FORGIVE ME PAST: New Day, New Worries

The first thing I remembered was my yearning for Rachael, who never showed up at my service. I was now an early bird, just in time to catch my worm! It had been such a long night in that at the time the chattering sounds of the birds fell into my ears, I felt like I had been saved from it. I couldn’t tell the time but I believe it was around 7-something, or clocking to, and people who take life seriously were already out, probably on their way to work or school.

At the time I ‘opened my sight’, after having my eyelids open for quite a while, I realized every passerby gave me a queer look before they continued on their way. I think I was looking like a mad man—and I admit I was looking like one. Good enough the rain had tried its best to wash Stone’s blood from my clothes, and the mud, painted brown any traces that may have survived the wash.

“What are you doing there?” the old askari for the rentals where Rachael resided barked at me the moment I sat up. I think he had been waiting for me to wake up all along. After collecting my senses back, I stood from beside the dumpster, a few steps from the gate—where I had made my bed—and dragged my frozen body towards the askari at the open small gate. I’d realized he’d be of help to me. “I know you man, I saw you a few days back. What do you want?” he asked again, but this time with a do-not-come-closer tone. I advanced anyway.

“Good morning sir,” I humbled myself, completing my humble appearance. He didn’t reply, rather, scanned me from head to toe with his sharp glare. I think he was trying to make comparisons between the legit figure that came almost two days back, and the wrecked being, with a similar face and stature, yet dressed in dirt and hopelessness. “I am here to see Nambi Rachael,” I went straight to my point after realizing I was talking to a dumb oldster.

“She’s not around,” he spat. Just like that? I thought. At first I believed he just didn’t want me to enter because of my appearance—and that would be a satisfying reason—but I got to prove that wasn’t the case. After entering forcefully, amid mutters and stares from the university students, and knocking and calling Rachael as loudly as I could before her locked door, I realized the old man had been telling the truth.

Using force to enter had its consequences, however. He came with three well-built university boys who literally threw me out of the gate! But even so, I wasn’t in any way offended by it, neither did I feel the pain of landing on the ground—I had completely sacrificed my mind to Rachael. This included doing everything inbetween in order to reach to her.

In a pool of brown water, I tried to clean myself, or at least making my appearance better, even though there was no big difference. This was the only passport I had to somehow blend in at Makerere University campus. I know ‘blending in’ exagerates the whole thing because I was far from that but at least I would maybe get half the glares I would have got if I had maintained my earlier appearance.

After hours of asking her mates and hunting for her personally, I finally gave up the hunt for Rachael because the precipitation of my emotion was shifting from the deaths I incurred the previous night to Rachael’s absence. Furthermore, I realized the more I stayed at the campus, more so with the programmed do-you-know-Nambi-Rachael and have-you-seen-her-anywhere phrases from a filthy man, the more I ridiculed myself and tarnished Rachael’s name before the posh campus kids. With an uncontented heart, I nimbled my way back to my sweet home.

The late morning rays were so young and timid because the heavy rainfall had left a thick layer of cloud, although empty, on the face of the sky. My mind couldn’t take in any more of anything, so the walk was not in any way tedious to me. The only information it was able to process inevitably were the rumours on the lips of everyone along the way about the murder that had taken place during the night in Kyebando. This made me feel like everyone knew I was involved, so I doubled my speed in fear.

Midday found me at the locked door of our abode. I had to inform Gerald—who was serious about not opening the door—that it was me in order to eligible for entrance. He cracked the door open, let me in and locked it again. The room was polluted with concentrated marijuana to the extent that one may have thought the god Achyls had taken shelter in our tin-roof. Before I could comment about it, Gerald told me how the foul smell, even though still faint, had started conquering the atmosphere in our mansion.

His eyes were bloodshot, clearly taking bare jabs from the unforgiving smoke, while his breath of vodka made me look aside as though I was searching for something. “I understand,” I said, coughed out the suffocating smoke, and continued, “Has Ronnie returned yet?”

“He hasn’t returned, and he didn’t leave with his phone, so there’s no way I can contact him,” replied Gerald, heading back to his side.

“And he went with the car,” I informed him.

“Yes, yes, I know,” he retorted. “Yet it is Kisule’s car, and he’s been draining my phone battery with call after call.” He paused and continued, “I had actually thought it was he who was knocking.”

“Do you think Ronnie went to get Stone’s medication?” I challenged his intelligence. He paused again, this time trying to figure out something, then returned to my side and sank in the sofa.

“We had also left all our goodies in the car.” He was finally coming to the page I was on. “What do you think, Kuba? Can he…” He cut the sentence and buried his face in his hands. Silence. I didn’t want to suggest things: I just wanted him to consider all possibilities. “Can Ronnie do that to us?” he finally completed his question, giving me a look of please-tell-me-he-can’t.”

“Yes, he can!” I found myself releasing it in the boldest of tones. “Everyone can,” I tried to hide my hatred for Ronnie. “I just don’t know if he did.”

“Shit!” he spat, clearly feeding the thought on a balanced diet. “How did I miss that?” He gnawed his teeth and murmured something.

“It’s not that he did it,” I tried to balance the boat, evading its sinking extremes. “We are just speculating,” I lingered in the fields of Murphy’s law.

“I know,” he retorted. “It’s just that there is no alibi to prove otherwise. Ronnie had become defiant of late, and I believe he is more than capable of doing something like that. It would be somehow okay if all grounds were neutral but now, if it’s true he betrayed us and left, with Kisule’s car, and then taking all that’s ours, making us harvest nothing but a dead colleague!” He was now very bitter. Silence. “If I find out that what we’re specualting is true, I swear I’m gonna make him wish he wasn’t born!” He cursed.

“What about Stone’s body? What are we going to do for it?” I tried to change the subject.

“I was preparing it for disposal into the swamp,” he announced.

“We’re going to dispose it into the swamp?” I asked, surprised.

“Do you have a better idea?” he challenged.

“I was just repeating what you said.” I defended myself from both his satirical question and cold glare.

“The swamp is the best place to dispose off the body because there’s no way the police, if anything goes wrong, can trace it, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to breathe-in such an odour,” he explained. “And becides, I neither know any of his family members, nor the location of their burial grounds, do you?” he asked the rhetorical question, and immediately added, “Come and give me a hand in this.” We went the other side where Stone’s body was.

He had folded it in a similar way like how the fetus occupies the womb, with knees and hands kissing the chest. “Why did you tie him this tightly? It’s not that he’s going to escape,” I revenged, but before he could find the best reply to trash my goofy concern, a loud knock landed on the door, accompanied with Gerald’s name being called out by the angry tone in the voice of whoever was behind the door. We looked at each other, and drowned in fear.