SERAPHINA IS PREGNANT WITH A BABY ALIEN.

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Women hold up half the sky

Chinese proverb

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Part 1

I wake up, in my dream, and go to my big sister’s room that is just opposite my beige, book-filled and magazine filled room asking to borrow her iPhone charger as mine was snatched by the city thieves around Pioneer Mall earlier this March. I would totally cut their balls off if l ever caught them dawg, those thieves, totally cut their egoistic shit off. Or maybe l would rape their wives in front of their ugly faces (LMFAO, this is me getting carried away with my imagination because l have been reading a lot of Charles Bukowski’s “South Of No North. Stories of the buried life,” and Henry Miller’s “Tropic Of Cancer.”)

Getting back to the goddamn cemetery of an essay this is, l wake up, in my dream, and go to my big sister’s room that is opposite my beige, book-filled and Magazine filled room asking to borrow her iPhone charger, she is still in a hypnopompic state. My big sister chose the work of being a slave for the money, she has to wake up everyday before 5 am, to run like a whore running after the new men in the city to put to bed, so she can catch the right uber to the stupid job that pays her just about one million Uganda shillings per month, and with history repeating itself, she is a newly single mother of a beautiful boy, only this time the father of the beautiful boy is not dead of AIDS, no, he is fully alive and well, but could not stand an independent woman, and by that l mean, my sister with her fat ass, the way she laughs loud as whores do, the way she has no time for any man, even her own husband but only time for chasing that one million Ugandan shilling salary at her dumb job every passing second, the way she drinks until Satan is almost celestial, the way she has big dreams but has no integrity or character to quit her damn job to go chase her dreams, the little guy that fathered the beautiful boy could not stand the storm of a woman that she is, and so just a few months into pretending to be married, he stormed out the door, like a coward, leaving her with a big belly, struggling to see ahead of herself. Big little lies cripple me into a trance every time l start to think, remember that scene at the start of Big Little Lies, season 2, where Meryl Streep tells Reese Witherspoon that some people are wanters who keep wanting and wanting more stuff, yeah, l kinda just honestly wanted to put it out there that l love Meryl Streep, what an actress, what a woman! and most probably to get all Big little Lies lovers to love me and be more interested in continuing to read this goddamn cemetery of an essay. Big Little Lies totally makes me go, you know, but no one is a wanter here, no my big sister, not me, and not any of you smirking whores who love the show Big Little Lies.

“Morning, can l please borrow your charger,” l say slightly to my big sister because l do not want to wake her beautiful baby boy sleeping soundly next to her, my big sister hates it every time l come into her room every early morning at 4 am, but she is kind of my second Mother and l lover so, and she loves me so. Me being the youngest of three and her being the oldest of three of a struggling single mother, my big sister automatically became my other Mother the moment she started sucking all the men’s penises for money once she entered the big city, Kampala and l honestly love this girl, she is my God on earth, and like praying to God every morning, l come into her room, early in the morning, even when she hates it, in the pretext of asking to borrow her iPhone charger, but the real reason l come into her room every morning is really to make sure that she is still breathing, that she has not let her sins catch up to her, leaving me alone in this big cruel world.

