At Eight

Good food, good company, a smile that sets eyes to music and afternoon slowly, gracefully fell away to evening. Eventually it was time to return to the litter of socks and buveera scattered all over my floor, the evidence of my act squandering all its opportunities of getting together.

 

But outside the café night had opened. There was thunder, and lightning; rain in rapid shards flashed through headlights. The easiest thing would be to surrender to warm desires, the hearth, and give up the night to entwining fingers, but life calls. Life demands. The socks, the kettle, the ironing board. The alarm clock.

 

A brief walk to the cab under a shared umbrella, a very bad joke about Rihanna's song that was as hilarious as it was awful, and I wondered for two seconds whether it bothered the cab driver very much when couples made out in his back seat.

 

Finally goodnight.

 

Not finally. She lingers and remains, in the tips of my fingers, until the next cup of coffee.

Friday

The crisis of the week is behind me and the crisis of the weekend is still ahead. The road from the office to the taxi park is a silent interim between then and then. The flat soles of my sneakers pad slow steps out of the tarmac, my shoulders are low, my hands are in pockets and I am exhausted because I don't know how to relax.

The tasks of the next day loom, clumsily shaped, too bulky and for their insufficient hours. The image of rocks in a Pringles can flashes.

"I need some distraction. Some beautiful release."

The taxi.  Whooshes into town. I wap on my phone, as if I haven't been on the web all day. Nahright.com, cracked.com, blogs, MSN Entertainment, I wikipedia every random question that flashes into my head.
There are eight planets in the solar system, and three dwarf planets. The dwarfs are Pluto, Ceres and… the taxi reaches my stop.

Luwum Street is quiet and empty at this time. But CD Electronics is still open. It opens late.

We used to communicate in Luganda, mine faltering, his fine; now we communicate in English, his faltering. I get The Hustle Season II and tell him I will be back for Kanyimbe tomorrow.

I shouldn't be watching DVD shows. I have so much work I am supposed to be doing.

I also get some airtime because she's waiting for me to call. I said I'd call before I go to bed. It is a quarter to ten and I know it will be 11:30 when I finally get home. Better call her now.

Dial while inside Mask Foods waiting for my chicken. Her voice is slow and sleepy. Sweet dreams.

I hate the taxi park and avoid it as much as I can, but something cannot be denied, certainly not now, caught suddenly in the swirling and writhing in the darkness of downtown. I realise that I have descended into the city's entrails. From its powdered face, to its guts.

Something cannot be denied. That even though I do hate the park, it is the part of Kampala where I feel most at home.