Trigger warning; suicide.
He didn’t want to die at lunch hour but that’s when the hunger for death surged. A time when the sun was at its peak and folk were sitting down to break bread. The plan was to go to Prestige Plaza on Ngong Road, access the rooftop and hurl himself to his death. Why Prestige Plaza? Because it was the nearest tall building. Well, there were other tall buildings nearby but he didn’t want to explain to guards which office he was going to or even leave his ID at the entrance. He needed his ID with him, you know, for identification of the body. He didn’t want to go to the morgue and be identified as John Doe. He had a name. His name—rather his nickname—was Boy. Yes, like a child with a penile appendage.
When he entered the lift at Prestige Plaza he mused that this would be the last time he would be on the ground floor alive; the next time he would be on the ground floor, he would be lifeless, perhaps with a broken spine and blood trickling from his ears. A man was already in the lift. The man leaned forward and pressed a button and the lift sighed, heaved and embarked on its smooth ascent. They stood there in the muted awkwardness that only lifts can evoke. He wore a backpack bearing his laptop and a sketch pad with his scribblings, different pens, earphones and his diary. He liked illustrations. He liked art. He liked music. He liked to write. And read books. He liked his own space with his brooding silence. And love. Yes, he loved love. He was a creator and for his creation not only to mirror all the demons and angels that still lived within him but also the demons and angels that had already departed from him.
The lift doors opened.
He stood there trying to figure out which floor he was on. A woman stood holding the hands of a baby girl. The baby girl stared back at him with big beady eyes. She had pointy ears, like count dracula’s, and fanged teeth. Her mom had pointy ears too. He stepped out of the lift and hurriedly squeezed past them. He wandered to the movie theater and sat on one of those low cushions, maybe to catch his breath, maybe to devise a plan to access the rooftop. He sat facing the big glass windows that overlooked the rooftop parking lot and children’s amusement area. There was no child in sight.
Then he texted me.
I still have the text in my phone; it’s dated 25th Sept, 2008, 13:09. It read, “Please help me. I’m in a very dark place.”
Naturally, I was stuffing my talker with chapos, chicken curry and greens. I see people who eat their chapos impaled on a fork and it just makes me hyperventilate. Whenever I see that I want to walk over to them, free the chapos and stick a fork in their necks. A chapo is supposed to be torn… like a terrible love letter. You can fork potatoes or beef but you shouldn’t fork a chapo. It doesn’t deserve that. A chapo’s love language is to be torn. Forking a chapo is like drinking whisky from a mug. Anyway, I was tearing chapos over at this restaurant I often ate at in Morningside Office Park, across the road from the office I shared with Fred before Covid put the kibosh on that. I was seated with my back to the glass window, seriously deliberating over my lunch when my phone beeped. I wiped my hands with a serviette and reached for it. Then I called him.
I first met Boy through email. He would send me fanmail; witty, brazen, idealistic, fun, engaged. He was in university studying media. He wanted to write. He would email me his work, for me to critique. He had fresh prose and perspective, sometimes he was even riveting. There was a lot of disquiet in his writing, which is to say his writing had a lot of texture. There was always something, a subtext, an emotion, bubbling slightly underneath the surface of his words, like a rumbling volcano. It made Word shimmer and ripple seismically. If you placed your head against a railway line and listened for a faraway train, you’d hear vibrations. That’s how his writing felt. But only if you listened because over and above just reading it you had to listen to his words. The more we got to know each other by email, the more the train drew near as he became more comfortable. One day he sent me a piece he had written. It was about a failed relationship. His pronouns, I felt, were all misplaced.
After reading it I texted him, “Boy, are you gay?” I asked. He said, “Yeah.” I said, “How’s that working out for you?” as if it was a new hat he had bought and I wondered if it sat right. Is that hat sitting properly, Boy? Can you cock it slightly to the side? He said he was in love with someone he dated and they broke up and it was tough.
We corresponded by email on and off for a few years, then when he graduated I hooked him up with an internship with a friend who was running a small agency then. I also gave him the gig to transcribe my weekly Business Daily interviews for a few pieces of silver. My friend eventually hired him at the end of his internship because why wouldn’t he? He was diligent, imaginative, creative and driven. And he didn’t mind burning the midnight oil. When I wrote DRUNK it was only natural that I give him the job of designing the book cover and the typesetting.
