“Wake up. It's time.”
Muthomi groaned and pulled his well-worn sackcloth blanket back over his shoulders, muttering drowsy protests, grumpy at the white light of the overhead lantern.
Makena ignored him. Her son had hated waking up ever since he could walk. She went about breakfast: a strike of a match, a hiss of the cooking gas burner, a clang of metal pan over grill, a glug of liquid, a jangle of utensils... The noise always woke the boy up eventually.
Muthomi sat up and shook the goose bumps from his arms. Makena thrust a faded melamine mug before him, half-full of warm porridge; last night’s supper. He held the mug in both hands and muttered his thanks.
Makena squatted beside her son and watched him sip his gruel. She studied him: the tight curls of his coarse hair, his wispy eyebrows, black eyes, broad nose; his skin oily and pimpled, his cheeks too sunken for any mother's comfort... He just might survive, she thought. He must.
“What’s wrong?” asked Muthomi over the rim of his mug.
Makena returned to the corner of the single room house that served as the kitchen, kept her back to him.
“Hurry up or you’ll miss the bus.”
The two carried on in silence: Muthomi passed the empty mug to his mother, washed his face from a small basin, swished cold water around his mouth, changed into a fresh pair of shorts and sweater, folded his blanket, rolled up his mat. Makena knelt at the other corner of the room that served as their wardrobe, picked out a handful of her son’s clothes from a battered suitcase, folded them into a colourful mosaic rucksack.
She watched him put on his black leather boots, his own handiwork. Makena had a simple dream for her son: a young man must learn his trade and earn a decent living. Muthomi had taken to shoemaking, had spent many months apprenticing across the villages of the plains. It was a valuable trade, and he was already gaining a good reputation among the army men training in the barracks and the quarry miners in Ndoro Village—nobody could shine a boot or repair an old sole like Muthomi.
He was ambitious, too.
“For every dress you make, I will make a pair of shoes to match,” the boy had declared, to his mother’s amusement.
That dream was on hold for now. This was only a brief detour; in a few months, Muthomi would come home, where he belongs, and things would be all right. They would be better than all right, they would be mother and son, dressmaker and shoemaker, as the Creator ordained it. She would never let him go again.
Makena pulled the drawstrings, knotted the rucksack closed, and gave it to Muthomi. She had made the bag herself, using scraps of leftover cloth at the shop; Makena could not afford to be wasteful, not anymore. It was the first of its kind, made for Muthomi’s very first journey out of the village to learn his trade. His mates had been jealous of it; other parents had offered to barter for it, and so she made many more bags for the artisans of Ndoro Village. Soon, every young apprentice from the village travelled with Makena’s bag on his back. A discerning eye would call them works of art, but only Muthomi’s had his mother’s guilt sewn into it.
“I know we don’t have much,” said Makena, “but that should be enough.”
Muthomi nodded, slinging the near-empty bag over his shoulders.
“Now,” she said, softly, “you go and work hard, you hear?”
“Yes, Mother,” mumbled Muthomi.
“You are very lucky. That school doesn’t accept just anyone.”
“I know, Mother,” said Muthomi automatically. Makena knew that everyone had told him that already.
“Don’t forget the Creator, even if you are far away from home.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Once you are finished with your learning,” said Makena, crossing her arms around her waist, “you will come back and help your village.”
“I promise, Mother—”
“Don't,” snapped Makena. “You don't know the future.”
She barely got the words out; she wanted to pour her heart out to her only child, but it was too late now. It had been too late for a very long time, she knew, and it was not fair. It was not fair for her to send her son away, never to see him again. Makena swallowed back the pain that shredded her heart. She turned back to the old suitcase, making a fuss of tidying up; her son must not see her crumble.
Makena was no stranger to abandonment. Muthomi’s father, Mugambi, would go on many of his own journeys, and every time he left, he would take a piece of her soul with him. He had only been home a handful of times when their son was a child. He had been gone a long time now, and many believed that he was likely dead—what journey would take a man eight years, with no word to his wife and son? But Makena would not hear of it, she would never discuss it, and besides, she always said, Muthomi would soon be a man; he must look to his future. What good would it do him to wear his boots backwards?
