MY BROKEN BRAIN

Sometimes my brain breaks. It just stops functioning and everything about me crashes and burns. My life is plunged into a bottomless abyss and everything goes blank. I usually get the felling like a hard disk that has just been formatted, clean and empty, the only exception is that I am aware that I have been formatted yet I can do nothing about it. When this happens I usually have zero cognitive functions; I cannot think at all and whenever I try I just draw blanks. Physically, I become as useless as a statue, I cannot move not even a single muscle on my body. To make this relatable to you let me put it like this, I get the same feeling like I am sleeping except that I am awake and aware that  I am sleeping. Confusing much? Yeah get it. I know this sounds like a quite crazy but yeah it happens so bear with me.

First time it happened I was sure I was dead. It was an unusually cold and dark Wednesday evening, the rain outside was gushing down in massive torrents accompanied with the occasional bolt if lightning and a crack of thunder ripping through the house. I was alone in the house, curled on the couch with my warm and fuzzy Spongebob pj's, listening to Coldplay as I typed away my overdue assignment, while trying to sneak in a couple of chapters of Americanah. Then boom! there was a bright flash of lightning and seconds later the loudest crack of thunder I had ever heard, believe me I felt it in through my spine down to my toes. No that is not what broke my brain. After the horrifying thunder, the power went out and the house went dark leaving the light from my laptop as the only source of light. I stood up, obviously cursing the weather and went to switch off the main switch. As I fumbled for some candles on the kitchen drawer that was when it happened. I felt something on the back of my head, an explosive feeling as if I had been hit really hard by something and either the object or my head was broken. The pain was sharp but short lived before I went tumbling down on the cold kitchen floor.

I cannot accurately say that I blacked out. For starters, even with my eyes closed all I saw was white instead of black (pun intended). It was like I was in a white room with white ceiling and floors and white walls; except I couldn't exactly tell because everything was white. I fought really hard to open my eyelids in vain. I wasn't cold at all, if anything I felt a pleasant warmth, like someone had covered me with a nice and soft blankie. The most frustrating thing was that I was aware that I was on the kitchen floor yet I could do nothing about it. Then it occurred to me, what if I was dead? What if I never woke up again? Was this it? The end? Is this how it feels to die? And what on earth had killed me?!!

Panic set in. I couldn't just die. At least not yet. My mind went on an overdrive. I had my whole life in front of me, my studies, my savings... Hell I had not even had a decent relationship for heavens sake!! And dying like this? In my pyjamas, looking like a homeless person, I hadn't even brushed my teeth yet jeez. So if I was really dead was I going to heaven or hell? And are they even real? Where were the angels to guide me?  More importantly where was the little light?

After that a deep calmness engulfed me. My head went blank and everything was quiet. But I was aware when my friend came to check on me and started screaming. I felt it when I was being carried to hospital. I drifted in and out as my mother switched between praying and sobbing beside me. I remember my little sister telling me to wake up or she was gonna wear my clothes or mess with my stuff. Someone, I am not sure who even said "I love you"! But I was wallowing in this unknown realm, I felt like a kite in space: just drifting away.

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.