Jayden

8:00.It’s a Friday and Denno hits you with the “Uko?” text. Followed quickly by “Come to Jaymo’s crib. It’s going down. ” Denno is your friend of many years. He understands your nature. In big crowds, you stay hidden, in small ones you come alive. He knows around the right kind of people you are an extrovert. Around everyone else, you are an introvert. Your friendship started in high school under mysterious circumstances that you no longer remember. After all, the point is that you are friends. How you met is a non-issue.

You do your best imitation of ‘drip’ and head out. After all, how you look is inevitably part of who you are. The best thing on you is your roommate’s cologne. Luckily, he’s on an ‘away match’ so he’ll never know. Safeboda comes in handy and you get there in ten minutes. Jaymo stays in their family house because his parents have gone to buy merchandise for sale in China. The music intensifies as you proceed from the gate to the door. 

8:30 “Okwonkwo una kitambi utawezana…”  

You look around for Denno and see him talking up a group of ladies each holding a glass. The contents are a particular drink from Tanzania that you only love out of peer pressure. Konyagi. Your friends call it ‘Kinywaji smooth’. You head over to the drinks table to get some shots and scare away your introversion. Three of those down your throat, you have already struck up a conversation with some guys about yesterdays’ match and it spills over to who’s better at FIFA. You head over to a room in the house set aside for gaming. You have to wait for thirty minutes before anyone playing on one of the five available screens decides to call it quits and go replenish their alcohol levels.

9:05.The party has begun to take shape. Jaymo knows how to throw a party. The gender balance is something chaps in a Juja University can only dream of. The drinks are in plenty and the music selection is top tier. The lights are dim. A sort of dirty green and dark red meant to give the idea of privacy and freedom without consequences to a group of people who would still do the same things under the full glare of the sun. In the meantime, you are busy embarrassing people’s boyfriends on FIFA. In the gaming space next to you, a girl is also making men cry for their lost manhood after a severe thrashing accompanied by skill moves that are otherwise impossible in an actual game. You pause for a moment to take her in. A queen. She looks pretty from the side view you get. However, you can’t take too long. You go back to the game. After this win, you leave the room and go back to the main room of the party. 

10:01. “Ka ni goshodo modooo…”

The first person  you see is Denno. He’s ecstatic that you came. He offers you a blunt. You have never said no to one in your life and you sit to let it go to your head. The all familiar feeling of unbounded happiness begins to wash over you and the room is filled with a freshness that wasn’t there before. The music has an edge to it now. It makes you want to dance. Or rather more accurately, it makes you want to attempt moving your two left feet in rhythm.  Sensations are sharper and stronger. You take it all in. Just before you stand to dance, your high brain decides it’s the appropriate time to contemplate existentialism. After all, any decent person takes time to ask why we are all here. This goes on for some minutes until your sixth sense tells you someone is watching you.

 The mellow feeling of drifting in your thoughts is ruined. Immediately you remember your mother who warned you that at parties people are drugged and sodomized. Or kidnapped and sold to slavery. Oh, what will your poor mother do? You hope it is your excited brain overdoing its job and look around to see who is watching you.  This is just in time to catch her eyes and for a second too long you stare into one another’s eyes. Creepy if you ask me. But hey, you are both a little tipsy and high. Somehow, you

manage to walk up to her. It’s the girl from the gaming station who also happens to be your classmate but you hadn’t noticed. 

“I didn’t know you play so well.” You attempt to start a conversation.

“You never asked.” Comes the answer that almost makes you go back to your meditation. Luckily, it is her who talks again before you excuse yourself. “I didn’t expect to see you here. How did you end up here?”

“Well, why did any of us end up here anyway?”

“…”

“Sorry, when I get high I tend to say such things.”

“High on what? ”

10:53. “I’m a savage, classy, boujee, ratchet”

“Uum…weed!” You have to shout because now girls think it is necessary to scream louder than the speakers.  

 She looks at you digesting your information and says she has never smoked weed before. You can feel your ancestors patting you on the back as you offer to light her the first blunt of her life.

“Can we do it at your place?” she asks, “I don’t feel comfortable doing my first blunt at a party. That never goes well.”

“Sure, when?”

“After this” 

Your jaw drops. Outside the window, you can see your ancestors clapping for you.

The two of you go to get more shots and hit the dance floor. According to research done by drunkards at the University of Nairobi, alcohol increases your dancing skills up to an optimum level from whence you begin to deteriorate. This research holds its grounds.

11:15 “Yes bana!” 

Nothing in the world beats the feeling of calling Uber to take you and the girl to your place. Possibly, because you wouldn’t otherwise use this form of transport. At the back of the car, she begins to explore your chest and stomach. You always enjoy the surprise on girls’ faces when they realize that beneath your apparent small frame is a very well-toned body. She runs her fingers across your chest and you sit and enjoy the feeling as the young king you are.

“Jayden, nanyesha leo. Si you’ll give me a belly rub when we get to your place? ”

You feel like a rained-on cat. You briefly hear the devil laughing at you over the car’s music. 

“Of course I’ll do it. It’s no big deal. ” These words are meant to convince yourself more than her. 

When you arrive at your soap dish apartment, she no longer feels like smoking so you sit down to talk as you massage her belly. She seems to think you are a nice person. Unlike the rest of the members of your gender, you are not a dog. Both of you are exhausted and want to sleep.

You sleep on your roommate’s bed. She sleeps on yours. The night in itself has become such a nightmare the devil himself comforts you in your sleep.

Saturday, 10:00

 She leaves your room after giving you a warm hug and saying you are such a darling.

4:00

A text from her, “I’ll come for the sesh tomorrow.*winking emoji*” You don’t know what to think.

Sunday, 11:00

T-shirt and sweatpants are the dress code. Your speakers are supplying your room with good vibes. Your roommate decided to come back on Monday. She comes in looking like the sunrise. Something about the way her dreadlocks look like a mane makes you happy. A hug later, she sits on the bed and starts by acknowledging your good music taste.

“I smile like me again, she smiles like you…”  

“Yesterday my roommates were talking about Mary. Imagine Mary went to her guy’s place, got high, and then she was raped. It’s as if people no longer see red flags in the people they date anymore.” she says.

“And here you are. For the same weed.” You say as you look for the lighter simply not understanding why she brought up the story.

“I know you are different Jay. I know you are a nice guy.” She says a little too confident of her judgment about you. 

“I tend to think she also thought she was safe…until she wasn’t. Here, put this in your mouth I’ll light it for you.”

She seems not to have anticipated your answer. She is a natural. She doesn’t even cough. 

“Hello darkness my old friend…” 

“Jay please pass me the water. ” her voice now drones off. She is high. She is laughing and singing along to the song on your Bluetooth speaker. Let’s pretend it is not fake. 

You get the water bottle and climb onto the bed. You kneel up right where she is seated so she is looking into your eyes. 

“When I give you this water you will drink it without a second thought. It could be drugged or poisoned but you will not think that because you think I am a nice person. You don’t even know me. I am silent not nice. In your high state, I could turn you to Mary in a second. And next week, someone will say you never saw red flags. Maybe sometimes, there are no red flags. Here, drink!”

Your ancestors are appalled.

You see her trying to calculate what to do or say next but she is too high to make a fast decision. Her eyes are the widest you have seen. You climb off the bed and sit on the only chair suddenly remembering why you don’t talk to people. The moment you show them your madness everything else you do to prove your sanity works to the opposite effect. 

Ephraim Karanja.