By Kevin O
During my sophomore year, in 2011, I had a crush on a certain lady in our class. The lady has a mellow, enthralling, magical voice which often made my knees weak. Whenever I heard the voice, my third leg would move a little higher- like KDF soldiers in a parade.
One day in class, while asking me to hand her something, she called me ‘dear’.
Now, hailing from the village- a place Silas Gisiora Nyanchwani would in jest refer to as backward- and being my first time to venture outside Nyanza Province, the word ‘dear’ meant a lot to me.
It meant that the lady wanted to marry me. It meant the lady loved me to the moon and back. It meant that the lady would love me in abundance or scarce. It meant that the beautiful, light-skinned jaber with an ample behind and succulent breasts wanted to be the mother of those boys now dancing in my loins.
I looked at my ‘would-be wife’ with a lot of longing and desire and love and admiration as I handed her what she wanted.
She graciously muttered a ‘thank you’ as she sat on her chair. I jealously looked at her chair. I wanted to be a chair. The Jaber’s chair. But I would do more than an ordinary chair does: I would thank her for sitting. I don’t know why she preferred a chair that wouldn’t thank her, but that is story for another day.
After class, I called my friends Mayogi O Riang’a and Calvin Mogaka, veterans in the Mafisi movement, and asked for nuggets of vibes to give Jaber.
Feeling ready, I looked for Jaber to relay the good news. I was imagining how Jaber would be happy. How she would smother my face with kisses. How her eyes would light up when receiving the good news. Ooh Jaber!
You see, she also wanted me. Why else did she call me ‘dear’?
When I got to her house, I found her conversing with the janitor, outside her door. She was telling him:
‘Mop well, dear’
I thought I heard her wrong. And I was ready to forgive her if she was cheating on me with the janitor.
Then, a certain guy delivered some pizza she’d ordered from a nearby café. Thanking him, she said:
‘Thank you, dear’
I was confused. I was dejected. But I smiled thinking that she had seen me, and was only calling the other guys ‘dear’ so that she could make me feel jealous. I was now convinced that indeed the lady loved me.
She turned and looked at me. Coolly, she asked:
‘What brings you here dear?’
Jesus on a borrowed donkey! My heart melted like cheese. My feet became wobbly. I wanted to run forward and encircle my arms around the love of my life. But I restrained myself. I wanted to play ‘hard-to-catch’ a little.
‘…er…er I want to see y-o-u…’ I have never stammered the whole of my life, but this day I muttered some incoherent gibberish.
‘Ooh..no problem, come in DEAR,’ Again! Things were going so well. In fact I saw us wedding the following week, getting a child the third week, and a second one the fourth week.
I got in. Unconcerned, looking bad ass, on a bed in the bed sitter, in shorts and a vest, was a mean-looking Ndume, twice my size, with beards all over his face.
‘Honey,’ she called, referring to the Ndume, ‘this is a ka-classmate of mine.’
I don’t remember when I got out of that house.
Kumbe kuitwa dear sio kupendwa.
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