It was not Muthomi’s first journey either. Makena had insisted that her son traverse the plains to perfect his trade. He would be gone for weeks at a time, always staying with a relative, and always returning with an unusual tool, a timesaving trick, or a funny story to share with his mother and his friends. He would always come back that much older, that much more sensible.
This would be the farthest that Muthomi had ever ventured on his own. Makena told herself that she had prepared him well, that she had done her best, even though she did not quite believe it. Muthomi had been brave, fourteen years of age, more man than boy. His mother only saw her toddler, leaving her just as his father did.
Makena’s shoulders were shaking. Her breath was ragged.
“Mother?”
Makena stood abruptly, stepped over her own sleeping mat and ran her hands over the adjacent wall. She pushed aside a small wooden picture frame; Mugambi’s etched smile hung sideways.
She had to hide it safely, in a crack in the earthen wall. She retrieved the small plastic rectangle and pressed it into her son’s hand. A tall dark man had brought the card to Makena’s corrugated iron sheet door. Behind the man, a small group of neighbours had gathered, a stone’s throw away.
“Joseph Muthomi-wa-Njema?” drawled the man. He spoke the name as if it was a foreign language.
“Who is asking?” Makena had demanded, placing her hands on Muthomi’s shoulders. Her stance was clear: he is mine.
The man removed his black sunglasses and stared at Makena with his deep brown eyes, eyebrows raised in apparent amusement.
“I am Jared Omondi from Clarence University,” he said, producing a plastic identification card from the inside of his jacket pocket. He held it up vertically for Makena’s inspection; she squinted at it, very sceptical despite the man’s visage matching the image on the card. There were words on the card, but she could not read them; the man probably knew that already, which made her all the more suspicious.
“How may I help you, Mr. Omondi?”
“I am sure you are aware of the university’s annual recruitment drive?” said Mr. Omondi. Makena bristled at his tone. His strange accent drew out his Native, buried underneath the English; the inflections alone made her feel far less intelligent than she knew she was. “Your son here, Madam, has been awarded a full scholarship as part of our Community Advancement Program. Congratulations.”
This last word he addressed to Muthomi, but it had been a punch in Makena’s belly. The man gave the boy a little sealed card, the same size as his own ID. “You are to bring this with you—it is your temporary identification—when the CU bus arrives back here in exactly three weeks from today. The details are on the back of the card. Assuming that your comprehension level is sufficient, the instructions should be easy to follow. Now, stand here, please.”
Mr. Omondi indicated the earthen wall, retrieved a rectangular device, and swiped his index finger up and down over it. Muthomi took a step forward, but Makena’s grip remained on his shoulders.
“What do you want with him?” she demanded.
The man laughed at the woman’s silly question. “I am taking a picture of your son, Madam,” and when she was unconvinced, he added, “for the new school. We have many students, you see.”
“I have a sketch of him,” she said. “It is a picture, it will do.”
“Mother, it’s alright,” said Muthomi.
Makena took her time before releasing her son. He stood beside the wall, Mr. Omondi held the device at arm’s length, and a gentle clicking sound indicated that the ordeal was over. He turned the device face-up to the boy and his mother; on the screen, Muthomi looked back, in full colour. Below the picture was a small white box. “Press your thumb onto the box, please,” instructed the man; another clicking sound and the device saved Muthomi’s fingerprint.
Mr. Omondi replaced his sunglasses onto his nose, adjusted the bridge with his middle finger, nodded his farewell, and walked off through the parting villagers and into a white sedan, with the university’s blue cursive initials branded onto its sides.
Muthomi had spent the three weeks receiving blessings from the elders and celebrating his good fortune. Makena had spent them fasting and praying for the reporting day to never come. As time passed and her prayers remained unanswered, Makena’s fear settled deeper into her bones; no amount of faith could appease a mother’s instinct.
Makena clicked off the lantern at the switch beside the door.
“Come on,” she said, easing the corrugated iron door open.
