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35
- LANGAA RPCIG
- Chapter
- Additional Information
217 35 our months. Seventeen weeks. One hundred and nineteen days had come and gone. That was from the day Sam and Wanja were separated. That was a fact. Since then, his life was marred by the turmoil of a world gone mad, of a dark moonless sky, of a bloody burning disc of the sun, of a sunny baked landscape dry and cracked like the cracks on his heels, of an earth parched to dust. That was a fact. He had not seen or spoken to his wife in a while. That was true. Sadness consumed his every waking moment to the extent that nothing, virtually nothing, could have moved him through the gloomy interlude of his abysmal life save for the safe return of his wife. She was the only being he knew who could have moved him to a gradual ascent into the gleam of hopefulness, into the sunlight. That, too, was a fact. So he prayed day and night for her safe return, hoping that the Mighty one would have mercy on them. Then one afternoon, as he was sitting by his doorway, with his head pressed hard on its wall, Sam saw his friend Achaga approaching his flat. He had not seen him in days. That was about noon, and the sun was at its zenith. He was walking with a limp in his left foot, which had sustained an injury when he was running away from the GSU men. In his hand, he was toying with his cell-phone like a child. His face was sweaty and glittered like the sun, as though he had run all the way from his burrow to Sam’s flat. And perhaps he had. He seemed almost relieved to find Sam at home. As he drew closer to him, the muscles on his face tensed. His eyes were narrow and glinted lazily in the eye sockets. He feigned a smile, but Sam could see through him. It was not an all too familiar jolly smile he always had. After they had exchanged lukewarm greetings, Achaga handed Sam his cell-phone. He did not go into much detail, but simply shoved the phone into his hand. “Here,” he said. “Read it!” His tone was deep and stern. “Why?” Sam questioned. Achaga simply said, “Just read it! It is for you!” F 218 “From whom?” Sam asked reluctantly. “Who else,” he paused as Sam threw him a meaningful glance. “It’s from Wanja!” At the mention of his wife’s name, Sam’s face lit up. He smiled broadly extending his right hand to receive the phone. “Did you talk to her?” Sam said excitedly, his eyes away from the tiny cell-phone screen. “No! She sent you an SMS message,” Achaga said bluntly. Sam’s eyes gaped open. He was happy to receive a note from his wife. His joy was very obvious. Then, he started to read his message in silence; and this is what it said: Achaga, Tafadhali mwambie Sam kwamba Nico aliuliwa jana. Mwili wake uko mortuary. Wanja As Sam read, the light in his eyes went out as a dizzying feeling came over him. Had he been standing, his knees would have buckled from under him. The SMS message was very clear, that: His brother in-law, Nico, had been killed and his body was in a mortuary. The news was as chilling as it was startling. Immediately, his mind was plunged into sadness. Hot tears began to stream out of his eyes; hot and bitter tears flowed from his eyes as though the very spring of his sorrow had been touched in his body. He did not care about what people said about men who cried. It did not matter at all if people saw him shed a tear. Then, without notice, his emotions turned into rage. He ground and gnawed his teeth in anger and spat contemptuously on the ground. “Damn it! Damn it!” he mumbled more to himself than to Achaga. “Freaking contemptuous lunatics! How could they do it? How could they do it to him?” Unfortunately, Achaga had no answers for him. The culprits, who deserved the brunt of his rant, were not there to respond. It was only later that day he learned that Nico’s assailants were unknown and, perhaps, will forever remain. That was late in the afternoon when Sam got this second piece of news. It became, yet again, another dark hour of his life. Though he...