The hill was swathed with green foliage from the towering Eucalyptus, the drooping Mexican Pine, Omuyeye, and the Cypress, with the colorful grevillea, Nandi Flame, and Msunzu adding some vibrancy. In between these colors dappled the rooftops and red-earth paths ascending in a gentle rise, overlooking a valley that submitted to its majestic presence.
A quiet, reserved river flowed at the foot of this hill, snaking on and getting swallowed by a cluster of trees on the far left. It was a narrow, tranquil, reposed river, but only this hill’s residents knew the potent it held beneath its placid veneer.
River Jemange tended to break its banks during rainy seasons. When it did, the waters would turn into a brown mass of murky rage, lapping at the foot of the hill and sweeping anyone who stepped in its body away with the lethal undercurrent. But now was not the time. Now, it was laid back. Had it been human enough, it would be lounging on the sofa, watching TV.
The water was crystal clear, glinting and scintillating in the fiery orange glow of the sunset, allowing one to have an unrivaled, breathtaking view of the blooming aquatic life below, the thriving carpet of algae and powdery mildew on the rugged bed, the minor rippling of the small fish and tadpoles, and the shimmering, glassy look of the pebbles. This river was the water source for the villagers’ domestic chores, except for drinking water, which was found in the homesteads’ wells.
On the other side of the river, a forest spread far and wide, a sea of cohesive verdure, intimidating yet fascinating, alluring but sinister, virgin but dangerous. The chatters and shrieks of monkeys, the conglomerate chirping of swallows and woodpeckers, and the shrill of the Weaver birds could be heard from this forest, indicating that this art of natural woodwork had yet to be defiled by the greedy teeth of a chainsaw.
But even then, the sheer heights of the Rosewood and Eucalyptus and the ridiculous and twisted girth of The Giant Pod were enough to grind any power saw to a shameful halt. It was rich with life, so rich that during the crops blooming season, the people clashed with a few stray monkeys and baboons bent on stealing.
Legend had it that a lion or two had been killed in the hill. Still, it was a peaceful village. As peaceful as the river at its feet.
Homesteads were scattered across the hill’s expansive belly. One compound sat at the hill’s apex, resting beautifully like a crown on a beauty’s head. The main house was a semi-permanent structure with red walls, iron sheets that shimmered with a silvery tint to the sun and a blackened chimney rising from a corner close to the meeting apex of the two adjacent walls of the house.
Elfin tentacles of wispy white smoke rose in glee to freedom into the clear blue sky. A tall, two-barked Teak leaned awkwardly over the path at the entrance on the far side, swaying and wriggling its long, simple leaves to the evening wind.
Against the wall of the house, under a large rectangular window with open panes and blue mullion, sat an elderly man, feet fully stretched before him, spreading to the well-manicured lawn. He had sunken, distended eyes and black hair with white patches on his head. He wore a thin mustache, his cheeks covered in stubble and tiny pimples. In the corner of his mouth was a brown Kiko, from which he blew smoke from the other side of his lips. He adjusted his glasses and then turned over a new page of the book he was engrossed in.
The old man was Kilak, a retired civil engineer and one of the few bright lights of the village, revered the hills over. He was one of the few very educated men in this remote village who couldn’t even churn a decent mechanic.
A cold wind gave a low howl as it blew past, whispering and shedding leaves on a few trees around the compound. The sun lit the sky with a romantic, calming orange glow, lining the sparse clouds in a reddish hue. It was another end to a long day in the warm month of August.
A boy emerged from the house. He was lean and tall, his heavy strides holding him in good stead. He had pointed ears and sharp and alert eyes. He adjusted his black, button-down shirt. Then he beat off invisible dust from his grey cargo shorts. To complete his contemporary look, he wore a pair of black Converse blended with white ornate scribblings. His father always frowned upon this dressing style, and he showed it with a mild frown as he watched from the top of the wooden rims of his glasses as his son approached.
“You called me, baba?” The boy enquired as he stood before the old man. Mzee Kilak gave a languid nod and took off his glasses. He looked at the boy thoughtfully.
“Sit down, Mark,” Mzee Kilak said as he put the book down.
A little unseated and frightful, Mark sat on the lawn like he was sitting across from his father. He looked frightful, and in his head, he knew that today was the day. He finally learned of it. Fear gripped him, and the millet stalks he was looking at seemed to dance in mockery of him. He knows! He knows! F**k!