Part 2

My mother is one hell of a woman, the most beautiful queen, l won’t tell you everything but just a little bit to get your stupid mind hungry for where this goddamn cemetery of an essay is going. My mother is a Rwandan woman who got married to a Muganda man called “Mugera Micheal,” I did not get to see Mugera Micheal at all, he died before l could tell what a face was, I used to think that the deadly disease that killed him was Cancer, ‘reason why I used to fear smoking so damn much, determined never to go down in history as my father had, but then l later found out that it wasn’t cancer, it was something else, the reason why momma had never given birth to another child ever since daddy died, even when she was only 32 or something when he breathed his last. Maybe that’s the reason my step dad put his ugly hands on her beautiful brown skin…because his soldier stupid body thought he needed a child from her “body that is there to manufacture children on demand,” and when she said, “no, l won’t dare bring any AIDS into the world through a child,” then that stupid man lost it and beat her up in our presence, shit, maybe it was the way she drowned her sorrows on Pilsner and Nile Lager while Elly Wamala blared on her favorite radio, maybe it was the way she shouted at him like a whore, or maybe it was the way she looked like Nefertiti, the Egyptian goddess in her gomesi that brought all the boys to the yard that got him reeling in anger because he could not stand a beautiful free queen who did not like to be owned by any man but to be a Princess Diana for them all, maybe it was her incessant heart and spirit of a hero for standing up to him and saying that the AIDS would stop with only her, hence refusing to give him a child, that the stupid soldier man got so angry about that he beat her up every night, every noon, every school holiday, every time we were away in those stupid schools, instead of being by her side to protect her beautiful face from iron arms, I will never know why any sensible man would put his stupid hands on such a beautiful piece of a woman that is my mother, but like Virginia Wolf famously said, “Thinking is my fighting,” I will keep bleeding about it in writing until all the pain of seeing her rolling on the floor screaming for help, seeing her with bruises in the morning sublimes, l will create something beautiful with all this pain mom, you just wait for it mom, the pain won’t turn me into anything you wouldn’t be proud of mom, only flowing Van Gogh yellow flowers, you just wait mom, one of these days am going to bring you a truck of yellow flowers and beautiful words and a better man, a better woman, an independent woman that you always dreamt of. You just wait mom, you just wait. The balls of the stupid soldier man are in the pit while l write this, am tired of trying to understand why he did it, his TIME IS UP, from now on, action, action, we are roasting balls of any stupid man that touched our mother in any stupid way, when they still had the power, we are grown now, we are writers now and guess what, Armageddon, Klaatu Barada Nikto, May Peace Prevail the Earth.

The smell of his burning balls is intoxicating but l wanna concentrate on my momma more, my mother is called Mrs. Teopista Mbabazi Mugera, l do not know much about her because being the youngest of her three kids, the introvert, the one who was always away in some far away stupid institution or buried into some book, l never got to match up to her skills of talking to everyone with such beauty and grace and joy, l never got to learn how to drink Waragi, telling stories until morning, l never got around to learning how to laugh aloud like a whore with her in the city bars, only my big sister has that beautiful chance, shit, those two are like best friends, my big sister calls her every day and they will talk like kids until forever about the men my sister is sleeping with, about the way my big brother drinks and wants to kill my mother back in the village, “my brother, with a single glass of wine, his whole nature was reversed, the demon became uppermost, and though none of the usual signs of intoxication were visible, his will was palpably insane. In this reversed character, he would shout at any one that crossed his path, even our mother, he would bang the walls, fight, break things, chase people outside the house,” about how Bridget is running mad with all the books in her room, they talk and talk, and whenever my mom comes to the city to visit us from the village, they buy meat every day she is around, me being vegetarian, a trait l picked up from my ex-boyfriend, l miss out on laughing like a whore with my mother at meal times as she finds it ludicrous that her own kid really prefers grass to meat, so l end up all alone sometimes, and then her and my big sister after laughing like whores about everything under the sun, they purchase a few bottles of Uganda Waragi and get stupid drunk and laugh like whores and watch Agataliiko Nfufu while I automatically go into my beige magazine and book filled room to watch Ted talks on how to make the Times Cover one day as the best writer in the last and upcoming 500 years, after they have finished watching Agataliiko Nfufu, they hug and kiss goodnight and most nights my mother tells my big sister that, “Bridget doesn’t love me, she never seems any excited when am here.”

