FRIDAY
Its Friday evening. Some people call it the Sabbath. There’s a little noise around, quite the unusual. The people along the streets aren’t as many as they usually are. Heck, it’s Friday we are talking about here! Emoticons such as TGIF are commonly used on most social platforms, especially as the tedious long work week comes to a close and the weekend is ushered in style, regardless of the curfew.
On normal Fridays, the clubs are full blast, flooding with hordes of people exhibiting different emotions; others are drowning their sorrows of the week with the bottle, (what kind of bottle do you think are mostly found in clubs, it’s a no brainer, right?) on how ill prepared they were for the tests; others are joyous because they aced the tests. The hotels around this market, popularly known as KM among the comrades (read students) living along these streets, are always full to the brim with students going to have dinner, for others it is their first meal of the day, after skipping meals all day. It is mostly termed among the students in Swahili as kuinama. The “campus couples” are huddled up against each other, being cozy as they tell each other sweet nothings to make their hearts glad. You’ll spot them as they do their walks around, on available spaces which are exclusive and whose setting especially in the night with the lights illuminating the place makes it a thrilling sight to behold or on Arboretum, a popular park in school. But all of that wasn’t happening. Maybe people are chilling in their houses catching up on the latest episodes of a certain series or a movie. Maybe the couples have opted to stay indoors, despite the cool weather outside. Maybe people had their meals earlier and I am the one who was late. As soon as that thought hit me, I checked my watch. Its 7:50 p.m. “ It’s still quite early,” I muttered. What I saw though are certain people hovering around with their luggage. Be it a suitcase, bucket, bedding, name it. Why so, you may ask. Well, it was the last night we were to be in school. The following morning, comrades would be shipping out to their homes as the face to face learning of our shift came to a close as another shift was set to report on Sunday.
Yours truly took strides to the nearest chemist to buy a surgical blade. It’s not that I am a budding practitioner of medicine, no. I often use such blades to clip my toe nails. They were rather long and looking awful. Today they were going to meet their fateful end by being clipped. Of course there are nail clippers which serve that purpose, but the surgical blades do the job better, especially if the nails in question are those from the toes.
Granted, that day was rather heavy for me. I had stayed in Kenyatta University long enough that I became attached to it . In retrospect, as I was walking around aimlessly, I cherished the days I went to class, especially the psychology class; those aha! moments I had when I read something or solved a question; the peaceful libraries with endless magazines and the dailies; the group meetings that I was happily part of and its accomplishments; the friends who I cracked jokes with as we went to and came from classes; the close people I had conversations with on major issues in life and much more memories. I wasn’t going to see them for quite a period, the fire of enthusiasm that bred from the endless studies will be extinguished, no more missions and problems to solve with peers, truly sad, eh?
I know you’d wonder how I drowned my “sorrow” that day. Well, there’s no love lost between me and the bottle so that’s not an option. I ate to my fill that evening, drank lots of juices and an orange coupled with roasted maize to finish off that Friday. I was in no mood to ride a bicycle, like I usually do on Friday nights, as I said, it wasn’t a normal Friday. Being that moody lothario, I retired to my room to pack up and have a good night’s rest. Nevertheless, there’s always another day.