Ndoro Village was stirring in the light of dawn; some neighbours and friends peered at the twosome through parted curtains and half-closed doors.
Former friends, Makena corrected herself. Ever since the university man had come, everybody seemed to reek of envy. People that she had known for years, loyal customers, church friends, confidants… All of a sudden, business was down; congregants kept a noticeable distance from her at service; her closest companions spoke ill of herself and her son. She could not, for the love of the Creator, understand why she would be worthy of jealousy. She was the one losing her only child, not them. Makena kept her eyes down and her pace up.
“Ignore them,” said a leathery voice.
Mama Oti had appeared from the morning mist and placed a withered hand on Muthomi’s shoulder. He started, and then laughed; Muthomi was always happy to see his grandmother.
The old woman was famous for her tread; it was said that she could sneak up on the Creator Himself. She had lived in Ndoro Village all her life, and she knew all the onlookers and their children. Not once had she advised her daughter-in-law to pay no mind to their gossip.
“Mama, you didn’t have to come,” said Makena.
“I know what I’m doing, Makena,” said Mama Oti. “Life is long, and soon, they will not matter.” She jabbed a finger towards the cowards.
Mama Oti was the village teacher, for reasons that nobody really understood. She was only one of her kind, and she clung to her trade. She taught the children their basic numbers and letters, even though they would not need them. Their trades only required a keen eye and a lifetime of training, none of that reading-and-writing nonsense. And when she was no more, they said, who would continue with her work?
Mama Oti would only smile her wrinkled smile and shoo the naysayers away.
Makena loathed her. If it had not been for Mama Oti’s meddling, they would not be here, threading their way through the village under green-eyed gazes.
“Muthomi,” she said, “I brought you something.”
Mama Oti fumbled under her shawl, her hands searching the folds of the fabric. Muthomi slowed down to receive his gift. “Keep walking, child,” snapped his grandmother. She handed him a rectangular object, heavy, hard, wrapped in a plastic bag.
Makena panicked. “Mama, please, no…”
Muthomi frowned at his mother.
“He must know,” said Mama Oti, calmly. To Muthomi, she whispered, “Protect it with your life.”
“What is it?” asked Muthomi, as he struggled to place his gift into his drawstring bag without slowing down.
“All in good time, my boy.” Mama Oti patted his head. “You will be alright.”
Makena’s dislike of Mama Oti had originally been generational: the old woman held old beliefs, refused to move with the times, while the younger embraced change fully, and raised her son accordingly. They tolerated each other for lack of choice. But when Mama Oti decided to make life-altering choices on Muthomi’s behalf, Makena found it harder to disguise her bile.
To the village elders, Muthomi was their pride. Few were left that had received an education, and even fewer that had been to the Big City, the Capital. Even though Ndoro and other villages of the plains thrived on apprenticeship and barter trade, the old folks’ faith in academics was unshakable, only second to their belief in the Creator. Time made academia something of a myth: there were riches and opportunities that were only accessible to the educated; there were unspeakable wonders of technology that to a humble trader would seem divine. Only the most exceptional of people would ever set foot in that wondrous place called the University.
It was all laughable, really. Nobody from the villages had any hope of living this dream; that is, if it was not for the generosity of the Institutions.
Every few years, the universities of Kirimara recruited the “best and brightest” of the villagers—those that could at least read and write their own names—and took them under their corporate wings, and Educated them. This was, of course, for the benefit of the village communities. Clarence University was the most prestigious of all, and they searched for the learned in Ndoro every end of year.
Sometimes they came up short. Mama Oti was aging, the children multiplied in the village, and people cared less and less about the whole literacy affair. Learning had to take place under the barren Ndoro tree, ancient like the baobab. Each child wrote their words and numbers using white chalk on little black slabs of wood. Pencil and paper were precious and rare; they all had to make do without.