Goddammit, l will never finish this goddamn story if l keep being a drunk stupid bitch who keeps going on and on about how sweet and lovely my mother is. Moving on, me and my two siblings grew up in a small village called Kyazanga, Lwengo District, and being so young, l don’t remember when our stepfather came into the picture, but he did and somehow, we were calling him uncle, he is the only “father” l ever knew, and besides him beating mom, which l reckon is because she refused to give him a kid, reason being she didn’t want to risk bringing any more AIDS into the world, or maybe because he was simply a bad man, or maybe am just a foolish kid who does not understand why old people do the ugly things that they do, all these thoughts make my heart big, not big like in a beautiful way, nope, big in a swelling kind of way, like it’s about to burst with pain and puckishness. Our stepfather really helped to get us through school, my big sister has a University degree, my brother is supposed to have one too except the alcohol took hold of his life, and as for me, am a literal genius at this level because of what education has given me, my mother always tells us stories of her dramatic end of education in only form four, maybe that’s why she stayed with him all those years she was being pounded like yam, huh, to get us through school through him! I will puke if l keep going on about this, but I'd like to mention that even after she only stopped in form four, my mother is one of the most educated women in the whole entire world, the way she was woman Councilor for my local town Kyazanga for almost all my primary years until 2009 when she felt she had had enough of power and gave up the seat for other women to take over, the way she never cared for school marks but checking in every time if we were happy at school, the way she let me be who l wanted to be while growing up, the way she made sure l went to the best schools that Uganda has to offer, the way she loved with such immensity, ahhh, l would go on forever. I went to Kitooro Hill View Primary School, a school perched on a hill in my hometown Kyazanga, where l was quite a bright student, scoring 9 points at the end of my primary seven, and l remember getting back home with my Certificate of 9 points and my mother who believed I was even to bright for a girl, said, “you did do well my girl, now tell me any school you want to go too and l will take you there, no matter what.” A girl l admired so much called Mulerwa Martha was a senior at Mary Hill High school and when my mother said l would go anywhere l wanted, l definitely mentioned Mary Hill High School, Mbarara. My mother being the cunning fox that she is, l did my O’level at Mary Hill High School for four years, and what a fucking religious experience. I want to take a pause in my education career for a while, here, at this point, at Mary Hill high School, Nyamitanga, Mbarara.

“Can l please borrow your charger?” am standing at the edge of of my big sister’s bed, she is still in hypnopompic state, l cannot see the charger where she usually charges from before going to bed, so she really has to wake up fully to show me where it is but the whore is all soaked in her baby’s arms, she really loves that beautiful baby boy of hers, she became luckier ever since that baby arrived, almost independent. She finally wakes up and with her big sexy eyes tells me that a girl about my age took the charger from her workplace claiming that it’s me who had sent her for the charger…so l shouldn’t waste her time well knowing where the charger was, with me. Am startled by what she says but l stay calm knowing this is sleep disturbing her hypnopompic state of mind, but then she screams at me, “Bridget, l gave the charger to that girl Seraphina who kept coming to my workplace saying that she is friends with you, and then finally last night she came and said that you were somewhere buying something to eat and you wanted to borrow my charger and so l gave it to her, you have the charger Bridget, so stop wasting my sleep please and go away.”

Now, this is no longer some sex and the city shit, no, sit down, grab a cup of coffee, lemme tell you a story about this bitch Seraphina, lemme try to blur the line between fiction and reality for you gorgeous reader. On my Charlie Kauffman shit l go now, and by that l mean my bullshit. Every time l tell this story, no one believes it happened and sometimes am not sure if it was an out body experience, or a heretic schizophrenic episode, or a lucid dream or something that really happened to me as l saw with my own eyes. Like damn, am a madman, am a crazy woman, am robotic, am independent in my train of thought, run away with me, let’s dance to Nina Simone in the dark of twilight.

Part 3

It was a huge countryside homestead of a guest house for people traveling from the city to other parts of the country. About a mile away from the road, perched on a hill, with many locals a few miles away in the surrounding. The place that we escaped to.

