Thursday 27 August 2015

TEMPTING GOD


Since childhood I have had this weird habit of formulating life's possible scenarios and playing them out in my head. Of course almost all these scenes have always been pure fiction, but they do provide me with the much needed escape from reality. One of these scenarios seems to be glued in my memory for eternity so I might as well share it out.

There was this period when as a child I was a total misfit. I used to be left alone a whole lot by pretty much everyone. See normal people have babysitters or nannies but back in the hood I had neither. So during school break when everyone at home was either at work or tuition I was left alone at home, of course they locked the house but I could play around the compound or wherever and as soon as I got hungry I would go to Mwas, a neighbor who owned a food kiosk and stuff myself silly with Pasua ( french fries stuffed in mandazi).



I always stood out as a sore thumb among my peers. Whereas they had to wear jackets when it got cold, I had mine on since morning, when they played far away from their homes someone would notice and tell them to play close by, nobody worried about me, when they had curfew at 6 pm or as soon as it got dark, I had to wait till 9 pm before anyone got home. This also meant that other kids would easily pick on me and no one stop them.




So there was this one time a kid called *Tyson rode his bike over a sand house I was building. As usual, I walked away and started building another house out of marble stones. He tried to ride his bike over it but instead fell from his bike onto the ground and bam! He bit his tongue pretty hard. The kid then ran home to his dad, mouth full of blood and accused me of pushing him off his bike! What on earth?




Knowing a beating was coming I decided to do what i do best: walk away. However,the duo caught up to me and his dad asked if I had actually done it. Of course i vehemently denied. Not buying a word i said the goon dragged me to where the rest of the kids were playing and asked them if anyone had seen me pushing Tyson off his bike. They were clueless. He told his son to recount the ordeal and Tyson said how he had been peacefully riding his bike, minding his own business when I allegedly borrowed it. He told me to wait but I pushed him because i was jealous of his BMX. What surprised me tho was that as soon as the little liar was done, some kids 'miraculously' remembered seeing me pushing Tyson off his bike.Long story short, his dad believed them. Get this, I was a weird, skinny, introverted, six year old girl, who had somehow managed to pick up a fight with a big, spoiled-rotten, well known, ten year old, boy-bully. I wasn't that stupid! Yet as usual,  the tag line was "the weird kid did it."


Next thing I knew his dad hit me across the face and as I turned to flee the next hit caught me square in the head making me lose my balance. As dad and son walked away the other kids started throwing the stone peebles at me. I remember running for my life as fast as I could. I was hurt, but I wasn't crying. I just felt something heavy on my chest so I kept running. I ran till I reached a certain bridge along Likoni rd. where a railway line passed below. I went under the bridge and on either side there were huge stair like slabs so I sat on the top one. I felt something running down my nose, I checked to find out that it was blood. I thought I was gonna die, and the pain in my chest was too much.



I could hear cars passing over my head but below there was no train. I remembered my Sunday school teacher telling us that God only listens to little children as our prayers got straight to him. But for adults God tells the angels too check first if they were good people or not. That in mind, I started praying. I didn't pray for strength or for my mummy to punish Tyson. Instead I prayed for God to turn me into a robot. I wanted to be a robot so that no stones thrown at me could hurt as much, or if anyone punched me I wouldn't feel the pain. I remember telling God that if indeed he was real, he should turn me into one. 
"Dear God, if you are real please turn me into a robot or am gonna die. Amen"

After a while i did open my eyes, the blood in my nose had already clotted and I found it hard to breathe, the pain in my chest was getting unbearable and I thought this was it, i was surely gonna to die. So I decided to lie down, its easier to die while sleeping or so i thought. Maybe God wanted me with him after all.
*Not his real name.