“Tomorrow you are going to university,” Mzee Kilak started, his ponderous eyes studiously gazing into the avoidant ones of his son.
“Yes, father,” he said. He tautened his muscles as he turned his eyes to the book on the old man’s lap.
“I hope you are ready for this kind of life,” Mzee Kilak said. He spoke slowly as if he deliberated on his words.
“Yes, Father, I am ready,” Mark said, a little disturbed for being so curt. But this had come to be expected from father and son when they were together. Theirs was a tense relationship full of short, disjointed sentences, silence that dragged on, and false starts.
Mark panicked. God, he knows!
He stole a glance at his father, and he immediately regretted it. The old man had focused so intently on him with a look that seemed so pertinacious in ripping through those disturbed thought processes currently inhibiting and threatening to kill him. Crap, now he definitely knows something’s up.
“What is wrong?” Mzee Kilak asked.
As usual, he was not tender, choosing to use that ordinary voice with just enough punch to be a polite command, the inflection same as to how he would say, ‘Pass me the salt’ or ‘Get me a hammer.’ And it was curt, too. That was how father and son talked. Short, crisp sentences delivered with wooden, expressionless faces and flat tones.
“Nothing,” Mark replied. He cleared his throat and wiggled with stiff movements where he was seated.
“You know if something is bothering you, tell me now,” Mzee Kilak said. “I don’t want to hear complaints from you when you are on campus. You are a grown man now. What is wrong?”
“It’s nothing.” Mark, frustrated, answered back rustically. Mzee Kilak looked away and sighed.
“When you get there, I have told you so many times before, concentrate on your studies.” He lectured. As soon as he heard this, Mark started to zone out. Mark gave a languid nod of his head. “I don’t want you to get there and bring here bad news. Be like your sisters. And associate with people who will help you and…”
who are already working and can connect you with other people. Yes, Dad, I heard you the first hundred times!
This was getting frustrating, and Mark boiled with rage each time the old man began talking to him. This was because, mostly, it was criticism and authoritative analysis of him that was not accurate anyway, another highlight of the disconnect between him and his father.
But as he raged from within, he nodded meekly and with earnest on the outside, something that was ironical compared to how he was combusting inside.
Bad news. There were a few things his father considered bad news, and in reference to him, those few things were whittled down to one or two. He was going to university; it only meant that bad news in this context was forthright. This was a man with a strict observation of morals, something that he imposed on his children without compromise.
This stalwart fidelity to his beliefs made him revered within the village and beyond. This is why Mark resolved to sort out his mess before the news got to his father. He just had to sort out this moral mess he was in; he had no other choice.
He clenched his buttocks apprehensively, and his heart began to pound harder, his body breaking into involuntary shivers. A picture of his lifeless body flashed in his mind. He would soon be a dead man. He let out a heavy exhale, and Mzee Kilak, watching the sun’s orange sunset reflect from the panes of one of the house’s windows, turned to him.
“What is wrong?” Mzee Kilak asked again, more incensed and passionate. Mark shook his head and muttered nothing under his breath. Though he did not show it, Mzee Kilak was thawed seeing the forlorn shape of his son.
Being an only son, Mark was his father’s favourite. The old man took great pride in his male seed, a little more than he took in the girls currently nearing graduation. He saw every aspect of himself in that boy, and for this, he never shied from bragging about him to anyone with life and functional ears.
Hell, maybe he even wrote it down to those who were deaf. ‘My son will rule this land someday,’ he always told his envious neighbors, his voice seasoned with unparalleled pride and conviction. He insisted on dragging the disinterested Mark to old men’s gatherings and meetups. He had also added Mark to a Facebook group where he (Kilak) and other elderly members of society spent the whole day greeting each other, praising God, and exchanging thumbs-up emojis.
To Mark, this was too much to handle. He had long ceased using that account and had opened another one, but all this was a burden that he felt was pulling him down.
That pride his old man had given him on a spoon and had tasked him with ensuring that it did not fall and the break was too much. That pressure pushed down his chest and almost suffocated him. He vowed, there and then, not to let the old man down – not all the way down, considering he was halfway there already. He would make amends. Tonight.
“I won’t let you down, Father,” he said with determination as he pulled some courage from a dungeon within him and looked at his father straight in the eye for the first time in the conversation.
