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The Seven Deaths of Mr. Steven Akumu: The Fourth Death

 


Mr. Steven Akumu was a man of many talents. In another life, he had occasionally caressed the guitar to submission. Then, comely ladies clamoured for his attention. Ever generous, he had reciprocated accordingly. This, then, is one of the stories he strummed to life. Listening to the journey he took his audience to with his guitar skills, you could tell that it was partly gossip and partly experience. He was that good.

“The man flirts with the guitar, persuading it to accompany him to Mombasa. The story in the song is about a man. And Fatuma. The ocean breeze… the man, tired of the city, seeks refuge in a dream sold by a mysterious traveller in a moment of serendipity… The song is in snatches, glimpses of a memory that is the tune, the lyrics different in the heads of the listeners. Perhaps, haphazard – for men long differently.

Fatuma, role plays. In the dream, she is a school girl. She has that dangerous look of innocence, of naivety, even. Young girls are like that, luring men to traps with their wide-eyed innocence, with their wide-eyed inexperience, making the men think themselves as saviours. Else, as smooth predators about to prey on youth, easy pickings...  the men delude themselves. Fatuma dances, painting a picture of possibilities, of love, of good times ahead. She promises to take him places, happy places…

Transfixed, the man stares down the barrel of the gun. The impending death excites him, making him question his sanity. Anyway, it is long since he felt this much alive. In the gun is the girl, now revealed to be no longer innocent… grown into a Jezebel right before his eyes. In her dance moves – quick thrusts of blips, of neon, of light, is his salvation. His will be a happy death.

Staring down the barrel of the gun, the man thinks of many things. He thinks of his mortality, of love, of where the two goes when they die. A grin spreads across his face… the picture in his mind is that the two are forever. Love and death. That they go on for infinity… one, two, three… the waltzes and the tangos… four, five, six… round and round, love and death, intertwined, stretches to time without number… the beat, constant.

Iridescent, the ocean. In love, the man. Tempest, Fatuma. The skies, azure, assures the man. The realisation is yet to happen, that he has imprisoned himself… and willingly, at that. If he was but a keen seeker of history, he would have realised that corpses of men litter it, men once foolish enough to fall in love. Men foolish enough to delude themselves. That the rise and fall of kingdoms, of empires, through the ages, is wiled by the daughters of Eve.

He still can’t tell it, as his mind deludes him. The man goes through the motions… He dances to love, to life… a miasma of colours that meshes in harmony. Colours that transpose him to other places… places free of pain, rejection, discipline, order and all that makes men great. He dances to lethargy, slow, numbing, shutting him down to the business of life.

Fatuma is become djinn… a water spirit. But it is not like they tell in the stories. Of limbs stretching from the bed to close the room’s door as the man is shocked into a heart attack. Rather, Fatuma lulls him to sleep. The man’s mind can’t handle the transfiguration. Mist, colourless, menacing… what has become of Fatuma.

The ocean, has transcended them. The man, lies in the belly of the ship, a ship without crew, a ship that sails to the commands of Fatuma, her commands, unheard. The waves are gentle – a false sense of security for the man, wide awake in the terror of his dreams. The ship gently dances to the waves, a reminisce of an earlier eve that was more enjoyable… then, is gone.”

This, then, is the mood that Mr. Steven Akumu fixed us in. Happy, sad – changing times. The man at the corner – the owner of the Love Café, nodded at him. The man needed us to come back. So, Mr. Steven Akumu had to bring us back to the city.

“The man, he wakes back to the city. He feels as though his dream was clouded, ominous, unhappy… Yet, the one that he remembers is of another. He thinks of Delphine… once his love. The one that once stole his heart. He thinks of Delphine, oracle to his soul. He thinks of Delphine. Gentle, a guide. He thinks of Delphine… he thinks of her as placid waters.

It is a rainy night... the kind sung of in a number set in Georgia. The kind that mentions neon lights, perhaps, the whistling of a distant train. He thinks of her in the rain, swishing and swinging about. Now, there is a remembrance. He thinks of Fatuma… a girl far, far-away… a girl that had whispered promises, sweet promises, muffled promises, into his tired eyes. Yet, in ways he cannot fathom, the two are one.

The morning is come and song has to end. It is Monday morning. The guitar playing was good, and so was the man with the story. Mr. Steven Akumu. Though the song had some blue to it, there are no blues to the Monday. The sun caresses the city’s skyline, a promising week ahead. The man has been saved. For now, at least. All of us men gathered about, breaking with the dawn… there is one thing we understand. That man is born for toil, for suffering… that, even in the grave, respite is not promised. So, we sing and dance to this fact. Sometimes, we even fall in love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1hpskVrX7I&t=12s

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