Help!! Is This How They Dump Liars? By Simon Nduati

Karen is the only star in my sky, the only firm thing in my Kamkam slum. I deeply treasure her and she devotedly reciprocates. But I hope she isn’t reading this, though she is semi-literate. You know, sometimes divine literacy annexes her and she ends up comprehending a whole comprehension. Or, on the other hand, it would be healthy if she read it; she will first explode into life-threatening fumes but then slump back and ridicule how piteous I am when it comes to being rejected. I’m really not gifted with unfaithfulness. I just can’t cheat but sometimes when I try, I always end up with my tail between my thighs. And its unfortunate (fortunate for Karen) that it seems I’ll never succeed in playing her that is, as long as other chicks keep on snapping me off. Like this particular one did, mchongoano style.

See, this lady Salome just cleared high school the other day. She’s what I call infectious- a dicken. She’s worth sleepless nights, hungry moments and troubling the Lord for. She’s even worth a heart attack; no loss contracting one as you think about her. And like many of my ilk (as she would remark) immediately I saw and concluded she was a harmless (and maybe helpless) dicken, I retreated to the drawing board and planned on how best to alert her love glands ( I thought she had them). I deemed it worthwhile to make her aware that two eyes plus a heart acknowledged her. So, I spent a sleepless night and an idle day deliberating on the raunchiest message to hurl at her.

After all my efforts I found the best I could access. On a tiny piece of paper I scribbled the words: “Salome, every time I see you, my eyes and nose become runny, my knees turn wobbly and my shoes come off –even my feet are excited!? It seems you are my bones, my blood and my flesh”. Wow, I thought as I handled the little sheet of paper to her 7-year-old brother plus a 20 Kenyan shillings coin bribe to ensure delivery and confidentiality. Then I sat back and waited. And, as sure as snow is white, the girl replied or precisely, retaliated. Oh my…she gave vent to all she knew in biology; Form one to four. This was it.

Poor earthling,

That I’m part of your body could be true (according to you) or false (according to me). It’s amazing, even amusing, that you get excited on seeing me. Even more amazing is that you took – actually mistook – this as the most appropriate moment to zero in. Boy, I’m not, I have never and will never be so easy-going. Like many others of your ilk, you are a plain liar and assume that I (read we) don’t know. Anyway that your shoes come off leaves a lot to convince me. Probably they are oversize so if I ever get deceived by such a plain lie, then I can only wish I be owned by an ape, having reduced myself to one.

Now, did you say I’m your bones, blood and flesh?  This again is solely according to you. I flatly don’t feel you and I’m afraid you can never be part of me. In fact I spent (or wasted) half an hour trying to imagine you, as part of me and the conclusions were utterly horrible. Savour my findings and share the piecing truth. I hope you got adequate biology otherwise, go back to high school.

My heart refused you a room, not even a rental one. You don’t fit in my auricles and you are too clumsy for my ventricles. I pitied you and considered you in my vessels but here too you are both a stranger and unwanted .I found out that if you were a blood vessel in me, you would only carry deoxygenated blood which as you well know, I don’t need. And for your information if your blood mixed with mine, agglutination would occur.  See why you fit nowhere in my circulatory system? Not my fault.

I guessed you could be dead serious about becoming part of me. That’s why you wasted a fraction of your turbulent life to think of yourself as an organ of mine. A trachea perhaps-call it windpipe. My poor boy, I chocked in imagining this. You are as good here as pepper dust in my nose. I guess you have once experienced a food particle or dust particle go past your epiglottis down the windpipe. And you were very comfortable, weren’t you? That’s exactly how comfortable I’d be if I ever allowed you to reside in my respiratory system. Roger that?

Sincerely I’d have allowed you to be something else; maybe a gall-bladder. But got one attached to my liver. And a working one too, ha! So, where did you expect to attach yourself? In the duodenum? And for what purpose, poor boy?

My last idea (actually I got tired thinking about you) was to let you stay in my brain but ooh gosh, I‘d need a battalion of psychiatrists backed by a legion of psychologists and guidance and counseling specialists. Like mad I‘d chew anything material like you do anything woman…shame on you.
Finally, good news at least. You’d be a complete alien in me-if fate ever compelled me to admit you. You’d wonderfully and fearfully make up several of my body organs. For instance you would fit well as a knee cap (although I’d be knock-kneed the rest of my life). Or you could become a heel or one of the big toes of my feet.  Then I’d be condemned to buying shoes as big as you probably have (or why do they come off?). You could also perform well as a fingernail or knuckle of my hand. You sound metallic. How do you like that? Were you the soles of my feet I’d wear no shoes. I’d walk bare on gravel for miles and suffer no blisters. I’d tread on ice (barefoot) and stand on burning coal (barefoot still). And thanks toughness, this sole would also play an unknown password to jiggers and thorns.

Dear boy (the word dear finally escapes my lips) it is not that I hate you. It’s that you hate yourself and hate others too. I wouldn’t hesitate calling you dear but it wouldn’t be real. You don’t deserve it. What with a pretty girl on your side and in your heart? Or you assumed I don’t know Karen? You think I’m not aware you plan to act a manner less player? What do you take me to be? A dust-coat, a hanky? Sorry, you sowed on rocks .Do you reap? I doubt. Just shut up and settle.

Yours unapologetically,

Salome.

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