Thread by @CSakwah

Story Thread

Early 2020.
I am at my house. A lady calls me. Her voice sounds euphonous in my ears. She is in Nyayo Estate. She requests me to make a delivery to her. She is traveling to Mombasa this evening. I have to deliver in three hours. She offers to pay the delivery fee.

It is an ambush, I think. I prepare in a haste. After all, it just a delivery. I am not keen on the nitty-gritty of grooming. It is just a delivery. I can wear anything. I convince myself.
In Nyayo. I meet her at the doorway of her mansion. She is wearing a big ravishing smile.

She is joyous and easy on my eyes. Her beauty intimidates me. I coy because I am shy next to a beautiful woman. She lives in those courts with mansions in Nyayo Estate. I reach the zipper of my backpack to pull out the book, but she stops me.'Sakwah, you must come into my house.'

I decline her offer, spiritedly, earnestly, she insists that she can't pick the book from her doorway. It is her smile that enchanted me to accept the invite.
At the doorway, is a white wooly doormat. A white clean doormat? I sneak my eyes into the house, a giant white carpet

is on the floor.The carpet is snowy.I bend to pull my shoes off. It is bad manners to enter someone’s house with shoes on. She asks me to walk in with the shoes on.I decline that offer. I remove my left leg slowly just to make sure my socks are not smelling.Perfect, they are not.

I am relieved. I suspected the smell of my socks.
I untie the next shoe. I pull out the leg only to remember that I left my house with unmatched socks. It was just a delivery. I was not supposed to enter anyone’s house or remove my shoes.

One sock is white and black striped while the other is yellow, yellow like her skin color. I am sheepish. I conceive an idea to pull the shoes back on before she notices, then I leave. 'Hey, I have just remembered, I have another delivery in Rongai, the other side of Nairobi!'

When I lift my head to deliver that request, I meet her eyes. Amused. She has not only seen my unmatched socks, but one of the socks has a hole at the tip. The tip of my big toe is visible, ugly as the head of a tortoise outside its shell. She smiles and teases my grooming.

‘I am sorry I made you leave your house in a rush.’ It is ridicule that is camouflaged as an apology. I take it with a grin.
I am embarrassed. ‘Rat,’ I accuse. ‘I don’t know which one ran out with my socks. One ate my socks’

It is late when you realize that I should not have mentioned the rats in my house.
She invites me into the house and asks me to feel at home. The house is cozy, but I am uncomfortable. The hole in my sock is too glaring.

She asks how are the book sales; if it's true I dropped out of school, the next book that I am working on et al those questions that people ask authors. She is sitting directly opposite me. Her eye contact is overawing, to levels where I am intimidated.

Five minutes later, I hear a door squeaking faintly. ‘A man!’ I think. I sit upright. I am edgy. I lift my eyes from the lady’s bust, lest the man thinks I have lewd intentions. It is a kid. She is just mastering the art of walking. She wade's across the house from the bedroom.

'Hey, Skyler, go and say hi to Uncle Sakwah, Uncle Sakwah is a writer. He brought mummy his book to read on our way to Mombasa. Isn't it nice of him?' Her English is eloquent and polished. She is not trying to force an American twang like the rest of the Nyayo Estate ladies.

Skyler wades across the floor to say hi.
'What can I offer you, Sakwah?' she asks. I am not concentrating. I have just realized that Skyler has noticed the creator on my socks. She is looking at my toe keenly as if the toe reminds her of her favorite cartoon, an ugly cartoon.

'Nothing. I have to rush to Rongai. You know Rongai and traffic jam are a better love story. It is getting late.' I decline the food. I know I risk annoying my ancestors. She offers to get me an Uber. I want to tell her that, 'an Uber will not fly above the traffic jam.

At least the Rongai matatus try to fly sometimes', but she quickly adds, 'I was already preparing chicken when you called to say that you had left town'.
The mention of chicken quickly erodes away my thoughts. Again, she wins. She stands to leave for her kitchen.

I take my phone to check if the girl that is ignoring me has finally texted me, she has not. She is not interested in me, I can clearly tell.
But another girl is interested in me. She is ready to play with me. Not to play with my heart but my big ugly toe.

I feel a soft pinch on my toes. I am startled. I quickly fold my toe away. The movement of my toe amuses this new girl. She starts laughing. There is nothing as beautiful as the kid's laughter. I become unease. Skyler is poking her fingers inside my torn sock, it amuses her.

The more I move my toe, the harder she laughs.
From the kitchen, I hear her mother saying, 'how did you manage to make her laugh, she barely laughs in this house?' I say nothing. I don’t know how to tell her that it’s my laughing socks that are giving her laughter.

Footsteps are heard from the kitchen. The mother is approaching the sitting room, she wants a piece of the laughter as well. Skyler, like Spiderman, jumps onto my laps and pretends to have been playing with me while sitting on my laps.

'she does not like playing with visitors. She really likes you!'
'No. The visitors' socks don't have holes.' I want to say that. But I don’t.
'She is an adorable kid.' I say this instead. The mother smiles. A compliment to a kid is an indirect compliment to the mother.

After admiring our chemistry, the mother walks back into the kitchen. Promptly, Skyler gets off my laps and sits next to my legs again. She pokes the hole in my shocks again and smiles when I bend my toe out of discomfort.
Her game becomes boring, I pull her up on laps.

I get tired of amusing her. 'hey buddy. Stop pocking your fingers into my torn socks and I won't pock my nose in your fractured manners, you poorly-raised-ill-mannered kid,' I whisper into her ears. She frowns, really quickly. I am sure in seconds she will yelp.

To stop her from crying, I move the leg next to her. She smiles. I don’t want to change the perception that her mother had about our chemistry. A few minutes, her mother walks through the sitting room into the dining room with a tray of food. She sets the table.

Skyler is sitting on my lap. She even gestures to me to trickle her shoulders so that she can continue laughing in the presence of her mother.
Mama Skyler invites us to the table. Skyler and I walk to the dining table to join her.

I sit on the other side of the table while they take the other side. She prays and we start eating. We talk as we eat. 'Skyler and I don't eat ugali. I bought the maize flour when you confirmed that you were coming!' she says with delight on her face,

as if that is supposed to make me happy. Of course, I am happy, I smile, thank her, and said, 'you shouldn't have bothered.'
She is one of those who believes that Luhyas eat nothing else but ugali. Her chicken is very delicious.

We get engrossed in our chats that her mother doesn't notice Skyler slipping from her seat. I almost jump up screaming when something scratches my toe. ‘NOT AGAIN!’ I want to stand up, bang on the table, and scream out of frustration. It is Skyler again, playing with my toe.

Her mother notices the discomfort in my face.
'Are you fine?' she asks.
'The chicken is very chilly!' I lie.
'I am sorry. I assumed every man is a chilly man!' she apologizes.
She notices that Skyler is not sitting she was. She calls her name. Skyler is mum.

'she left. I guess she went into the bedroom.'
'That kid! How did she sneak from here without my knowledge! She needs to eat before we leave.' Mama Skyler leaves to fetch Skyler from the bedroom. I bent below the dining table, Skyler has a huge grin on her lips.

I pull her from under the dining table.
'listen, young woman, next time you do that, I will snitch you to your mum!' she walks to her chair. I call her mum to inform her that Kyler is in the dining room. 'Don’t leave again before you clear your plate, sawa?'

Skyler nods her head. I clear my plate and request to leave after signing the book. . Until today, I have never understood why she was amused by my toes. Or is it because toe and toy almost sound the same? Or was it because she is a toe-toe or a toe-ddler?

If you had a different plot in your head, sanitize.