Digital dream journal: entry one.

We're digging through dark brown soil, my friends and I. I can't recognize any of them. But it didn't seem to matter, I knew them, in the garden. It is a valley of sorts, and the bush has been cleared and burnt so that fresh grass is beginning to grow and a few trees still lie on the ground, half burnt.

The topic is killers, especially rebel killers. We're somewhere far but someone knows a girl killer from my home country, and the girls are engaged in talking about her and her crimes. I don't remember her. I don't know her. I feel inadequate and not so well-read because I should know any rebel leaders from my country, especially female ones. That's the sort of thing that should interest me. I admit to my friends that I don't know this girl. Someone mentions that she killed most of her victims in 88, the year I was born. I'm a bit relieved, because somehow knowing I wasn't born or was just an infant means I can get away with not knowing about this mystery woman. It's scary how terrified I am of lack of knowledge.

Suddenly I'm doing laundry, I've left the girls in the garden, to do some chores at home. I hate doing laundry but our guests are helping us with the garden and the least I can do is help them with their laundry. A cousin of mine is helping but when I look at the few clothes she's hung up on the line, they're not well-done. I'm terrible at laundry but I believe I can do a better job than her. So I join in, surprisingly enthusiastic.

I'm in the kitchen, for some reason, and looking at someone make lunch for our guests. The person is not doing a good job of it. They're making matoke and it's not appealing to look at. How can we serve substandard food to guests who are digging our garden? So I decide to take over the cooking and doing things I abhore like peeling.

There's a blank period after that and next thing I know we're driving to a park for some fertility treatment of sorts. My friend L is driving us. When we arrive, there's a couple that's just had treatment and they need to have sex immediately so they can conceive. They throw us out of L 's car to use the backseat. We look around at all kinds of couples, some looking for babies, some carrying crying babies. Is this what we want? Babies seem like too much work to us. I don't remember who was with me but they seemed like people who are close to me.

Then suddenly we're in a different park, on a picnic with my mom and her sisters. My auntie is trying to get my mom to give her a table cloth and my mom insists she no longer has any. She sends me to her closet to check and confirm that there's nothing there one can call a table cloth. I return with this confirmation. But suddenly I notice three tablecloths hanging on the line and I don't know whether to tell her or keep her secret. Did she intend to lie to her sister or did she forget she had some hanging on the line? I decide to keep the unsolicited secret.

Meanwhile, my sister Praise is singing to a cheering crowd nearby. She's looking nice and singing really well. People want her to come down from the stage and greet them. She steps down and hugs them, kneels for some of them and shakes hands with others. She's wearing a floral short dress and when she bends to greet the seated people, I'm worried someone is going to peep through her dress from behind her. But because the dress has some brown flowers, I'm hoping it will camouflage her skin. She reaches the back and some people from my village in Kikamba are so excited to see her. They haven't seen her since she got married. They scream and crowd around her. She seems happy to see them too.

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