Me and my friend Regis, had just read the book, “ A mercy by Toni Morrison and after reading most of the scenes about whores and killing of men who disrespected women to the annoyance of all the religious girls in our form 2 class at Mary Hill High School, we felt we were too cool for school, we felt trapped, and so we decided to escape from school, but what happened to me on this escape will forever haunt my mind, l regret why l ever escaped from school that day.”

This one sunny day in March, a huge car pulled into the grass filled compound of the guest house that I and my friend Regis had escaped to, it contained a white woman celebrity that l had seen on one of the common social media websites, Instagram, with as many followers as one could have. She was very pretty, and her condition of burns made her even more special.

She was in Uganda, to be the face of the Google Chrome campaign of spreading the message about their new product. And as luck would have it, our little guest house perched on the hill was to be their resting place for a night and maybe half of the next day.

Besides her, was a group of five men, one was a driver, she was seated in the front row seat with him, and the rest of them in the four seats in the back rows. When they got out, we had a chance to interact with them, because the guest house was not large, we had basically roasted the balls of the men that owned it when we came and now we manged the guest house ourselves, me and Ahumuza Regis, and so we talked to her a lot, so many questions and so many answers, while the four men lounged outside, in the quickly arriving twilight.

Later, while, everyone had gone into the bar area to get drinks and some food, one of the guys had a little object, a monkey-like, slimy, object, which was in a little box, as if in an endless slumber, it needed charging, which meant to me that it was either Artificial intelligence of some sort of a baby alien, and as fascinated and bewildered as l was, I simply took the little object from the man’s hands and took it over to the outside charging place of the guest house.

It seems that the locals had noticed the huge car pulling up into the guest house and seen the white men, who attracted their senses, subliminally and so, they were roaming the place in anticipation, a sudden surge of joy and even celebration in the air, on Nyamitanga hill, Mbarara, no one anticipated the Artificial Intelligence evil that was about to unfold.

We let the locals be, as long as they did not spoil anything on the premises and left everything in its pristine condition. But there is this little local girl called Seraphina, she was about 10, small face, brown eyes, bald shaved head, a head too big for her size, who was like my best friend, she would come around and at my big age of 16, she would make me play hopscotch with her, make me shout at the top of my lungs to the gods of heaven to help our mothers be Happy, and do all the childish things l never would have been involved in if it were not for her.

Precipitously, Seraphina landed unto the little monkey-like object from where it was charging, and as she put it in her hands and began discovering it, it produced a sound, something like a hello,’ Seraphina was stunned, and with her big brown eyes, looked over to where l was with eyes sharp and bright as Orion’s Belt.

Neither l, nor Seraphina had ever seen something so small, so monkey-like, so beautiful, so alien, and so sophisticated, but we did not know what we were headed into, because while Sarafina looked back at me, the little queer object spoke once again “help me, I ..” and as if fainting, it went out.

Before l even had a chance to think or say anything, Seraphina swallowed the little object, and ran as fast as a deer, across the compound, past the white men, into the surrounding land, filled with tall trees, and a whole lot of other green.

The next thing l knew was a gun over my head, screaming from the 5 white men, they shouted at me about how priceless that object was and how l had to pay with my life if l did not get back the object in the next four hours. They were really furious, so I was told to lead the group to Seraphina’s home, while the rest of the locals who were caught up in joy and fascination of the white man and his big flashy car were ordered to look thoroughly around for anywhere that Seraphina could have run to, when the chaos had started, Regis, who was always smarter than me, had managed to get away, and so l was in this alone now. On reaching Seraphina’s hut, her father’s house, the old chubby man came out, and the coughing sounds of his wife would be slightly heard from where we were standing outside the hut. “Have you seen Seraphina Mr. Kigozi ?,” one of the white men thundered like Thor with his hammer at Mr. Kigozi. Quietly and rudely, Mr. Kigozi said no, and not before long, one of the white men was inside the hut, turning everything up and down, more screams and labored coughing from Seraphina’s mother who was lying down on a local mat, which she had knitted in the first beautiful few months of her marriage to Mr. Kigozi, as relentlessly let on by Seraphina in one of our conversations.

