Do you ever think about it? Death, and how it will come to you?
I do. Sometimes a lot and then not so much.
I feel like I know for sure that it will happen when I am in transit, so I try not to leave the house without my ID and hand sanitizer on me.
ID, because I don’t want to die and just die while my people have no idea that I lay somewhere; a pile, a mass of goofiness and ambition and love and laughter that have since gone stale.
When I am found, someone will have to go through my things, looking for ideas of who I was (as if I haven’t splattered my essence in emoji streaks across the internet).
When he, a balding man in his 30s, in a white shirt with blue stripes and black pants, finds me, my identity will be limited to the absence of beauty on my ID. A black and white girl, mostly black, with a pineapple head on her head. I want the balding man to be able to walk away after. I want him to be able to move on with life after someone says ‘I know her’ so I bring hand sanitizer with me so he can be able to get rid of the stink of death and enjoy a plate of pork ribs, the next day.
It will be on a Saturday night but I will be breezy and in good company so it will feel more like evening.
I’ll be in a friend’s car, Michael’s, from an artsy gig. Six of us cramped in a tiny Mazda. Slightly wine drunk, I’ll be telling bad jokes. We will be laughing our butts off because that’s how wine drunk people react to bad jokes. I’ll be sitting on Bill’s lap and my bag, the one with the sanitizer and ID, on Faith’s.
Traffic lights will change and Kenyatta Ave. will empty into town. Past GPO, Michael will take a left so we’re outside Bakers Inn and I can see their square pizzas on display and change my mind, deciding against Chicken Inn.
‘I think I want something delicious with pretences of health. Drop me at Subway?’
‘Are you sure? You should come with us, it will be fun.’
‘I’m not dressed for a party. Plus you guys will get me drunk and I have a few things to do before mass.’
‘Things? How dare you refer to your man as a thing?’
‘My man? Don’t I need to get him first?’
We’ll laugh. Because somehow the single life is the best comedy show ever.
The car will shift forward, banter will resume. Jeff will suggest a blind date with a dude that chews on the edges of his moustache. I will ask if it tastes like ndengu. I think I can stand ndengu soup if made really salty, so a man with a ndengu flavoured moustache should not be too hard to keep.
We will laugh and laugh and in the middle of our laughing, I will die outside the I&M building.
An Isuzu truck blaring Frank Ocean’s We All Try will dive into us and flatten me. I will cushion Bill, perhaps in payment for the lap and then I will turn into a carpet of fallen jacaranda blooms. My withering won’t hurt. The tarmac won’t be cold or warm, just black… and I will be out.
Leave a Reply