But that confidence was culled by the vicious wind of guilt, which muffled the determination like a helpless puppy under the paws of a hungry mongrel. He tore his eyes from Mzee Kilak in an instant. His phone gave a beep, and he knew it was time. ‘Am waiting,’ it read. By now, the night was falling. He shifted uneasily. His father picked up his book.
“Are you going to see someone?” He asked suddenly. Mark’s throat burnt as a sudden shock ripped apart his chest.
“I’m just going to say bye to a few friends,” he said, a little composed but tense nonetheless.
“Don’t take too long outside,” Mzee Kilak said. Mark nodded and rose from the grass that had flattened from his weight. He beat off the grass from his shorts and walked out using the rear exit down to the valley.
*
Mzee Kilak watched until his son disappeared. He was in a battle of his own. How would he broach this issue without creating a further rift with him? He so much wanted to be close to his son, but now this damning revelation, this crack of some vicious karmic swing of nature at him, knocked the sense out of him. He was angry. And it took saintly restrain to hold himself back from exploding into a rage-fueled assault on that boy’s silly brains. He clicked as he rose, picked up his three-legged stool, and stepped into the house. It was either tonight or no other time.
*
So, the tulips and jute danced as he walked between them down the hill. Harvest was ripe. Trees whispered above his lowered head as though in final condemnation of what he had done.
Healthy tomatoes sparkled in green pulchritude from the farms in the golden gloaming. The wind blew past slowly, and those tomatoes wiggled limply to it.
He fixed his lucid eyes straight ahead as he came upon a homestead, attempting to pass Mzee Bando’s compound inconspicuously.
The old fellow was seated with his two wives outside his red brick-walled house.
“Mark, good evening,” Mzee Bando, a close friend of Mzee Keya, saluted Mark’s distressed figure.
“Good evening, Mzee,” Mark replied, forcing a smile. He appeared like a faulty sculpture ripped on both ends of the lips. The smile was hideous, and the attempt punishable.
“Big day tomorrow, eh-”
“Yes.” Mark shifted uneasily as he tried to slow down, but not really. The old man nodded and beckoned at the tentative young man.
“Come, come here, boy,” He called.
No! I’m going to meet someone. Do I look like I came to see you?
Mark considered ignoring the old man for he was too timid and self-conscious to excuse himself. His phone buzzed. Chill Celina.
He walked up to Mzee Banda, and after zoning off as the old man spoke, Mark excused himself, mumbling under his breath something about going to see someone.
“So we will see you off, eh?” Mzee Banda asked. Mark nodded and grinned. The whole village but him was excited. Truly, life was just a twisted movie to some powerful being.
“Oh, he is such a darling,” one of Mzee Banda’s wives commented behind his back as the other two offered their grunts of approval.
His stomach turned. He felt himself go weak on his knees, and they almost buckled. His heart was beating hard. He hated himself. He hated everyone. He hated everyone for placing expectations on his shoulders. He was fearful and confused. He was hopeless and slothful, too. He had but lost his life.
He hated himself above anyone else for the quiet and timid demeanor that was only his natural predilection, for only he knew what demons lurked below the skin, in the basement of his being, beneath the vital organs.
*
Jemange River flowed on quietly. Short grass spread from its bank as they pushed inland, sprawling up and seamlessly joining the foot of the hill, pushing into the maize plantations. Small rocks, quite round and grey, bordered the farms, lining the edges of the plantations. On one of these rocks, Celina sat.
She was svelte and graceful, but there was a deep countenance that damaged the beauty on her face. Her eyes rippled with the bad kind of urgency, and she fidgeted as they roamed the swelling darkness that kept encompassing the land the longer she waited. It was dark. No, not the night. Her future. The darker it grew, the more she felt her hope waver.
She shuddered as if she had seen a demon rush towards her from the wreathing river flowing in front of her. She looked as the setting sun lit, albeit faintly, the fragments of flimsy clouds scattered on the west of the sky.
She shuddered because it was frightening to think that she was going to be another village girl, fettered to the village ways, condemned to a life in an unsatisfying marriage, dependent on an undependable spouse, and rearing a football team. How life changed. Just a few short months before, she had been bubbling with promise.
Two women who had been fetching water in hidden sides of the bushes lining the river bank walked past her. The yellow Jerri cans balanced with impeccable skill on their heads, and their arms stretched a little to provide steadiness.
“Celina, aren’t you tired of sitting there?” One of them asked.
Celina smiled.
“Just waiting for someone,” she said.
“Oh, that young man,” the woman winked. “You guys are crazy in love, wah!” the woman gushed, much to Celina’s chagrin.
