By Wesonga Robert
As long as he does not ponder about the touchy issues of society, Beni is generally a happy man, or at least, a happy looking man. My friend has understood how the human mind is structured. He knows its capacity to get mired in disappointment; its predisposition to get turbulent and troubled, should the undesirable be allowed to become its business.
Like a man who knows that the backside of his shorts is torn, he is satisfied living without minding what those who are behind him see. He reasons that they would only be ridiculous to laugh at him because the behinds of their own clothing are no better. In this fashion, he spends his days without worrying about what many have apparently stopped burdening their minds with.
Beni does not attend political meetings, neither does he discuss politics. Besides, you will not find in his library books discussing the rising and falling of economies around the world. When he buys a newspaper, his attention is restricted to the sports pages and columns by local and international literary giants. He reads Barrack Muluka and Philip Ochieng. When you ask him why he should limit himself in such a manner, he will tell you that he respects his soul too much to put it to strain.
Perhaps he is right. For who would not ruin his/her attitude by getting too concerned with what we have become? Is it not vanity to preoccupy oneself with a problem one had not created? He once mumbled that struggles against the preordained order are some of the most fruitless struggles that a human being may be unfortunate to get involved in. Perhaps Beni is right.
This explains why while I watch news ranging from CNN’s Backstory to Citizen TV’s Mukhtasari, Beni is either watching a movie, or sitting in front of his computer, rewatching comic clips of an old man in Botswana, reciting death poetry in a water processing plant. Sometimes when this inspiration of art gets the better of him, you will find him reclining on a rock on the banks of Kisima Lake with a copy of Ngugi’s The Detained.
Because he has exposed himself to literary works of enduring quality, Beni now these days writes. A few weeks ago when I went to his house, I found a story on his table. I had never imagined that he could write. From that story, I discovered that for Beni, writing is an end in itself. He seems to do it for the fun of it. I have decided to give you his story without changing even a comma. He would hate the idea of me pirating his work on Facebook. But again, perhaps he is right not to be on this social network.
Here it goes:
“In my psychology lessons back in the days when I was at the university, I was taught about how B.F. Skinner, after painstaking experiments, managed to come up with important discoveries concerning conditioning in human beings. It did not matter that the lecturer, because of where he used to go during Christmas, used to call the psychologist P.F. Sginner. What matters now is the fact that I came to witness enhanced rat behaviour, exhibited in a very peculiar fashion, in my house. I mean my landlord’s house.
I met the rat three years ago when I had just settled in Samburu. One evening when I was coming back from work, I found my neighbour’s cat trying to squeeze itself beneath my door, a space much narrower than its nose. Because my history with Kings, the cat, was characterized by mutual mistrust, he took off as soon as he saw me. It was later that evening that I discovered what Kings had been up to: a rat positioned itself before my television set just in time for the seven o’clock news.
After three appearances in my house at the seven o’clock news, a silent agreement was struck between the rat and I: there was to be mutual non-interference with each other’s affairs. Every time it left immediately the news was over. The rat even came up with its own designated path which ensured that every time it moved out, it twitched its tail to knock the knob of the drawer to my cupboard. While it did this, it executed a little trembling of its almost beautiful ears.
Shockingly, even when I was cooking what I imagined may have tempted the rat to stay around, it would most certainly walk out. In those cases, it left with some kind of swagger as if to say that it was not the aroma in my house it had come for. I decided to give it a name, Apiyo Lai, meaning ‘my uncle’ in Samburu.
If I say I was irritated by the presence of the rat, I would be lying. In fact this silent companion at news time added flavour to my news watching experience. For instance, I would watch with delight as it would rapidly rub its front legs together when the news signature tune played. Most interestingly, it seemed to be really amused by speeches from certain politicians – these politicians must remain anonymous in recognition of the rat’s right to keep the information confidential.
At least three times, I noticed that when a certain politician spoke, it stood on its hind legs and brushed its front legs upon its nose. It then thereafter made a semi-circle turn and, apparently too excited to go on watching the news, left prematurely. So characterised with understanding was our interaction that I always looked forward to news time with a bated sense of expectancy.
There came a day when I left work early so that by seven o’clock I would be comfortably seated, after having accomplished the evening chores befitting a bachelor. That day a certain politician who had been implicated in a corruption scandal had spoken with passion, saying something to the effect that his people were being finished by their enemies. By the time the signature tune was playing, the rat had not arrived. That was quite unusual especially considering the idea that I had come to rank that rat number one in punctuality.
The unfortunate occurrence that day was that the rat had not shown up still, by the time the news ended. Later that night I would get out to find Kings, the cat, snoring near my doorstep. What had happened is anybody’s guess. I slowly locked the door and went to sleep trying hard not to think about what had obviously transpired between Kings and Apiyo Lai.
Lacking a silent companion in my news watching, from that day forward, I started watching news in the house of a single salon girl who was my next door neighbour. That is how I got married. I also stopped hating Kings the cat. Maybe Kings was a creature that fate had brought in the course of my life to change it.”
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