ONE-NIGHT STAND

YOLO, or whatever it is that you say when you encounter one of them on one or more of your countless weekend night escapades when intentional sobriety is never an option.

Your first encounter locates you in a two-roomed crib in the city you reside in solely for the purpose of pursuing further education but somehow, ‘extra-curricular’ activities become a part of that pursuit. It is seven youth against two bottles of vodka whose names you cannot even recall, but ensured that you felt their impact during the three weeks or so thereafter, leading you to master the rare decision of “Fanda bassion barit please” whenever in attendance in gatherings such as these.

Wale Mang’aa et al is blaring from a powerful Bluetooth device seated on the tiled floor of the venue. Four of the attendees are seriously joining forces to form movable rhythmic perpendicular angles with their bodies in response to the music playing. Not forgetting that one hype human being who is just chanting anything to keep the party going. Life of the party they say. That makes the only remaining two chill persons monsieur and yours truly. Strike a conversation you do and doubtlessly, vibe check. Before you know it, you are playing amateur masseuse in every way possible for each other’s ‘wellbeing’.

Evening goes and eternity comes. Keeping hope alive, you foresee the day you will get to experience his gentle aura once more, and better still, forever, along with the aviation skills he told you he possessed across Africa and into Mars, maybe. Who knows? Fingers crossed.Friday the thirteenth. December. Twenty nineteen. Same city. Different apartments. Almost similar scene, but more non-alcoholic friendly and merrier. That one particular chill lad with whom you connect easily. He reminds you of an old flame but fortunately, you always choose to remember not the things of old.

Three o’clock in the wee hours of the morning finds you receiving life-changing lessons and valuable pieces of advice from this Coastal hottie as he narrates to you exhilarating stories for hours on end. Cold prompted you to return to the venue, where your fellow comrades were tossing and turning in bed (definitely not due to a lack of peaceful sleep). Dawn came and life went on. You still pray and hope he becomes the physician he always wishes to be if the chances of his being your dawa ya baridi are minimal to zero and at least get the opportunity to state the Hippocratic oath when all is said and done if a marriage oath will never be an occurrence between the two of you.

Another day in the life. Another lad. Another experience. On this particular day, you down two sips of whisky with much difficulty as the sherehe begins. How you find yourself in the company of the only lightskin fittie present still defeats you to date. Tales flow with ease and laughter gets the better of you as time goes by. Much to your surprise, he even educates you on a section of matters women which you had no knowledge of and would come in handy for quite a long time to come.

It later dawns on you via a WhatsApp status that he was actually in his final year when you first met. Anyway, today is today. Many are the times that you imagine how life would have turned out had you actually ‘chosen’ them over they who relentlessly proved to be weapons formed against you that did not prosper as you think, some times aloud, “Ama mimi ndio mjinga?”

Well, hey, what do you know?

Gratitude up for the gift of men.

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