Spectres of my Girlfriends

Dullsville Section

If you missed the last post about knowing your professor, click here. 

 Specters of my Girlfriends

It is with great gloom and disquietude that I funerally jot down this frighteningly fiendish and macabre experience that has been tormenting me relentlessly of late. For the past couple of days, yours truly has been having atrocious nights that are threatening to pass a chariot and horses straight through his sanity.

Lately, diabolical and outright horrid nightmares have been driving me to the precipice of insanity. I am no longer enjoying the peaceful nights that I have always known ever since I became old enough to recall my dreams. Something went completely astray the past couple of days, and all of a sudden am having the most outlandish nightmares ever. Dreams that are so horrendous that I wouldn’t wish them upon my worst enemy have now become part and parcel of me. I know during the day I might seem bubbly and happier than a king, but let that not fool you. When I retire to bed every night, I’m even afraid of shutting my eyes out of fear of the unknown.

First of all let me make it crystal clear that I have never been scared by the notion of those things that go bump at night. Secondly, though I listen to rock music quite often, I am not that type of a psychotic teen full with scary morbid fascinations. Number three, I only watch as many horror films as the next guy. It would help to inform you that though a majority of people find those grotesque films extremely blood-curdling and spine chilling, I never as much as butt an eyelid. I just sit there through the entire flick straight-faced, coz they don’t excite me that much.  

But if what I dream about of late is anything to go by, the phantasmagoria is happening right in my mind! The script never changes much. The setting and plot are forever analogous to the previous versions of the same dream. But the characters are not your regular Angelina Jollie and Brad Pitt. The cast is composed of wraiths of people that I know very well. People who know me like the back of their palms. People I’ve dated. People I’ve broken up with. Girls I’ve had crushes on. Girls whom am considering to date in future. Lasses am currently having a fling with. In total, my phantasmagoria contains over twenty characters.

It would be foolhardy for me to avail this piece to the public domain while it contains the real names of the girls that I’ve nearly had hanky-pankys with. So, for reasons rather too obvious to state, I have tinkered a bit with the names of the lasses involved.

“We had agreed with my girlfriend to go to a late night movie at IMAX Theatre, and we were to meet outside Kenya Cinema Plaza. I think I chose the place because I’ve been there so many times before that I know it like the back of my hand. You know the place? Just outside Uchumi house, the building that abuts Electricity House. Opposite that row of edifices sits a parking lot that also serves as a skating ground on Sundays.

I am not particularly certain which girl I had come to meet, coz some times it’s Catherine, while at times its either Charity or Lynne.

I arrived at the place at around 8 pm, but my partner hadn’t turned up yet. Since, the movie (twas Hobbit, I suppose) wasn’t to start until 11 pm; I knew I had a few hours to kill until she arrived. There is a raised edge at the end of the pavement overlooking the parking lot, and I opted to sit on it as I waited for her.

No sooner had I made myself comfortable than my sixth sense began indicating that the atmosphere around that place was rather incongruous.  Something was totally wrong. Something I couldn’t quite put a finger on. For a moment, I felt like bolting out of the ominous environment, but I chose to stay. Now when I recall what happened to me afterwards, I wish I had loped away as fast as my legs could carry me.

A chilly wind brushed by my person and I shuddered, more of dread than of the cold. Before you could mutter “Harry Potter”, a tawny owl landed on a nearby tree and started hooting incessantly. I turned back towards the buildings but what I saw sent kilos of horror tumbling down my being. Believe it or not, a poltergeist was shaking the buildings so that they danced as though they were on a divine mission to mock and scare me out of my wits! If you ever read those spooky novels titled Goosebumps as a kid, I bet you get the picture of how haunting my situation was.

Shaking with trepidation, I managed to stand up and prepared to run out of the haunted place. But I knew my goose was cooked when I couldn’t muster enough energy to even lift my leg. It was like I had grown roots which had firmly transfixed me to the macadam.

I needed help. Fast. From anyone! But when I looked around desperately hoping to catch an eye of even a policeman, there was not a soul of humanity to be spotted around this hell. A drowning man would sure clutch at a straw, and so I tried to mumble a prayer. But my lips could not move. I knew I was moments away from the worst.

