You Are Still with Me

‘Youth must be the worst time in anybody’s life. Everything’s happening for the first time, which means that sorrow, then, lasts forever.’

—James Baldwin, Just Above My Head.

The first news of your death would come from Facebook. A mutual that I had long forgotten would post: ‘What is that that I am hearing about Papai?’ Confused, I would spiral into a panic, go on a rampage, refreshing timelines, searching on the internet for answers. Teary, I would check on every available platform; Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp– anywhere that would hold a trace of you. Every question about life, about being, would ring in me. What had happened to you, my friend? What had gone wrong? Every platform had little to say. Clues could be deduced, but in that moment, in isolation, I would never find anything reasonable; just scattered whispers, half-truths, and silence where your voice should have been. You were gone, and just like that, the last of my coming-of-age friends was lost, forever.

UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES

I met you in very unusual circumstances. I was in my first year out of high school. Lost and depressed, I would not go to university that year. I had packed my bags, travelled from my hometown of Mpeketoni to Nairobi in the guise of admission, but had sneaked back to Mombasa two weeks later after a student protest paralyzed learning. It would only take a week, but by then, I was in Mombasa, having spent a quarter of the KSh 8000 that I had been given as admission fees.