During the search, one of the taller well-bodied white men that looked like a Viking kept chanting this poem that made my blood run colder than death:

Hither there comes the son of Hlotyn,

The bright snake gapes to heaven above,

………………

Against the serpent goes Othin’s son.

In anger smites the warder of earth:-

Forth from their homes must all men flee;-

Nine paces fares the son of Fjorgyn,

And, slain by the serpent, fearless he sinks.

In a trance-like state, the white man Viking would raise his voice and continue chanting; “the sky will turn black before the fire engulfs the world, the stars will disappear, flames will dance before the sky, steam will rise, the world will be covered in water and then it will be raised again, green and fertile, an independent woman will be born.”

Without success, we had to head out of the hut, running this time, because the white men were now saying that if they did not get this thing, something bad, really bad, was going to happen, and now, comets of thoughts about Seraphina, my friend’s safety with that thing in her belly, kept pouring in, l felt small, felt trapped, felt the whole world collapsing around me, I wanted to be out of this mess, desiring to be on my own, I could not bring myself to stop from tears bulging from my eyes…

Modus Vivendi

Lying down in my room,

curtains raised high,

the stings of quiet are loud,

like ’27 guns’ and all their sins,

am lost in an ocean of thoughts of

how my hero turned to zero.

Maybe if l drunk enough l could be

Charles Bukowski,

but l quit that about a year ago,

I tried to go out with the crowd but alas,

lonely people can have a house full of people

and still, be lonely,

so l chose to be alone, l choose solitude.

Maybe if l smoked on the ganja, from downtown Kamwokya,

I could feel closer to Marley, but Bob left me in this big bold world

because the acral lentiginous melanoma could not spare him,

everything is heavy, smoking trees drove me to schizophrenia

about a year go and l had to give up the trees,

so now all l have is therapy sessions, thoughts

of Sylvia Plath turning on the gas,

and l cannot stand another text message, another ‘friendship.’

ANOTHER GOVERNMENT.

nio, nio, nio,

I do not care what you say,

am taking the time machine,

maybe l get to see Kurt Cobain, maybe l get to sit down

with Maya Angelou and get to know really,

why the caged bird sings, for l feel caged,

will I ever able to sing songs of peace?

Everyone is looking at their phones and what a scene,

I need to get disconnected, l need to find the sevenths heaven,

I am searching for Nirvana, and I’d rather be alone,

kind of Blue, l chose solitude.

Isolation and solitude is what gave me this poem,

but l cannot lie,

l still hate the way Sam Auster handled solitude in the book

‘the invention of solitude’,

in other words,

l hate me for how often l have to cut out,

even the ones l love the most,

just so l can bleed on paper,

like Hemingway told me to do.

Thank you solitude,

I hate you, I love you so.

Part 4

But l did not have time to cry as we had to continue the search of looking for Seraphina, within the time limit of four hours.

One of the white men said we should spread out in different directions, so we could make the search faster, “there is no way she could have gone far.” he said, so we spread out and not even a mile after we spread out, she was pregnant, full blast belly in front of her, I ran towards her, almost crashing into her, and not wanting to be seen in case anyone was following me, we went behind the nearby big tree, where she said , “ I want to keep it, Bridget, I want to keep it,” and to all the madness in the world, Seraphina, a 10-year-old, was saying to me how she wanted to keep it, I told Seraphina to shut up about it, that they were looking for her and my life was on the line for whatever that thing was that was currently in her belly. And I dutifully reminded her that 10-year-olds don’t go around wanting to keep it’ or whatever fucked up shit she was.

