J's Coconuts PT 1

I find rowdiness grossly intriguing. The rising of voices from a soft hubbub to a crescendo of roars and squeals. Human emotions wrapped up in grotesque gestures and body movements, marionettes and huge placards depicting caricatures and beautiful insults. The rabid smell of violence from angry rioters are a reminder that there is a limit to ever man's tolerance. It is the unity however, that perplexes me. That people can unite better in grief than in bliss. At times, like most of you, I feel like grabbing my phone and taking a few snaps of people united in pursuit of a common course. Perhaps one of my snaps could feature on a daily paper, or in a meme. Especially a meme. Like me, my guy J had a taste for violence. The tingling in his fingers to grab his phone and take a few snaps was more than he could handle.

J had a sack of coconuts and mangoes he had bought to suprise village dwellers. After being away for a year, a grand entry tugging a sack of goodies would suffice. The journey from Mombasa was smooth. The bus arrived at J's home town at noon. Since the load was heavy, he left it at the station to look for a nduthi guy. Just around the block, a commotion erupted. Since it was that time that Kenyans still thought they could demand lower cost of living from the streets, J crowned himself a paparazzi and took out his phone. Perhaps to capture Omollo kicking away a teargas canister or Otieno bathing in the itchy showers of a water canon. 

The commotion transmuted into a full-blown brawl. Batons were wielded and stones started flying. When machetes joined the exhibition, J knew it was time to leave. But his curiosity held him by the throat. Like a little boy in a horror movie who proceeds to peep into a dark hole that just swallowed his friend, J proceeded towards the epicenter of the tumult. Towards where the stones and machetes were flying.

Right at the center of the crowd was a bereft being who must have previously been a man on two feet. His scraggy back provided a soft landing for the rain of stones. Streaks of blood decorated in crimson red a gapping cut on his brow. He was a man to whom death was about to be served in the most inhumane way. While still digesting the severity of what he was witnessing, a haggard looking man accosted J and asked " Mbona unarecord?" Without hesitation the brute grabbed his phone and tossed it away. An electric slap crossed his face soon after. Before he realized how much trouble he had gotten himself into, he was surrounded by a group of about ten people. 

As his vision was clouded by angry silhouettes of people and foreboding stars, J heard the crowd astride ranting 'Mwenzako ako wapi?' The debilitated man who was taking his last breaths lifted his frail, withered hands and pointed at him. Right before his head was smashed by a rock into a thousand morsels of bone, blood and white matter. When the police arrived the atmosphere was polluted with a tepid redolence of burning tyres and flesh. The sweet guard at the station would not know that the baggage of coconuts would not be claimed by a senile old man until the next day.....