I am sure I saw someone dashing around from building to building. That someone was actually a human skeleton, clad in a long pitch-black robe that covered him from head to toe. He carried a large scythe. Grim Reaper? Dear Lord!!!

“Jay!”

Only a few people usually call me Jay, my closest female friends actually.

“Jaaaaaaaaaay!” The melodious voice rent the air again. That was Catherine’s voice, no doubt. I knew Cat’s voice so well that there was no way I could have failed to identify it. She used to sing to me regularly, and what a beautiful voice she possessed!

For once, my heart melted with joy and relief. I was relieved that at last she had arrived; to bail me out of this hell hole at last. “Cat! Thank God you are around!” I said as I ran towards her. I hugged her so tightly that if I had held on for a second longer, I am positive I would have broken her back. Hot tears were trickling down my cheeks. “Thank God Cat, Thank God!”

I leaned forward to give her a kiss. When she opened her mouth, I received the shock of a lifetime. In place of her fluorescent teeth sat the ugliest pair of fangs ever! The fangs were so huge that they sent fear coated with horror up my spine. Before I could recover from the trauma, my very girlfriend set on a metamorphosis that gave birth to the most grotesque progeny ever! Her face changed from that of a beautiful girl that had once hypnotized me with her beauty to a hideous creature that resembled none other than the devil’s own grandmother. From her chin sprout a beard that was so long it could win an Oscar. Zits the size of donuts implanted themselves on her forehead. Her fangs grew so long that they could no longer fit in her mouth. Out came the fangs, and with them a slimy thin and pronged tongue akin to those possessed by serpentine creatures. She hissed and the smell that came out of her cunt uh, mouth was so acrid and appalling it could suffocate a new-born.

I stepped back two or three paces and shouted the only words that came to my head like my life depended on it. “Help me! Help me! Somebody help!”

“Jay!” A voice rent the air. It was Charity’s voice. Had she come to my rescue?

“Jay” That was undoubtedly Lynn, my first love.

“Jay!” Twas Maryanne.

“Jay!” Vivian.

“Jay!” Fridah.

“Jay! Jay! Jay! Jay!”

The whole place was now echoing with my name, in voices of myriad female personalities. The chants were fast getting shrill and frightening; I couldn’t take it a second longer. So I placed my fingers to my ear and as though on reflex, I also twisted around with my left leg raised using my right foot as the pivot. My eyes were tightly shut. Silence.

The quiet that descended upon the place was really intense. You could hear a pin drop from as far as Afya Center. As if on slow motion mode, I sluggishly opened my eyes to the parade of the most hideous phantoms ever. In front of me stood ghostly apparitions, about a twenty of them. They all resembled the previous version of Catherine, in that they had long beards, fangs, and pimples the size of donuts on their foreheads. Though the specters looked synonymous, I could somehow tell that each face belonged to a specific girl. Anne, Fatuma, Janet, Njoki, Njeri, Caroline, Martha, Pauline, Maryanne, Charity, Christine, Eva, Cat…

My eyes stopped roaming almost instantly as they landed on Cat. Unlike the other girls who wore uniform gaudy frocks, Cat’s dress was most terrible. Her ghastly negligee conveyed horror of death and disease with utmost realism. I realized that she must be the ghost-in-chief, the prefect to other phantoms.

By now, rivulets of icy perspiration were running down nearly soaking me wet. My knees were knocking like crazy, and I was quaking all over like a pregnant chameleon on a frail twig (excuse the cliché).  

“We warned you Jones, we warned you!” Cat spoke.

“Wh-what did I do?” I stuttered.

In reply to my question, Cat instead burst into a devilish laugh that was really frightening. She was soon joined by her troop, and they laughed on for what seemed like eternity. Then out of the blue, their mirth deflated in an instant like a pricked balloon. Njoki stepped forward and in a sepulchral voice, she repeated what Cat had said a moment ago, “We warned you Jay!”

