It rained yesterday. Hard. It rained throughout the afternoon and into the early evening. Then it rained at night. At least it did where I live. I normally write my blog on Sundays and yesterday I woke up and banged some 17 words, cut and pruned it , smoothened its rough edges and when I was satisfied it would fly (because I think intros are like t he first kiss you give a woman, it’s a make or break) I saved it on a folder called “Ice Box” logged off and had my breakfast. I would write the rest during the dreadful Wedding Show, I told myself. Only it started raining at 2pm. Then power went. My laptop had like 23% power battery, enough to write a grilled pork recipe, but not enough to write a 2,000 word piece.
You can tell where this is headed, eh? Me too.
Since I try and make a Monday commitment here, I decided to wait it out. I read a book, then cut my nails, then made some tea, then played with my lil’ girl – a morbid game where she opens her eyes wide then comes about an inch from my face. Whoever blinks first is the loser. I let her win, but only because she had eaten these boiled eggs (she loves ‘em, I hate ‘em) and I wasn’t too hot about her breath. Then I got on Twitter the land of the t-witty and roamed my timeline, later I got on Facebook and read those “tunga sentensi” jokes, which gets old very quickly. Then I sat and intensely stared
at a spot on the wall and my spirit floated out of the room and then the house and the estate and I went to some KPLC hot shot’s house, found him shaving his chest, and I took a hot iron rod and pressed it against his chest, singing hair as it burned into his skin. He wailed. Boy, did he wail!
By 9pm power had not come back. My phone died. I was left in the living room, sitting there in semi-darkness, staring at the candle. Then the candle died. Then I sat there in complete darkness, occasionally reaching out and munching on some peanuts. I love peanuts; peanuts are man’s best friend. If you were to illustrate this on a cartoon strip you would have a character that looks like one of those black red lipped natives in Asterix series
sitting with his hands on his knees. In fact you would only see red lips in darkness, opening and closing, chowing his life away in darkness. I finally gave up and retired at 10pm. Power was back when I woke up at 5am, and I would have written something then only I had to go jogging because, let’s be honest with each other, my mental and physical health is more important than 2,000 words.
In short; I didn’t write anything today. Ok, I did, 17 words. What good is that?
I know how this will play out. Someone will come on and comment calling me a slacker. Or ask, why didn’t you charge your damned laptop? Why didn’t you carry it to a pal with power and write from there? Have you run out of ideas Biko? Who do you think you are? You are becoming big headed. We shall burn you! We hate you!
But thankfully most of you will understand. Most of you will know that you can’t write with an unpowered laptop. You will know that when things don’t turn out the way you hoped then you would look for a silver lining. You eat
boiled eggs. You open your eyes wide. And you don’t blink.
Good week gang.