Five Times

Every fortnight, for about a year, my therapist and I would play chess in her cozy, dainty office. I would wonder if she knew how it felt to scrub a kind of filth that never washed away — but we hardly spoke so I didn’t ask.

One day she asked if they were five — the guys who assaulted me.

I asked her how she had known.

She said I always queened my pawns on the sixth move, never fifth.

So I asked her how long it would be before I showered and felt clean again. She said it would be a multiple of five.
Ten years later, I stopped scrubbing. Maybe my kind of filth couldn’t wash away.

‘Pictory’ — A picture and a story speaking of and from each other.

Story — Annette Mumbi

Picture — Kimani Wandaka

Originally published at kimaniwandaka.wordpress.com on February 10, 2016.