Then Eva too stepped forth. She twisted around and took a step closer to me, letting out a guttural, weird howl. By now I was sure I had either peed or defecated in my pants; wouldn’t be surprised if it were both though.

Charity came forward too. One by one, all the girls stepped towards me and before I could blink, they all went Django Unchained on me. Blows and kicks rained all over my body from head to toe.  For those who have experienced child-birth before, my pain felt ten times worse. I sputtered blood all over, but that did not seem to evoke even an ounce of remorse in any one of them. Black and blue they beat me on and on, as though they were on strict instructions from the devil himself.

After an eon of torture, the presiding monster, Cat, pushed her disciples back and bent down closer to me. She then extended her right hand towards my chest and for a moment, I wondered with trepidation what she was up to. Then from beneath her nails grew another set of nails which glittered like silver. She then dug all of them into my chest. Squish!

Like a fountain, blood gushed out of my system spraying everything and everyone around. The girls’ gaudy clothes turned crimson. Cat’s face itself was a horror, though she appeared to be grinning with satisfaction as she looked at me. She fidgeted with my flesh a little, squeezing her palm now and again sending torrents of hot human blood shooting into the air now and then. When she noted that no more blood was coming out of my system, the daughter-of-a-ghoul then pulled out a huge chunk of flesh from my chest. Dear Lord!

I must have fainted when Cat bored my chest coz the next thing I remember is finding myself in some place that was full of dead bodies. The cadavers were emitting a really fetid smell that was chocking me to a point I couldn’t breathe. It must have been a mausoleum or a morgue.

I don’t understand how, but in the next instant I was inside a pit. It was raining not only cats and dogs, but also all the other domestic animals as well. The muddy pit must have been relatively shallow, coz I could see the girl-ghosts staring down upon me. From the looks on their hairy faces, I could tell they were extremely happy and satisfied. Some were even stroking their beards and squeezing their pimples leisurely.

Out of nowhere, Cat produced a spade and the other girls followed suit. They then started pouring soil on me spade by spade. I tried my best to get out of the pit, but the slimy walls ensured I always fell back in, thanks to the rainfall. I was being buried alive!

I remember screaming for help, but the girls continued pouring scoops of sand on top of me nevertheless.

The last thing I recall of that dream is hearing the girls laugh out loud with satisfaction.”

Some of you might want to dismiss this as cockamamie on grounds that one can not remember the details of their dream so clearly. Well, I’ve had the same dream over and over so many times that I can now retell it lucidly to anyone. And besides that am a writer, what do you expect?

I do believe that this diabolical nightmare of mine has a meaning beneath it. Anyone out there who knows someone who has the ability to interpret dreams? Please contact me on facebook or twitter by clicking here and here respectively. Or why not drop me an email at jonesdeelder@gmail.com by hitting here?

Know your Professor

Am that type of a person who would rather skip class and catch up later on my own. Not that I am a genius or anything, as my virtuosity itself has been hovering around rock bottom. It’s just that am the kind of a person who would rather bunk class and instead have some fun with my plans. You know, when I look back in my life, I come to a realization that classes never made me smile. Memories did. Again, what’s the use of attending class when you’ll have to beat me to concentrate? Not that I haven’t tried, wallahi nimejaribu! But no matter what effort I put, I usually end up daydreaming or facebooking during lectures. In fact, the only time I look forward to class time is when I got this poem I need to write or when I want to put some finishing touches to some script that’s due. I mean, in class, while my professor is yapping away, that’s the time when my brain gains maximum attentiveness and my poetry skills go from good to super-genius. I know there is this rule that requires students to attend at least two thirds of all lectures before they are allowed to sit for exams, but who actually follows up on that? Remember that story of that billionaire who never paid attention in class? No? Okay, me neither.
And again, am not ashamed to admit that am super lazy.
The semester had gone almost halfway, and there is this one (actually several) unit that I had never attended. All I knew about the unit was that it was mathematics, but I was clueless as to what area of math it covered. Don’t look at me that way now. I’ve got good reasons as to why I never attend mathematics lectures, first and foremost being the prophecy that was foretold by my high school mathematics teacher, that my head would forever be impermeable to mathematics. Can you believe my own high school teacher told me that? The irony of it? I ended up at the School of Engineering.

