• The more the bachelor pushes away his Mzungu bae, the more she clings on
Image: MANUEL ODENY
Diary,
Though I consider myself irreligious, for lack of a softer term, sometimes I turn to the scripture to justify some of man’s actions. Like his innate ability to find fault in the faultless. I mean, man found a reason to crucify God. If that doesn’t make him uncanny, I don’t what does.
Yet, maybe that very quality of not believing in a higher being deprives me of the capability to go all out in a search of someone’s Achilles heel. Despite loathing the trajectory of my relationship with Ms Harper (it’s heading towards marriage, in case you’re not in the know), she keeps doing stuff that makes her look more like an angel with every passing day.
With so many people hurting from the losses due to the rain, Harper called her friends and kin back home in Chicago and apprised them of the dire situation in this country. They in turn dipped into their pockets for something small to assist their African friends. It just so happens that something small in Chicago converts to a hundred and forty-something of it here in Kenya.
For the past few days, my house had been empty since I had to discard all my furniture after it was ruined by the floods. Now it’s jam-packed with supplies, some shipped from abroad, the rest sourced locally. All under the auspices of one Ms Harper. She has amassed so much stuff, she’s had to draw up a spreadsheet on how we will have to distribute it.
Is this how it feels? Are these the early signs of being in… Is this what happens when someone is falling in… I can’t even bring myself to say the word ‘love’. I feel like the mere mention of the word will transmit the bug into me and I’ll end up shackled to the same one person for the rest of my life.
The rest of my life!
I have to get this woman back to the land of supersized everything.
“Look, Harper,” I say to her as she’s going over the day’s inventory, “we need to talk.”
She turns to me, a most beautiful look on her smiling face. “We will, love, soon as I’m done with this shipment. In the meantime, remember how you hate hair in the sink when you shave? (Dear Lord! She knows me better than I do myself) Also, remember that thing we saw advertised on TV when you were in Chicago?”
My eyebrows rise. “You mean the beard bib that clips to the mirror and collects all the hair?”
“Well…” She picks up one of the packages. “Happy Saturday, Tom. I had one shipped here for you.”
Darn it!