa wants rushed modernization rather than going
the whole hog bit by bit like any other respectable empire of old.
Perhaps I will never love another like I did you. They might
be improved but you were the original copy. The serious machine that taught me
to limp on after falling and the itching headlong of a wound that left a permanent
scar that everything is possible for those who believe.
But then again it is your brevity that emboldened my
bravery. Somehow you connected me with the contours in my life and made me take
another direction.
*All photos for this story are from https://www.bajajauto.com/motor-bikes#
*All photos for this story are from https://www.bajajauto.com/motor-bikes#