Occasionally I’d get a text message from the class representative that read something like: “Dr. Makokha’s class at two. Please attend.” Then I’d reply “Thanks for informing me, but am not around.” For all I cared, Dr. Makokha could kiss my ass.
One day, halfway through the semester, I got a text from the class representative that said. “There’s a cat on Tuesday, Dr. Makokha’s class.” A cat? How now? Tuesday was only two days from the day I was informed, so I had some time to catch up. I went to the library that day and downloaded all the pdfs remotely related matrices, and locked myself in my room that night boning up on the matrices. But it wasn’t a smooth ride. There were a hell lot of stuff that seemed Greek to me, and I had to seek some clarification. So the following day I walked into a classmate’s room in full arithmetic regalia, calculator, SMP tables et al, with a numerical mindset and attitude to boot.
“Brayo, there a few things on matrices that I didn’t quite understand, and I think I could use your help.”
“Matrices!?” He snapped in surprise coated with angst.
“Yea.” I answered. I was starting to get a little uncomfortable, coz Brian was looking at me as though I was growing a second head.
“Am sorry bro, but I know nothing about matrices. What are they? A new breed of monkeys?” He chided. I was started to get irritated. One more sarcastic remark and I swear I would have adjusted his dental formula to resemble that of Kiyiapi’s.
“You want to tell me you haven’t read for tomorrow’s cat?” I asked, getting really impatient.
“Oh, you mean vectors?”
“Vectors! Whatever! I mean ECU 106.”
“ECU 106 is about vectors my brother. Not matrices!”
I couldn’t believe how stupid I was. I had burnt the midnight oil last night reading for things that were not even in our scope! If that wasn’t the height of senselessness, then I don’t know what is. I knew I was by now a poster child for advanced folly and idiocy. What could I do? I simply asked Brayo for his notes, photocopied them in a jiffy, and went back to the drawing board.
The D-Day came and at exactly nine am, we were all seated in the lecture waiting for Dr. Makokha to arrive. I had done my homework well, and I was sure I was going to perform well in this cat. Turns out vectors were not a very complicated unit, and terms like Dot and cross product  which a day ago had been foreign to me were now at my fingertips. Told you am a genius, didn’t I?
A few minute past ten, Dr. Makokha had not yet arrived. I was really eager to meet this professor, I don’t know why. In his place was a certain lady who, in her prime, she still looked attractive. She announced that she would be conducting the cat in a few minutes and passed around the answer sheets. The cat commenced soon after.
The lady was pacing all over the room, keen on nabbing anyone foolish enough to have brought along their mwakenya. Then she stopped beside my desk. I could feel that she was staring at me intently, and I was feeling really uncomfortable. “All is well, all is well.” I muttered to myself. I was sure I had nothing to fear, coz am the kind of person who uses underhand tactics in exam rooms.
Then she tapped my shoulder and I nearly defecated in my pants. I slowly tilted my head to face her, then she spoke. “You don’t seem familiar, gentleman. Are you in my group? Do you even attend class?”
“Y-Yes madam.” I stuttered. “Am in the other group.”
“Which one?”
“Dr. Makokha’s class.”
Everyone sited around me burst into uncontrollable laughter. I became more confused than a homeless guy on house arrest. I mean, what’s so funny about me being in Dr. Makokha’s class? The next words that the lady spoke made it all crystal clear why once again; I should be crowned the idiot of the century.
“I’m Dr. Makokha.” She said.
It all sunk in now! You mean, this pretty lady here was the Dr. Makokha I was looking forward to meet? Oh my gosh! That was truly a shocker. For Dr. Makokha, I had anticipated a MAN so manly that his beard alone could make a little girl squeak. I had projected a man with a voice so hoarse that it would scare King Mufasa of Lion King. I mean, the name itself evokes images of stout rugby players, doesn’t it?
“See me in my office after this.” She commanded.
The Moral of the story is; KNOW YOUR PROFESSOR.