16/03/2019
Bangi si dhania fam. Tuseme tu ukweli.
So I’m here exchanging freakout stories with Blue Njeri and I remember one from my high school days.
We’ve gone to Mua Girls for the Machakos District drama festivals, to perform a Lwanda Magere re-write by yours truly that had left the audience in oops-I-peed-on-myself-kidogo stitches every time we performed.
So, before getting on stage, we head out to some bushes for a pick-me-up. Not that I suffer from stage fright and related lepidopteran ailments, but because back then (because I’m on the narrow path to sainthood now) I used to get giddy from being on stage while high. You’re on a stage, which is several feet above everyone else, halafu you are high. 🙈🙈🙈🙈…that’s being high and high, you know?
Anyway, so, I sneak away with my boy (a very famous gospel musician now…see, getting done with these things at an early age prepares you for mid-life sainthood) but my other pal Fabian decides to follow us.
You know the way there’s always a tough talking Pink Panther in every group of friends who’s only claim to fame is his awkward gangliness? That’s Fabi.
We try to shake him but wapi, dude is stuck like a kamba on mangos. With time running out before we have to get on stage, there’s no choice but to get on with lighting the spliff. Being the good guy I am, I warned Fabi that the isht I had was wagwan. Dude insisted that he was used to it. I know this is a lie, but he insisted, and when people insist…you know?
So I light. I take a puff, hold it in. Hold….hooooold, exhale a bit, hold, hoooooooold….exhlale. Take a second puff and pass.
My boy (current gospel artist) takes a puff-puff, holds, and bobbing his head to some inaudible tune (probably one of his future hits hahahaha the puns) and passes onto Fabi.
Dude takes one puff. Chokes. Coughs it out.
Takes the second puff. Tries to hold. Chokes.
Tears in his eyes. Takes a weak third puff, puffs up his cheeks and passes to me.
Me. Puff. Puff. Pass.
Future gospel artist. Puff. Puff. Pass.
Fabi. Puff. Choke. Cough. Puff. Hold attempt. Choke. Weak puff. Puffed up cheeks. Pass.
Me. Puff. Puff. Pass.
Future gospel artist. Puff. Puff. Pass. No pass.
My eyes are following the spliff pass, and when I notice that future gospel artist is still holding onto it, I lift my head to look at him. He doesn’t meet my gaze. So I follow his gaze. His gaze holds my gazes hand and guides it to Fabi.
Picture this. Gangly dude, hunched over, intently staring at his hands, fingers spread out like Shaquille holding an imaginary basketball.
“Fabi, uko poa?” I ask.
He slowly winds his head up and meets my gaze. He looks like he’s about to ask me a question, the drops his head back down to study the astrophysical computations that are his hands.
‘Fabi, uko poa?” I inquire again.
He takes an eternity before looking up to me, holds out his hands, this time towards me, fingers spread out, opens his mouth, takes a hesitant pause, then, in that cottony drawl of someone who’s properly cooked, says, “yaani nilitoka na hizi ndizi home zikiwa fresh, but nimekaa nazo hadi zikakuwa brown. Utakula ama nizitupe tu?”
Speaking of, Eve Mwenda today sampled our (our being Bae and I) offering to the alchemy of coffee, Quirk Kahawa, and started rambling of how it got her so high she started seeing her fingers growing longer.
I swear to you, it’s not laced, just some ‘igh grade wagwan Arabica coffee and exotic Zanzibar spices blend.
Get in touch with us to get your own bonafide, legal, and absolutely necessary coffee high.