The old ones could wax lyrical about the marvels of a Degree all they wanted, but the villagers depended heavily on the sweat of their brows to sustain a living. A day spent sitting in a classroom—or under a withered tree—for an education would never be more valuable than a day of hauling one’s wares to the next village on market day. Why dream of an unattainable piece of paper that would make you useless at home? Learning was reduced to rudimentary arithmetic and useful phrases, just enough to avoid getting swindled. Everything else depended on the strength of your sinews and the sharpness of your wit.
Such was the rift between Makena and her mother-in-law, but with every step they took through the village paths, the rift became a chasm.
The sun broke out over the hills. Mama Oti slowed to a stop. She held Muthomi by his shoulders, kissed him on both cheeks and peered into his eyes. “Return to us,” she said, with a gentle smile, and turned back the way she came.
Makena and Muthomi walked past empty roadside vegetable stalls, and drunken youths asleep against makeshift pubs, past young girls making their way home after selling their bodies through the night. Makena would have said a silent prayer for them all, but it was hard enough to keep one foot in front of the other.
She stopped. Up ahead, she could see the landmark: the old post office.
“Keep going. They said they will pick you from there.”
She kept her eyes forward, a hand lingering over her throat. If I look at him, I will die, she thought. She felt him falter, but he steadied himself. He was fourteen years old after all, and it would be a shame for him to weep.
Two steps forward and the boy turned back.
“Go on,” said Makena.
Muthomi obeyed. Had he looked back, he would have seen his mother collapsing onto her knees in the red soil, her grief tearing through her soul, her lips soundlessly moving, crying into a small, crumpled canvas drawing of her son, pleading with her Creator: Return him to me.
***
K RIMARA AU HOR TI S
NDORO COU TY HIGHW Y COM ISS ON
2040 GR SSROOTS-TO-D GNI Y (G2D) SCHEM PH SE II
NDORO-RUI ROAD CO STR CTION
INI IATED: 2008 C MPLET D: 2 09
“For the go d of one a d all”
The signpost stood several feet above Muthomi’s head, a disfigured rectangle on dented stilts. Years of dry winds, scorching sun and random vandalism had left only the faded beige paint and chipped concrete, and a distressed border of red, white, black and green stripes. On the ground around the sign were the concrete stumps of signposts past, which once pointed to administrative offices and government services. All that remained standing was the ancient post office, its cracked red-and-white walls with bleached blue letterboxes, their numbers long forgotten, the windows boarded up, the mottled grey brick roof half-caved in.
He watched the road, a long stretch of brown murram pocked with potholes. He listened to the birds’ chorus fade away, felt the temperature rise with every inch that the sun climbed in the sky. He watched the Rui Hills to the east, pale grey and blue, ridged like molars. He faced west, to the Shama Hills, sharp, angry, and menacing. There was nothing but scraggy acacias, limestone quarries, military barracks and self-styled guesthouses by day but brothels by night.
It was an eternity, awaiting his fate; soon, Muthomi felt as forlorn as the old post office at the edge of Ndoro Village.
He looked back, but his mother was long gone; he laughed at himself for feeling anything but excitement. He was finally going to see Mount Kirimara, its four peaks touching the heavens. He was going to marvel at the Capital, make new and useful friends at the Big School, and at the end of his first term, in three months, he would come home to tell everyone all about it. At the end of his two-year scholarship, he would be a Learned Man, just like his father, and his grandfather before him. It was a great honour to be attending the University.
So, why did terror freeze his feet inside his boots? He rubbed the grip of fear from the back of his neck and walked to the battered steps of the post office.
Muthomi had never been this alone before. There was always his mother, or a relative, or a friend, or a mentor… His thoughts rang clear in his mind: he felt afresh the palms of the elders, gently patting his head, their crackled voices muttering blessings over him; he heard the comforting, repetitive din of the metalwork artisans at the village forge; the spontaneous laughter that always arose on market days. All this thinking… It made him queasy.
He blew the dust off the steps and sat down. He clutched his bag like a shield; his grandmother’s gift dug into his chest.
