• Gentlemanly bachelor falls for the old damsel in distress trick
Diary,
It’s not so often that I find myself giving credit to any form of committed relationship. Actually, I do the opposite a lot. I’m always considering how vulnerable a man is in such situations. How he must keep things interesting for a woman’s sake, putting her interests first while losing his freedom, and so on. Last night, for a long scary moment, I changed camps.
It started with a longer-than-usual spell at the hospital. A colleague called in and I had to cover his shift, which saw me burning the midnight oil at work. It wasn’t until two in the morning when I got into my car, more exhausted than an Elburgon donkey.
Just off Ngong Road at the Southern Bypass was a vehicle parked by the side of the road, bonnet open, its emergency lights flashing. A woman stood beside it, flagging passing motorists. The gentleman in me couldn’t just drive past a damsel in distress.
“Haki thanks so much for stopping,” she said. “My baby just died on me.”
“Your baby?”
She smiled shyly. “I’m sorry, sir. I mean my car.”
I reflected her simper. “No problem, ma’am. I can give you a ride. Where are you headed?”
“I don’t even think it’s such a big problem. Do you mind looking under the bonnet, please? It might just be the battery or something. Damn thing keeps going loose on me.”
“I’m not much of a car person myself,” I said, rounding the lifeless vehicle, “but I’ve fixed a battery or two in my life.” I looked at the engine, no idea what I was doing. “Your battery seems to be okay, ma’am, but—”
Something hard and cold dug into my back. “Hands up, nice and easy,” the woman said in a voice deeper than I remembered.
I turned around to see not the woman, but a man dressed in black from head to toe. “Who are—”
I was slogged so hard in the head that I blacked out.
When I came to, I was naked in a forest, my clothes, phone, and vehicle nowhere in sight. For the four hours it took me to navigate out of Ngong Forest, I wished anyone (maybe a girlfriend or even someone I owed money to) missed me long enough to come looking for me.
Hell! I could’ve appreciated a nagging wife sitting at home suspecting me of being at a mpango’s.