X files

I write this blog in the memory of Anita (not her real name and no she is not dead). She is an X-file. An old one that dates back to 2003. She is in my blog now, because like other long lost shadows, we linked up on facebook a year and a half ago.

Yours truly is not exactly Mr. Gadget (though I surely think my 8 year old thinks I am), or am I? I will gloat here (where else, I know none will ever read it!), but 95% of my age mates in Kenya never dug into internet. Besides a workplace email address, the majority, rarely go into the internet for leisure. For that reason, I am indeed way above average. Thats just another facet of my extrovertedness led inquisitiveness, and the marketers itch in me that seeks to know what is cool about now, but I digress..

Anita deserves mention, because she is one of those girlfriends who though long gone, a man yearns for. This, likely to happen when he finds himself, especially on a Friday evening, seated at a late hours bar, watching the dance floor, no intention to dance,not in a hurry to go home. He could be a traveler, far away from home and home sick, or he could be plain sick from home. It’s the gal one wishes would emerge from the dance floor, or miraculously drop into the seat adjacent, again. Am I talking to someone?

That is the girl that kept the trophy, relegated as she was. You still wonder why exactly you broke up, never call her, for you still kick yourself when you think of what you could have done different in that relationship. Among the most memorable choice parting words she said to you were ‘you only know how to make booty calls’. She stormed off your flat in a huff, slamming the door behind her, or worse, left it open to the corridor, and yours truly sans dress square on the doorway.

No, none of that happened between me and Anita. We just sulked up on one another, and the next time she met me in the church I attended (because I expected she would be there) we were both stubbornly adamant and un apologetic;

‘How have you been?’

‘fine.’

‘what are you up to nowadays? (Read who is laying you of late?)
‘I went to choices last Friday and did not see you. You changed hang outs?’  (Needy?)

I knew she was making inference to me avoiding her and not  wanting her to see my new date, I swear. I bite off my next sentence, and instead ask her to join me for lunch.

On her end she must have realized the more she seemed interested in my recent life the more she appeared to be groveling to me. And being the stoic lady she is, she checks her watch and goes oh my God! I must go!

‘Why, what’s the hurry?’

‘I am meeting this new group.’

“New group?” Asks yours truly, in a suspiciously envious tone. In the last month I have been miserably blue, preferring to lock myself in my Forest Apartment room, smoking one Embassy Lights after the other, watching 24 season 2 over and over. Did I digress again? Don’t worry, I am filling you in, I am the party that I want you to sympathize with at the end.

‘Oh, I should have told you I went ahead to register with this UK visa processing assisting agency’

“You did?”

‘Yes, in fact if all goes well I will be flying out in three weeks time’..

Oooh no!!! I wanted to scream, please baby! Wait! You did? No, you are pulling my leg. Please tell me that you are trying to make me feel jealous. Then it hits me. She is dead pan serious!

“You are serious, right?”

She does not answer the question. She rather leaned forward and kissed wooden me.

‘take care!’

‘Mumble bubble hubble blandah.. Must have been what I said to her squared back. And you wonder why I never called in the next 4 weeks?

And then we met on facebook, and two dozen weekend international calls later, emails and FB messages, I have been able to piece together her life in the past seven years. She got married to the father of her son, who turned abusive, and unnecessary, and she moved on. She has custody of the five year old son. The childs father pays upkeep, and gets to see the child. She admits that she has "found herself thinking of me". Then she asks about missus. That takes me back to ground zero, but I will stand by my  woman this once. I will not desert her. And so I am Mr. perfectly married man to Anita.

Deep down I know like most married couples I am just trying to be stoic, having to make it work. It’s only later that I will find myself on that bar stool, at Oxford Street,  Bywels to be exact, down town Accra. Surrounded by ladies of four nationalities, in our group of seven, but only thinking of my college flame.

Did I lose you somewhere back there? Hope not. The big deal is, she is coming back to Kenya for the December holidays. We have an open lunch date on the 16^th of December. She will be bringing me the phone of my dreams, as a Christmas present. I cant wait to lay hands on it. May the god of marriages (who is the current one by the way?) intervene on this day.

Sorry gals if I lost you throughout. Ask your man what I was jabbering about. I hope he is not the smothered type.

I promise that you will be hearing more of Anita soon. Keep tuned. Karibu!