In the bright morning light, the parcel looked much bigger than when Mama Oti passed it onto him. He untied the top of the black plastic bag, but the knot was tough. He bent to loosen it with his teeth…
He heard a gentle rumble in the distance. Must be a lorry, he thought, heading to the quarries that marred the landscape. Still, he replaced the parcel into his bag and tugged it shut, strolled to the edge of the road. He spotted the glint in the sunshine and his knees nearly gave out.
The Clarence University bus pulled to a stop in front of him. The door slid open. Muthomi clutched at the straps of his bag and held his breath.
Mr. Omondi stepped out and looked down on Muthomi. The boy shrank under his gaze.
The man snapped his fingers twice, held out his hand, palm up. Muthomi removed his temporary ID from his pocket. His hands shook; Muthomi cursed them. The man pointed a scanner onto the barcode on the face of the card; a gentle beep confirmed Muthomi’s identification. The man returned the card, turned swiftly and boarded the bus.
Muthomi cursed his knees for trembling, his brow for sweating, and the sheer willpower it took to climb onto the bus. He could already hear his old friends sniggering at his chicken heart.
The icy air-conditioned atmosphere inside the bus sliced through his clothes. The bus door slid shut behind him with a hiss. The vehicle jerked forward and into a pothole. Muthomi grabbed at a seat, heart racing, eyes wild. That sniggering again, but it came from Mr. Omondi at the front seat beside the driver.
“Do you need your mother to hold your hand?” the man sneered.
Muthomi sank into a seat two rows behind the driver, furious at himself and the world. He scowled out the window at his receding village. It was slow going; the driver eased the bus clear of bumps and potholes, not always succeeding. It aroused strange looks and pointed fingers as it moved over the gravel road. It passed a silo under construction; the builders stopped to stare, and Muthomi futilely waved at the men at work, through the impenetrable tinted bus windows.
The road was rough, but the ride was easy. The cool air, the occasional grunt of conversation between Mr. Omondi and the driver, the dim artificial light overhead, the passing grey landscape, the soft, comfortable seat… they soothed Muthomi’s nerves.
His hands drifted into his bag and felt for the knotted parcel, gently coaxed it loose.
Muthomi watched the men at the front of the bus; their conversation had dwindled to companionable silence. He retrieved the item from the plastic bag and gasped.
Mr. Omondi glanced back at the boy through the large rear-view mirror, but Muthomi was too preoccupied to notice. The man eventually grew bored and looked away.
Muthomi stared out the window, barely seeing the dim landscape, his mind a blank for what felt like hours.
It was an honest mistake, he decided eventually. It must have been. Muthomi would keep it safely and give it back to his grandmother when he returned home. Because why would Mama Oti give him a… a book?
Maybe it was a symbol of sorts: he was on his way to the Big School, so, why not give him something to read? Mama Oti had unwavering faith in her grandson, but Muthomi knew that his reading skill was far from good enough to read a whole…
He looked down at the volume in his lap. A plain green hard cover with three words printed in shiny golden letters on the front. Just like the bible, thought Muthomi, except that one of the words was his surname, Njema.
A memory surfaced in his mind. Two years ago, Muthomi had been sitting for his portrait—his mother had nothing to barter for it other than her Sunday-best dress. Makena had insisted on the painting, since Muthomi was hardly ever home.
“We had pictures, you know,” Makena had said. “Pictures on paper, and we’d put them in the sleeves of an album.” The painter had nodded and spoken of… it was a big word… photography.
It was just before Muthomi was born, his mother had said, when the Authorities decreed that everybody must surrender their old books and newspapers because of some new law. The villagers were not bothered by it, they were happy with their trades.
A few days after the announcement, the army men invaded all the villages. They never saw it coming.
The soldiers took everything, every scrap of paper they could find. They did not spare a picture album, a diary, a trade license, a certificate, a book, well, except for the scriptures, if you pleaded your case. They raided every building over many weeks, conducted random strip searches; the used-books traders watched their livelihoods turn to ash, the few schools sprinkled across the villages were shut down, all their materials destroyed, teachers and their students sent home with no explanation.