But being calm as she was, Celina smiled and forced an acquiescing nod. She looked down at her phone screen as the woman walked away.
She sighed as she shifted her feet restlessly. She paused, then began to shake. A shadow fell on her. She looked up to see that familiar frame approach her. She rose to her feet. There was no smile on her face, and her eyes offered no peep into a hidden joy, just a raw anticipation.
*
As he approached her, Mark was mesmerized. She was still as beautiful as ever. Her face glowed. The smooth curve of her eyes as she looked at him beheld him; the lashes fluttered as she blinked repeatedly, and he thought she was flirting with him. She pursed her lips but then pouted them, red and luscious, and he was pulled in as he had been on that fateful night –
“Sasa,” she greeted, her tone flat as her expression remained ambivalent.
“Poa sana,” he said, dipping his hands in his pockets as he looked nervous. “You look beautiful,” he complimented but avoided looking at her.
Immediately, he regretted making the compliment. It had led to an awkward silence he was ill-prepared to handle. Was he even prepared to handle anything?
“So, have you thought about it?” she asked, ignoring the flattery. Mark sighed as he brushed past her and sat on the rock she had been sitting on before he came. He sighed again. “You will have to get rid of it,” he said with haste. I will help you with that.”
Celina, who had been playing with her dress’s flared skirt, let it go abruptly. The darkness was thick now, but her shock was palpable from the reaction that followed.
“What?” She asked, the shock coursing through her so violently it made her tremble.
“Celina, are you ready for this?”
“No,” Celina rejoined. “But Mark, what you are asking for is -”
“Celina,” Mark interjected. He paused briefly, exhaling heavily as anger built up in him. Then he spoke, “I have a bright future -”
“Future!” Celina barked. “Mark, you should have thought about it before you did this to me. And you talk of your future as if I don’t have my own.”
“We will have to do this,” Mark said with resolve. “It is for our future’s sake, unless you want to stay here and care for that.”
Celina went silent as she appeared to buckle. Futures, hopes, dreams. Consequences of actions she must face. A silly action got her here. The rationale would not bail her now.
“What…what if something goes wrong?”
“I have someone,” Mark said. “She is good at this.”
“Who is that?” Celina asked, seeming to buy into his myopic idea.
“Mama Susanna. She used to be a nurse at Serem.” Mark declared, almost proudly. Celina let out a gasp, or was it a sob? Mark jerked and flashed his light on her feet.
“What?” He asked.
“So you want me to abort through the backdoor?” She asked.
“Hey, why don’t you offer up something!” Mark barked. “Why are you just sitting there blasting me, and why are we in this together? I didn’t masturbate, remember.”
“What you are asking is just-” her voice broke as she shook her head, “-wrong.”
“Listen, woman!” Mark bellowed, rising from the rock with a forceful propulsion and stomping up to her. “I will not allow you to ruin my future. My father wants me to do this-”
“Why, Mark, why is it just about you?” Celina cried, her voice laced with trembles of painful regret. “What about me?”
Tears had welled up in her eyes, glinting in the darkness, but only restraint, not a lack of emotion, kept them at bay. Mark sat back down. Using force was futile. Celina would not give in to his suggestions easily or at all. God. He let out an explosive sigh of exasperation.
“Okay,” he said, rising to his feet again, “let me go to school tomorrow; we will sort it out when you travel to your school.”
Celina sneered and scoffed. “I’m Sorry, Mark. You are not leaving before providing a solution,” she said, her voice strong and firm.
“Now, what do you want, Celina?” he asked, seeming resigned. “I have provided a solution.” He tried but could not suppress the anger slowly rising in him.
“Well, I don’t like it,” Celina said tersely.
Mark felt the rage within him swell.
“Then what do you want?” He asked, trying to hold onto his tranquility and the sanity that was not assured anymore.
“Marry me, Mark,” Celina dropped the bombshell.
Mark felt his heart pace up in anguish. He remained motionless for a while as the ripple of a vile emotion tore into him and pierced deep into the chambers of his heart. His heart burst into a convulsion of boiling rage, causing his body to tremble terribly as the words echoed in his mangled thoughts. An upsurge of that violent urge caused him to see stars momentarily. His eyes flashed. His heart beat even harder.
“Yes, Mark,” she insisted, “marry me-”
Mark vented the vicious anger with a slap across her cheek. Then he grabbed her and shook her violently.
