Of Men in Black and Blue (Part I)

Dear all, my hope is that your year is going on well. I’ve been MIA for a while. School happens. You may notice that for now, we are on www.karimimartin.wordpress.com. The site www.karimijunior.com is down after my domain name registrar slapped me with a $210 invoice but we’ll be back on www.karimijunior.com pretty soon. Fellow writers, kindly add me to your active writers’/bloggers’ groups on Whatsapp/Telegram. My number is +254704452436. Alright, let’s dive right in. Enjoy and as always leave your comment. Don’t forget to share widely. Thank you for your continued support.

Here I am in a somehow dark room, my hands tied to the back of the chair I’m sitting on and a lineup of her photos on the old wooden table. The room has no windows, just a small air vent right above the metallic door that seems to have survived the World Wars, a billion bullets, 100,001 grenades and probably 12 nuclear bombs. It seems rusty and has no color. Ok, I maybe color blind but I can swear that this door has no color and again it has like 10 Million shades of no color. Are we together up to that point? I don’t blame you; I’m as confused as you are.

Moving on swiftly, he comes in through the door. This guy is big. Let me just put it right. This guy is HUMONGOUS and mean-looking!! Back in primary school, this is the kind of guy we used to describe in Swahili as ‘jitu la miraba minne.’ He is clad in a dark suit with a white shirt and a slim black silk tie. The suit is tight fitting and the tie is also tight on his neck. He also has on some dark shades, a walkie talkie in his left hand and on his hip; I can see that he is strapped. From my experience I can determine that it’s a ceska. My mind at the time is like, ‘That tie is so tight that this guy cannot even swallow his pride…’ In my heart, I laugh at my own joke. Whether it’s funny or not, you decide.

Quickly, he scans the room and indicates to the two men in the room to leave and close the mystery color door. He sits down across me and says, ‘Young man, I’m not here to play games. You either give me what I want or face the consequences and I can assure you that you’ll not like the consequences!!!’ In my mind, I feel like I’m in an action movie and I have this urge to respond, ‘I choose the hard way. Bring it on!!’ Did I mention that he has a soprano? Yeah now read his threat again in his voice and establish why amidst all the on goings, I burst into laughter before he bang the table hard to remind me of the seriousness of the situation…

I had met her 7 months earlier. Her name was Amanda. The name was amazing and so was she. She had captured my heart in a way that no other female had. I gathered all the courage in me and approached her with my dope pick up lines and let’s just say I got my L the first few times but as time went by, luck was on my side. Pretty soon, we were going out on dates. Our conversations were long and we would tell each other those sweet nothings and jokes. We talked about how much we would love to have 3 kids preferably a boy as the first born so that he would ‘protect’ the rest and such kind of talk.

During one of those dates, she pointed out a man in the same hotel we were. I skillfully turned to see him and she told me that the man was winking at her and was looking at her he whole time. Somehow, I confirmed the same and we switched seats. Immediately after, the man left. Amanda claimed to have seen the man a few times and suspected that he had been trailing her. I told her to inform me if she ever saw him anywhere else.

Few days later on a Wednesday, I was accosted by a group of young men while going home in the evening and they parted with my mobile phone. Luckily, I did not have my wallet with me and also had no money on me. Later that evening, I managed to call Amanda via a friend’s phone as I had memorized her number. We had quite a short conversation and she had promised to pass by my office on Friday at 4:00p.m. so that we would go out after leaving the office.

On the said day, she failed to turn up as promised.  Her phone was off. By this time I had got another phone. I convinced myself that she would call later. Saturday morning, same script; Phone off. I went by her house to check on her. Her Sister Daisy explained that Amanda never came back home from work on Thursday. Daisy thought she was at my place. We searched every place where we thought she would be to no avail. MY AMANDA WAS MISSING!!

To be continued….