The Authorities arrested the protestors, controlled the riots with live weapons. They consistently refused to acknowledge the villages, let alone compensate for their losses or replace their documents. The villagers felt betrayed—they may be unlearned, but they understood that the Authorities had robbed them of something very important, something tied to their very souls, and blood had been shed for it.
Soon, the villages turned their backs on the Authorities. They kept their heads down, worked their lands, and learned their trades. No help would ever come.
“Many of our people are still missing,” the painter had said. “The ones that did return…” he had clicked his tongue and shook his head. “The Authorities are not known for mercy.”
The story had been just that, a story, of a time before him. Minds had changed, and everyone now wanted to be a soldier in the Kirimara Army. Surely, they could not be so cruel.
But then again, Muthomi had crisscrossed the villages in his apprentice treks since he was seven years old, and the only other volume he had ever seen in his life was the bible, and even that was rare.
And now he was on his way to the heart of the nation, carrying a book.
Protect it with your life.
His head ached, his neck stiffened, his chest seized up: he was suffocating. Muthomi scrabbled at the window and slid it open, gulping down the warmer air.
This time, Muthomi noticed Mr. Omondi’s gaze in the mirror up ahead. He pushed the book into his bag, drew up the strings, and smiled at the man.
“You alright?” asked Mr. Omondi.
“Yes, sir,” nodded Muthomi.
“Sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
The bus pulled to a stop.
“We’re here,” said the driver.
Mr. Omondi stepped out, scanner in hand. A beep confirmed another new recruit to CU. A shrunken, ashen girl boarded the bus, her skeletal frame shaking with fear. She carried nothing but her temporary ID in her hand. She cast a pleading look at Muthomi as she made her way down the aisle and sat two rows behind him. The doors hissed shut once more; the ride continued.
Muthomi felt the book burning through his bag. He set it on the seat beside him. Then he laughed at himself: there was nothing to be afraid of. It was simply a present, a show of his grandmother’s faith in his abilities. If not, then she was simply old. Maybe she was a little confused, and the elders were allowed to be a little mixed up every so often. So, the matter was settled: as soon as he was back in Ndoro, he would return the book to Mama Oti, and he would do himself good to leave his cares to the Creator and enjoy the ride to university.
Muthomi noticed the cycle: a stop in a new village, a beep, and a terrified, weather-beaten teenager climbed onto the bus. Four boys and one girl: the scholarship recipients for this year, the luckiest, most blessed, most fearful group of youths he had ever seen. Muthomi wished badly to speak with them, but dread clawed at his insides no matter how much he calmed himself. He needed to know that he was not alone. But the newcomers averted their eyes whenever he looked their way. They rode on in silence.
The rudimentary village shacks and homesteads gave way to tall, solid structures, muted colours and sharp edges: loose, potholed gravel gave way to smooth black tarmac. Grey stone go-downs, white greenhouses, flat-topped and glass-faced storied buildings replaced the reds and browns and yellows of the plains. The howling winds and clear skies of the lowlands gave in to the smog and traffic of the metropolis. The walking nation, the workers and work-seekers trekking for kilometres to workshops and factories, dissolved into the driving nation, pinched and scowled faces behind steering wheels and engines, the hostages of highway gridlock.
The dirty sunset spread over the city, the bus continued steadily on, albeit down to a crawling speed, into the Capital, the gem of Kirimara, the pride of the nation.
Streetlamps flickered on above the highway as far as Muthomi could see. He saw the hardworking citizens in the office complexes of the Capital, some for lack of choice, some just hanging back to avoid the mad rush of the multitude in suits, men and women who clutched at their briefcases and handbags, kept their heads down and made their way to their bus stops. Hawkers filled the streets with their wares, their goods spread on worn out sacks, poised to run from law enforcement. More milled in the middle of the road, brazenly ignoring the hooting cars, and sold their bananas and cheap sunglasses and, occasionally, puppies, and miscellaneous paraphernalia that Muthomi didn’t recognise. Even from the serenity of the near-empty university bus, Muthomi felt congested. He pulled the window beside him shut.
