A TALE OF TWO RAILWAY LINES. PART 2: THE LOST SAFE

THE LOST SAFE

 The morning after the abortive tryst between Pita and the citizen, he woke up with an entire congregation of the Akorino sect members drumming and jumping up and down vigorously as they were wont to, in his head. The pounding in his head sounded like a mix of Allan Aaron’s ni kiriro and Daddy Owen’s System ya Kapungala. As he struggled to sit up on his bed, his head felt heavier than the cannon balls the Portuguese used in fort Jesus during the siege by the  Imam of Oman, Saif I bin Sultan.  The trip to the watering well to down some glasses of alcohol always produced the same results. A very nice feeling of being high and then the next morning, the mother of all regrets rests in your head chanting, I told you so, I told you so in a tone reminiscent of an evil mother-in-law taunting her daughter-in-law. It is crime and punishment.

He rose lethargically and started dressing. Personal hygiene was not one of Pita’s strong points and sometimes he could pull off a three day stretch without visiting the bathroom. The effect of this was that, he had a permanent characteristic odour hovering around him wherever he went. Apparently, he was a perfect embodiment of a childhood nickname that he had earned in class two- Lwenge (The skunk) He had earned this title because he had the uncanny ability of sending the class teacher out class whenever he felt like it. The process involved raising one cheek of his bum slightly and passing wind.

If you were unlucky to be within 100 metres radius from where Pita the lwenge  released  his secret weapon, then you would undergo an unforgettable chemistry lesson on diffusion. From his inner chambers, Pita would spew a stinking gas that could easily hospitalize a fully grown elephant, maim several rhinos and most likely put the entire population of the wildebeest in the Maasai Mara on the endangered species list. The stink would permeate the overcrowded classroom that normally would be composed of about seventy mucous sucking dirty imps listening to one old overworked teacher.

As soon as the stink attacked the teacher’s nose, she would shoot off her chair as though her humongous behind had been pricked with a pair of compasses. Her matronly figure would scurry out of the room with her dress, that could easily serve as a priests cassock due to its sheer size struggling to keep up with the retreating wearer. For such feats, pita was nicknamed Lwenge (skunk). Now a young man enjoying the vitality of youth, he had managed to add another feather to his gas releasing achievement’s cap. The stale odour of sweat.

Pita salvaged a t-shirt from a heap composed both dirty and clean clothes stacked next to his bed. He had for ages believed that, mixing dirty clothes with clean ones, reduced the dirt on the former hence reducing the number of times he would undertake the boring task of laundry. It was at this moment that he realized that he was not wearing his beloved pair of shorts. His heart literary stopped, he stood transfixed on the spot stupefied with his hand frozen midair, his mouth wide open and eyes literary dangling from their sockets. He stood mannequin challenge style for several minutes trying to reboot his memory. He was basically trying to reload the last known good configuration in his brain. 

Memory lapse or gaps were part of the myriad effects of the inebriating liquid he had taken the previous day. Pita rarely took off his prized pair of shorts. Now it was a catastrophe great enough to be declared a national disaster. His short, his safe, contained twenty nine thousand shillings wherever it was. One fact was certainly evident at this point, the short was not in his hut. His knees felt weak, his stomach churned and he started trembling with telltale signs of sweat registering on his door knob like nose. It was a scandal equivalent to losing 791 million ksh NYS money, it was Goldenberg, Anglo leasing and euro bond combined. It was a matter of national security. Losing the safe was like handing over nuclear codes to you know who, it was a matter that called for the UN security council to have an emergency session. A session that for once would witness China, Russia and the USA reading from the same script.

The realization of the missing pair of shorts hit him like a gush of cold water on his face. His brain though hit hard by the previous night’s drinking, went on overdrive and the events of the previous night registered in his memory in colour. All of a sudden it felt as if he was watching the events unfurl from a distance. It was surreal and he had to lean against the mud wall of his hut in order not to keel over. He remembered the watering joint where he had gone to drink, he remembered the sudden awakening of the president, and then he could see himself speak to the citizen and presenting his manifesto to her, paying the bill and walking out of the beer den hand in hand with the citizen.

As soon as the darkness swallowed them, they started groping each other lighting an inferno within their bodies. He saw the fateful moment he decided to use a green lodge to quench his fire. He remembered stripping to his Adam’s uniform and the fateful laugh of the hyena that saw him flee from the bush.

This last memory brought him up to speed. At least he remembered where he left his prized short and pair of shoes. He put on a pair of trousers and ran out the house like a mad man. Stones and thorns pricking the soles of his caked feet were ignored. However, the thorns ended up broken before they could pierce the soles of his hard feet. Sweating and panting, he negotiated the last bend and came to the bush he had rented from the gods of lust the previous night. His heart palpitating , he came to a halt and peered into the bush. On the grass, in the bush, lay his prized pair of shorts and worn out shoes. With unsteady hands, he picked up the pair of shorts, holding his breath and closing his eyes at the same time, he carefully searched the pockets. The safe was okay. The money was there. He exhaled.