From Sparks to Stories

"The court finds the defendant guilty as charged and sentences you to..." These words were deafening to his ears; he wasn’t sure he was awake at that time, but he sure was. All he wished for was that this could turn out to be a dream, so sad that it was all but the reality. It was dawning on him that he had lost the most precious thing in his life—his freedom—along with his time, his dream of having a family, and so much more. He was a family man, you know, right from when he was a kid. His father always said he would make a great father, and he was sure of that. The sound of the handcuffs clicking signaled his last taste of freedom. Well, all the time left for him to live now would be spent behind bars; what a sad way to live, but did he have a choice? They say life is like a wind; you can’t really dictate in which direction it chooses to blow. Maybe only God knows, but he was too ashamed to even ask God for help. And so he let fate decide his path. His mother was the mos...

 So ngaiz, you remember that 'hotspot lady' I couldn't keep quiet about? The one who made my head go into a fizzy the other day? Yes, that one. Imagine I found out that she eats ugali with a spoon... aiii! like who dasdaat ? Anyway, due to public demand, I am here to tell how it went down, haha! (continued). ..You know that feeling that comes with you successfully getting her to give you her number. Feels so good, right? so, this is me. It's been like thirty minutes since we part and I see the need to 'pop' her phone with a follow up text, just to make sure she doesn't forget about me you know.  I look at my phone, it is 3.10 pm, that's good timing, so I send the text.   'Hey there Pretty, It's Hans, the hotspot guy!' Just so you know, Hans has been my pen name since I went into writing. I find it a lil' classy. You might as well call me Brian but many are the times I have had ladies tell me ' haukai Brayo, wewe baki tu kuwa Hans...

He says that growing up, he had a rather salty relationship with his dad. His dad was the typical African dad. Those fathers who expected everyone to be on their best behavior when they returned home When he spoke, you obeyed. You'd never say anything back. You were never allowed to hold an opinion, and in case you did, you kept it to yourself. Not like in our days, where we have the audacity to scream, "I hate you!" and run to your room and slam doors. He paid fees, and you went to school. He said you'd study medicine, and you said "Yes, dad!" only to discover, during one of your attachment periods, that you hate what you do and end up hating the people you do it with, and the only thing you want to do is stand in front of crowds with a guitar in your hands and a crowd shouting in your direction. We are seated in this spot, under some shade, on a sunny afternoon, the kind of afternoon that makes you think, ‘What if the sun had moved an inch closer to eart...

I look at his elbows, they have wrinkles,  and those wrinkles have their own wrinkles.  The bottom of his trousers patched with a darker shade,  probably a tailor's effort to try and extend its time of use.  His head is bend low, like he is obsessed with sadness.  On his feet, are old dusty pair of sandals,  looks like those maasai's pastoralists wear in their quests along great spans of unforgiving deserts.  According to Troy, he looks like those men who wear their right sock on their left leg, he toils more than he breathes, sleeps less than a sinner, eats like it is a duty and forever walks alone. And, whenever he is walking along those campus corridors, he is always in a hurry, like he is always late for something. To him, every second counts.   He is an introvert, not because that is how he is or he would say 'I was born like this' but because his circumstances have made him be accustomed to that kind of approach to life. ...

I would have started this story with 'ushawahi kaa chini ukafikiria vile... ' but not today guys. So, do you ever sit down and think, you literally don't know what you are thinking about but you have these thoughts...scattered here and there. Well, like I had said earlier, one thing about me, I think a lot. But hey, don't mistaken me for an over-thinker, I know when to stop thinking, not every time though. I guess most of the times I have the most odd thoughts, like, why is grass green and not red or why do humans walk when every other animal 'crawls'...crazy, right? But lately, I have more sensible thoughts, like, after school, what next? So, today I am seated in this lecture hall, wondering I am tired, on a Monday morning. There is a thing about Mondays mornings, if not yours, then I spend my Monday mornings wishing for Friday. I think, being in my final year in my last semester has a role to play in this exhaustion. Honestly, I feel like I am riding on an em...

  Image by Freepik Trust me, when Biko says, ‘it gets better’, I want to so much believe that it does. But yet again, I have seen doomed men, I have seen men who find themselves in a lot of ‘dirt’, men who are born in shackles and have to struggle so hard to find their way out. Men who, by all means, embrace all that it takes to pull themselves out of the mud but are stuck on slippery paths and uncountable setbacks. Men who are born with the verdict already drawn on them, who are paying for crimes they did not commit. Or yet again, don't even know what crimes they are actually paying for. Men whose only crime was trying to be better at being a man.  Men who are stuck in an unyielding pit of darkness, men made of strong broken hearts. Is this what Lucky Dube meant when he sang his famous song… Born to suffer? Because how can so many bad things happen to one person? But guys, what happened to ‘Nothing beats a man with effort?’ Well, the other day a friend narrates how this movie...

Come to think of it, we have so little control over our lives. We can’t control who likes us and who doesn’t, we can’t control who will hire us and who won’t, we can’t control who we get to love and who loves us back…we don’t even have the slightest control over life and death. What I have come to learn is that we have so little control about how our lives and situations turn out…probably a whole 95%. But what we really have control over is how we choose to respond to situations that occur in our spaces. To be honest, I love control, I bet most if not all us do. Control means order and yes, I love independence, to shape the different aspects within my life and be the sculptor, crafting myself to the person I want to be. But with all the effort there is always something that turns out to be contrary of what you expected or rather wished for. with all that was said, it trickles down to one question, ‘how do you react when you find yourself in situations where things are so out of your co...