The billboards astounded him. Enormous, eye-watering, ever-shifting images glowed even brighter after dark. They were loud, too—Muthomi could pick out the music and voices over the rush-hour din. They were on almost every high-rise building, in every gap on either side of the highway, and not a single one in Native. At one roundabout stood the tallest display, a triangle of adjacent billboard screens surrounded by sculpted greenery. A deep masculine voice faded in and out as the bus navigated past it.
“Welcome…”
“…mountainside city…”
“…future…”
An overhead shot of the four peaks of Mount Kirimara dissolved into a crisp, clear cityscape. Stern-faced technicians in white lab coats transformed into smartly dressed diners at a fancy restaurant, smiling in slow motion. Dimpled children swimming in blue pools turned into prim little boys and girls, walking hand-in-hand with their parents at a shopping mall. Over and over the images played, the voice droned, the melody looped… The billboard cast its harsh lightshow over the roundabout at the heart of the city.
On every fifth billboard were the name and logo of the Clarence University, showing the most beautiful young men and women on the campus grounds. Some wore their graduation garb, others attended their classes, all looking flawless, elegant, glamorous. Muthomi looked down at his tatty boots, his patchwork rucksack, his mended-over sweater and shorts. His companions too looked as rough-hewn as he did, a look that came from years of learning a trade and facing the elements. He shifted in his seat, suddenly self-conscious.
The bus turned off the broad highway and left the city behind. The difference was dramatic: on either side of the road loomed huge multi-coloured shopping complexes that held an array of signs, all promising an exceptional experience for the whole family. The billboards here were bigger, louder, showing picture-perfect parents buying expensive-looking toys for their picture-perfect children, attractive young men and women swaying in fashionable clothing, sparkling drinks pouring into crystal glasses, mouth-watering food spinning gently on glossy plates. Gamblers offered jackpots with more numbers than Muthomi believed existed. Grand hotels bragged about their five-star distinction and bespoke service; moneylenders promised endless credit and no-interest loans, with a barely-visible asterisk at the end of their slogans.
Farther on, the billboards and towering buildings gave way to darkness. Huge mansions flew past, with only the topmost windows peeking over high stone and electric fences and curious metal gates. Muthomi saw the nondescript faces of security guards at their booths at every gate, behind glass windows, under small, dim lamps. After the mirage of the city and the malls, the estates were indifferent, hostile, lonely.
Muthomi was hungry, weary, homesick, disoriented… cold, so very cold. The air had grown thinner, the night darker—he could see no lights outside for long stretches of time. Only his haggard reflection looked back at him from the window.
“Save yourself.”
He looked around. The skinny young girl was asleep, her head tilted back against the headrest. The other boys were downcast and weary. Muthomi looked forward at the men at the front, but he knew it couldn’t have been them. Besides, he thought, the voice had sounded feminine… He turned back.
The girl’s penetrating eyes bored into his. In them, he saw his bag half-open beside him, a jumble of glowing words and random letters rising from it, red like burning coals. The words engulfed him, shrinking him. A guttural laugh erupted around him, and Mr. Omondi threw his head back and roared.
The bus stopped. Muthomi blinked. The girl slept on, the boys were still in their places. His bag was on the seat beside him, closed, unmoved.
Mr. Omondi stood and stretched, stifling a yawn.
“Welcome, students, to Clarence University,” he said. “Please assemble your belongings and alight the bus, thank you.”
The students stared at him. Mr. Omondi chuckled, but there was no mirth in the sound.
“I said, get off the bus!”
The startled villagers stumbled out, one after the other, their miserable possessions in hand, and into the cold night. Emblazoned in fluorescent letters was the name of the university, stretched across a towering metal gate, through which the bus drove slowly. Beside the gate was a room filled with surveillance screens, and a squat man in a security guard’s uniform strode out of it. A walkthrough metal detector hummed gently. A luggage scanner lolled its black conveyor tongue at the newcomers.
The watchman barked the standard instructions.
“Put your bags here,” he indicated the conveyor, “and empty your pockets.”