Part 5

It’s been almost nine years since Seraphina, Mary Hill High school, and the alien, l thought l would never hear from her again after that last look, the look in her eyes, when she told me, how wonderful she felt, how new, how intelligent, how happy, how powerful she felt with this thing inside of her, l had to believe her, so she kissed my left cheek, and ran further into the woods, me never seeing her again for all these years, and l cannot mention the things that the white men did to me after it was clear they could not trace Seraphina, it was hell on earth dawg, yet here she is in the city of sin, playing tricks on my family with her Artificial Intelligence powers, sitting in my room, l do not know whether to kill myself after what my sister just told me or to simply write a poem.

I am a ridiculous man. They call me a madman now. That would be a distinct rise in my social position were it not that they regarded me as being as ridiculous as ever. But that does not make me angry anymore. They are all dear to me now even while they laugh at me-yes, even then they are for some reason particularly dear to me, the voices in my head. The soil will not take my life today, l will go on and on for a thousand years, because God is a woman, and God is immortal. Long live mother, long live woman. And mom, l don’t think there is anyone who loves you more than l do on this earth, yes, am ridiculous, yes, l never show how excited lam whenever you are around, but l do love you mom, a lot and am so thankful for whatever you have taught me, for all the slaps and blows you endured so l got an education, l may not be very good with expressing myself around you but am educated now mama, and am good with the pen, am good with writing shit down and l have kinda grown into a sweet little independent woman who is able to think through stuff, l have grown up a little bit to see all you had to go through for me to be where lam today, l have grown up a little bit to know that l may not be able to wipe away what happened in the past or fully understand what happened and instead of killing myself with the thoughts and questions, l have grown up a little bit to know that some people in my situation either go to the priest, some go to poetry and some go to the grave, and guess what l choose mama, l chose poetry, l choose to let myself go with words, l choose to have a mind of my own, l choose to speak up for you and the rest of the women that never got the chance to speak up, l choose to be better than l was yesterday just so l can bring a smile on your pretty face mama, l choose to dance the pain away, l choose to create art with the poems that l write for the Lantern meet, l choose to create something so beautiful out of the pain that l feel for how you were treated, I choose to fight for you mama, not with guns, not with blows, not with hard slaps, but with words, I choose to be free from hate mama, I choose you, l choose my big sister, l choose my big brother, l choose God, l choose the sound of my voice on paper, l choose love, l choose peace mama, l choose Independence.

Independence.

At the break of 4 am, the society flag of expectations was lowered,

And the new flag of independence of hers, of faith, hope, and love

was hoisted in its place.

Illuminated in the floodlight’s intense light,

Nakuya who was Rwandan because her mother was Rwandan,

Nakuya who was a Muganda because her father was a Muganda,

Danced to Nina Simone’s “I put a spell on you” in her white subtle

lighted room.

Some of her colleagues said that this made her so western cultured,

the music that she danced to.

The turgid and bitter acrid taste of madness, of depression, anxiety

and psychotic breakdowns, all went through the door, on the hour of

her independence, at 4 am.

Any woman that lets go of her mistakes, her tears, her fears, her false

imaginations, has the most special of resolve, miss independent,

once again, earns her sobriquet.

Dearer than love, faster than time, sweeter than joy,

her black hair combed backward and plaited in two long, loose braids,

she stands judged, she walks looked at by many eyes!

“Why is she so different from the rest of her fellow girls?” they ask,

And she walks with her head more poised because only her knows

that the flags changed at 4 am, that she is an independent man now!

Not a Munyarwanda, Not a Muganda, Not a Western cultured black

girl, but a citizen of the world, the World of Socrates, A citizen of

the divine, a great world of women and men that have found the

gold inside their hearts, the world of great men and women that

know of Martin Luther King’s words, the great world of men and women

that awake each morning and choose to be different, Seth Godin’s purple cows,

the stone that the builders rejected, the cornerstone, independent.

4 am, one hour of madness and bliss,

O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last,

To be absolved from previous ties and conventions, l from mine

and you from yours!

Happy independence.