Thread by @CSakwah

STORY THREAD
In 2018, My cousin and I lived next to a neighbor in Kasarani who owned an uncultured cat that loved to cause prodigious havoc in people’s kitchens at night. One day, the cat invaded our kitchen and ate more than it could chew, literally.

Our immediate neighbor was a professor who lectured at ICIPE, International Center for Insects Psychology and Ecology. That man was as mean as someone else’s faithful housewife. He talked to no one, a pompous professor.
He stayed alone in a two-bedroom house,

my cousin and I stayed in a 1-bedroom house. He owned a cat; a lousy, ugly, and mischievous cat with a monstrous stature. The Cat was very huge. Sometimes I wondered if one of the bedrooms belonged solemnly to the cat. He had no wife, no kid nor any human companion. Just the cat.

Not so long after I moved into the house, I noticed that the cat used to sneak into people's kitchens at night to steal and eat food or scavenge on food leftovers on plates while the owners were asleep. Before that, that diabolic cat subjected me to one of the most horrifying

moments of my Nairobi life.
On that petrifying night, I was up late writing The Campus Exile book. Deep into the night, I left the study table to take another cup of coffee from the kitchen.
I opened the door, switched on the kitchen lights, then mwathani, a large strange cat

lifted its head from the dirty plates on the kitchen sink. The sight was eerily, like a scene that had been lifted from American Horror Story series. The cat was very black with large red eyes that almost radiated bulb lights back into my eyes. My hair stood to the end. I froze.

Its fur puffed out to enlarge itself even further, like it was readying itself to attack me. It hissed with its canines out. When a cat hisses, it shows that the cat is angry or irritated.

A strange cat hissing in your kitchen in the middle of the night in Nairobi has all the ingredients of horror movies or the Mombasa majini stories. Its appearance was horrifying. It kept eye contact, then suddenly it scurried away through the open kitchen window.

Concurrently, I dashed out of the kitchen, hoping that it wasn’t following me. I went straight into the bedroom to sleep. I didn't wake up my cousin. The sight of a strange black red-eyed monstrous cat at night on the kitchen sink messed up my brain that

I could not bring myself back to continue writing the story. The following day, my cousin told me that the lecturer next door owned the car. It was harmless, he said. It only sneaks into someone’s house if the windows are not closed at night.’
That was then. A few months later,

my cousin traveled to shags and came back with roasted jogoo ya kienyeji. My aunt had selected the biggest cock at home, slaughtered it, and had it smoked and roasted for his son to travel back to Nairobi with.

Do you know how delicious smoked and roasted chicken from the village tastes? The ones that feast on frogs, snails, while at the same time scratching the ground looking for the hawk's razor blade? That one.
I was tasked with preparing the most delicious stew from the chicken.

I even watched a few Youtube cooking channels as soon as my cousin informed me that he was traveling from shags with roasted jogoo ya kienyeji.
Then I delivered a masterpiece of a chicken stew. We took a few pieces for supper.

We kept the excess of the delicious chicken for tomorrow. We left the chicken stew inside a cooking pot. On the nights when we prepared the most delicious meals, is the same nights that Satan and his brigade messed up our memories to forget locking the kitchen window.

On that night, perhaps attracted by the sweet aroma from my cooking mastery, the cat sneaked into our house and devoured almost everything. It massacred the whole chicken and only left us with bones and the chicken’s neck.
The following day, we woke up to empty pots.

We cursed and cursed and cursed. If ugali leftovers can cause mayhem in a home in Nairobi, imagine what can someone do if they miss their leftover chicken? Imagine if that person is two adult luhya men?
We declared war. But the lecturer was not around. He traveled more often.

I guess that is why his cat had developed uncouth habits to survive the pangs of hunger whenever its owner was not around. We waited for his arrival.
In the evening, the lecturer came back. His sight peaked our anger. We had been cursing from morning..

How dare you eat chicken leftovers belonging to two Luhya men?
'Give him thirty minutes. Let his settle first,' my cousins held me back when I dared to confront the man as soon as he had stepped into his house. My cousins calmed me down.

Before that, we had agreed that because I was the most talkative, eloquent, and well versed with English, I should be burdened with the role of confronting him. To confront a professor, one ought to be good with his English, my cousin had said.

During those 30 minutes, I played in my head how I anticipated the confrontation to play out and how I was going to bombard him with heavy-heavy English words, to scare him. 'Your uncouth cat is flabbergasting us with unfathomable disturbance.

It has been attacking our kitchen with an enigmatic appetite that sometimes devours a whole meal that can feed two Luhya adult men for two days. If you don't tame your cat by instilling good grace into its manners, we will be forced to commit an unprecedented felony against its

life.'
After thirty minutes, I puffed my chest out, lifted my shoulders like the brave warrior that I was. I knocked on his door. My head high, my courage skyrocketing. He opened the door. His face was embittered like he didn’t like his space disturbed.

His cat was standing just behind him, its tail wagging from side to side. That uncouth cat even had the audacity to hiss at me. Yaani, I felt like grabbing it and squeezing the chicken from its intestines.I said hi. The man did not say anything back. He just kept on staring at me

. He sized me from my head to my legs. His hair was white, and unkept in a classic professor-like manner. His eyes were red. He must have been puffing his lungs with smoke from illegal herbs, like most professors.
'How much was it?' He asked me with a deadpan tone.
'What?'

I asked, wondering what was he saying. Was he confusing me for someone he had sent on an errand or a plumber who was back for his payment or electrician?
'I am used to neighbors knocking on my door to blame my cat for sneaking into their kitchen whenever I am away.

How much was the meal?' He said, as a matter of fact, with no remorse in his eyes. At that time, my anger went down. I was confused, intimidated even.
The uncultured cat started walking around the lecturer's legs, mewing, purring, and rubbing its fur on its owner’s legs.

Occasionally, it stopped walking to stare at me in a manner that was provocative and daring. Like it was telling me, 'so what? My dad will crush your bones like I crushed your chicken's bones if you continue standing there.'
I fumbled with a reply.

I could not bring myself to understand how someone would want me to quantify a stew made from roasted village mature chicken? How? I didn't want the money. We wanted him to tame his cat to stop it from sneaking into people's kitchens whenever they forgot to lock their kitchen

windows at night.
While still fumbling, the lecturer said; 'you are wasting my time, young man. Go back and come up with a figure that will cover the total cost of your meals. Leave the total sum with the security guards at the gate. I will cover it tomorrow in the evening.'

Just like that, he slammed the door on my face. The sound of the door felt like he had speared through my ego, the pain was sharp. I walked back into our house in a pensive mood, angrier.
'What did he say?' My cousin asked.
'How much is rat and rat, furadan?' I asked him.

'What?' My cousin asked in confusion.
‘I am asking, do you know where we can find the guys who shout, ‘dawa ya mende,panya, na kuua minyo.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he cried.

Almost everyone wants to own a pet in Nairobi. It is nice, pets are beautiful, but it becomes so annoying when your pet is uncouth and constantly infringes on someone’s private space.