Muthomi stood at the back of the queue. The first boy did not set off the metal detector as he passed under it, but the guard frisked him anyway, while the conveyor swallowed their luggage. An overweight female guard appeared, rolling her eyes at the sorry sight.
“Boys only?” she sneered. “Again?” Mr. Omondi shrugged.
Muthomi looked over his shoulder: the girl was not there. He looked at the queue—maybe she was somewhere between the other taller boys—but she wasn’t. Maybe she was still on the bus.
“There was a girl,” he mumbled.
“What did you say, boy?” asked Mr. Omondi.
“On the bus,” answered Muthomi. “There was a girl.”
“What girl?”
“She was near the back row,” he explained. “Short, with plaited hair. She only had her ID with her, no bag.”
The female guard raised her brow at Mr. Omondi.
“Stay in line,” he said, shoving Muthomi forward.
“But there was a girl.”
Mr. Omondi smacked Muthomi upside the head, sending him crashing forward into the queue.
“One more word and I’ll make you a girl.”
“Brain-dead boys, too,” mocked the watchwoman.
None of the other three boys dared to look at Muthomi.
The male guard frisked Muthomi, a much rougher pat-down, a lewd grin on his ugly face.
The conveyor regurgitated his bag. He picked it up, held it against his chest.
There was a girl. I saw her. She spoke to me.
Didn’t she?
Mr. Omondi sidestepped the metal detector and signalled the boys to follow him.
If any of them had paid any attention to the luggage scanner, they would have noticed something bizarre, something improper, making its way through the conveyor and into the campus. But the guards were too incompetent, and Mr. Jared Omondi, Chief of Security and disgruntled chaperon to the villagers, was too beat to bother. In any case, the security system at Clarence University was sophisticated enough to factor in human error. So, the peculiar object triggered a silent alarm, one thatonly two people in all of the university had the clearance to handle.
***
In the Clarence Administration Complex, Chancellor Amira Bundi was working late. It was the eve of the new semester’s opening day, lots to do. She was naked on all fours on the lush carpeted floor of her office, with a lean young man sweating, grunting, ramming away into her.
On the desk, her phone buzzed. Odd, because she had switched it off.
In her handbag, her tablet bleeped. She ignored it, too.
The devices took their turns, buzzing and bleeping every other second. It was distracting the Chancellor from her building orgasm, which made her rather angry.
“Wait…” she breathed, “stop…”
Her lover groaned at the breaking of his momentum. Madam Bundi reached for her S-mini from the desk. Whatever it was that could override her gadget’s off-switch had better be worth it. She glared at the sleek glass screen, her manicured fingers poised to swipe away the alarm. Her hand stopped mid-air. That couldn’t be right, she thought.
She sprang up, retrieved her Silvertouch from her handbag on the executive chair, pressed a button to kill the noise, but there it was, the same alert. She sank into her chair, her mind immediately switching from sex to business; you didn’t see one of those every day.
***
On the other side of the Clarence campus grounds, a mansion sprawled on a handsome lot of land. In its north wing was a surveillance office, with a large panel of screens switching from view to view of the empty house. One guard was on night duty, mind numbed with boredom. His boss, former chancellor Newton Bundi, and his missus, Laura, had been away on holiday—well, on separate holidays—and he’d had nothing to do for days but watch the housekeeper move back and forth from the house to her quarters.
So, when a red icon flashed at the top right corner of the main screen, the guard blinked at it drowsily. Chief Omondi would handle any security alerts, like he always did. Besides, he was new, and his jurisdiction was the house. What business had a footman with such high-level stuff?
Still, the icon flashed on, and on… he couldn’t help himself. He clicked on it.
“Oh.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his stiffly starched CU guards’ uniform, as crisp as the day they were issued. Briefing protocols surfaced in his groggy mind: every alert must be logged into the system if not responded to within five minutes of activation. It had been—he glanced at the timestamp—eight minutes already, and this was no ordinary alert. The guard pulled up an encrypted messenger on the main screen, entered his code, and typed:
ATTN: ISBN DETECTED, ORIGIN YET UNKNOWN. AWAITING INSTRUCTIONS.