“Do as I say!” He decreed, his eyes red and burning with menace. He pushed her away. The force pushed her to the ground, where she landed on her back.
“Mark!” She let out in disbelief as she rose to her feet.
Her eyes glinted with anger, frustration, regrets, and insecurities. Hers was a justified fume. Clearly, Mark had only wanted an exit from his sexual fire. Her desires, her own needs, her wants, her dreams, and her future mattered little to him. And that made her angry because her dreams and future were bleak, if not no more.
They glared at each other with menace. Difficult to believe that just a few months back, there was love and a burning desire to explode their insatiable passions into each other.
Now, it seemed the very passions directed towards their carnival sin of the flesh had been dragged into the crypts of hatred and contempt, and now they hated with just as much passion as they had loved.
“I am taking this to your dad,” Celina said. “I didn’t want to, but you forced my hand.” It wasn’t a threat she was issuing. She didn’t stand there to watch Mark’s reaction to her utterances and smile as he thawed.
She had turned swiftly and was rushing away when she completed the sentence.
It was then that Mark lost his senses. He lunged forward with a giant leap. He grabbed her by her shoulder and spun her around, smacking her across the face.
Celina shrieked and collapsed to the ground. Mark was on her in an instant. He straddled her, and the two struggled for a while, him trying to pin her down while she fought hard against the force putting her down.
Her flailing arms gripped his face, and she started digging into his skin. He grunted in pain and let off a little. She got some space, pushed his weight off her, and labored to her feet. He reached for her leg and pulled her back. Celina let out a short scream as she face-palmed on the grass. Mark was on her in an instant, his hands round her neck.
He pushed her to the ground again, gripped around the nape of her neck as she kicked and wiggled. He punched her repeatedly and hard until he had broken her cheekbone and the bridge of her nose. He started banging her head on the ground, stifling her screams with a hand over her mouth.
He was blinded by a fury only he knew the depths of. But more importantly, he went on even after the rage had cleared. What had started as a soft thud turned into a squelch as her skull buckled to the ground. Her struggles lessened. Her grip on his face, where she had carved out large chunks of the skin on his cheeks, leaving behind ugly streaks, relaxed. Then her arms dropped down.
Still, he hit her head on the ground. Blood flowed in copious amounts from Celina’s skull. Her head moved limply to his movements as he went on. Then he let go and wiped away the tears that had blurred his vision. He looked at her, at the crimson blood pooling on the blades of grass around her head.
Her once lovely eyes stared lifelessly into the eyes of her one-time lover and soulmate turned murderer, perhaps questioning how it could be that this man whom she had so loved dearly to her death could assert death upon her so cruelly and without heart.
He removed his other hand from her lips, revealing her agape mouth, twisted in an eternal scream.
Still not believing, he got up and looked down at her. He thought he saw a movement of her finger. Even her eyes blinked, and her feet twitched. Yet, it dawned on him there and then – he had killed.
His heartbeat now threatened the enclosure of his chest, thumping hard; in fear, in anger, in confusion. This was a cross he was to carry on his own for eternity.
The light that had been illuminating his future went out. It was now dark. He knelt beside her and stared at her in disbelief, somehow waiting for her to get up and keep on shouting at him, something he would wholeheartedly embrace, anything but death.
He reached for her hands and tried to close her fingers around his. Tears washed down his face. He reached round her waist and pulled her up. Her body limply followed him. She was dead. Her head hung down his arm, her arms dangling on the ground like a flaccid banana leaf.
From a distance, he heard voices. Someone had heard the screams. His body trembled horribly as if it was going to crumble to pieces. It grew cold as a burst of adrenaline spread through him. He got up and shot into the darkness. In that wild run from his consequence, something dragged back his feet.
He lunged forward and fell unceremoniously into the river with a splash, disturbing the previously still waters. Determined, he swam aimlessly, gasping for air as he approached the bank’s other side. He quickly got out of the water and turned back one last time. Two women were making their way to where Celina’s body lay, flashlights in hand. He quickly turned and was consumed by the forest ahead of him.
Sharp, painful screams ripped through the peaceful air engulfing Jemange. The birds in the trees fluttered and flew away, and the monkeys gave excited screeches. The village of Jemange was awoken.
The news spread fast, reaching Mzee Kilak at the top of the hill in little time. Celina had been brutally murdered, and his son was the last person to be seen with her.
———
Image: AI via Pixabay remixed