I left my chapos and chicken at the restaurant. It’s not an easy thing to do; leave a chapo on the plate. It’s like leaving your 4 year old baby in the middle of a busy mall to fetch something from the car; Don’t move from here, sweetie, OK? And don’t talk to strangers or accept ice cream or cigarettes from them.
I remember the irony of the day because Rafiki – the controversial movie – was premiering or the ban had just been temporarily lifted after a big hooha, or maybe it was just a normal theater afternoon, I don’t recall. But what I recall is that in the foyer milled many determined bohemian kids in ripped jeans, backpacks, sling bags, hats that looked nicked from the costume departments of Harry Potter, dresses that floated above racy knee-length boots, heads shaved on the side or just dyed or grilled, bright mascara, leather jackets and skirts and pants that looked complicated to wear, bright nails or just black nails. The air sparked with outcry and defiance. In this silent melee of protest, I saw Boy seated, hunched near the glass wall, his back to this ensuing historic spectacle.
I eased next to him and we watched a lone child play outside in the amusement area on the rooftop. He looked bewildered, his eyes frantic, like he’d just seen a ghost shave his armpits. He was jumpy, spooked, like a fugitive on the run. I asked him what was going on and words started pouring out of him like water out of a broken pot. He was seeing things. He was hearing things. He wanted it all to end. He wanted to end it because he was tired and scared of all these voices in his head. There was no point of living. He said everybody here, looking around fearfully, all these people here, have pointy ears and fanged teeth. “Even me?” I asked, showing the fangs of my own vanity. He looked at me and shook his head. He kept blabbering, talking balderdash. He sounded delusional, he hadn’t slept in two days. A bee in a bonnet. I didn’t know much about mental health, I still don’t know awfully much about mental health, so it was all strange. What do you tell someone who is seeing demons? Someone who wants to top themselves? So I could only offer, “I get it. I understand.”; if only to calm him down. I told him that killing himself seemed like a great idea now but it probably wasn’t the best option.
We sat there for an hour or so until he was fairly calm. He never jumped. I called his boss who was happy to give him a month off work to reset so he travelled down to the coast to spend time with his family. Over time we have stayed in touch randomly. He set up a small web design outfit with two other geeks and they redid the blog design before this one. [This one was done by Mwangaza VIP Ltd]. He has since returned to my friend’s agency as an Art Director.
The other day we were catching up on Whatsapp and I asked how his mental health was now and he told me, “it’s going so well. I had a major episode in November, I had to be sedated and admitted for a night. Someone toxic triggered a major emotional wound. Otherwise generally I’m managing quite well. I’ve become a flower parent.”
“A what?”
“A flower parent. I try to manage my condition organically. I plant flowers. That has been really helpful.”
“How?”
He said he plants a new flower from seeds every month and “so I focus on my flowers’ well-being. All my mental worries go into the growth of flowers and less into the worries of life.”
“That is so cool.” I said. “Can I come see your flowers?”
So I drove over to his place in Muthiga. He lives on the third floor. His house is a typical bachelor pad; dirty dishes in the sink, a throw on the sofa, lots of books on a low bookshelf below a big flat screen television, disorganised, male. “I love this place because the bedrooms are big,” he said, removing a cushion from a seat to allow me to sit, “Most Nairobi houses have bedrooms just big enough to fit your bed.” From his TV played Night At The Bookstore, an anime jazz mix.
He has suffered from depression and anxiety on and off, he said. “Probably since I was like 11 years old, only I didn’t know I had anxiety or depression.”
“What is anxiety?” I asked. “Describe anxiety and depression.”
“Anxiety is a constant worry, a feeling of threat, that something bad is about to happen. Depression is a sense of hopelessness.” He pauses. “A state where you are just floating, in limbo. You see happy people and you ask yourself, ‘why can’t I feel that way? Why can’t I summon happiness?’ It’s like being stuck in a dark room and you can hear people laughing and having fun in the next room. You are constantly imitating happiness. I read somewhere that people don’t pretend to be depressed, they pretend to be happy.”
The root of his problems was a book called Mayor Of Castlebridge, a novel by Thomas Hardy. It’s a book about a man, a drunkard, who sells off his wife and daughter to a passing sailor for five guineas. Of course this was 1886 when you could sell your wife and daughter. He borrowed this book from a cool boy in his high school class, one of those boys who sat at the back. When he returned the book he slipped a note to him, more like a love letter. Only, the boy shared the letter with the whole class and then after a week the whole school knew about him and his interest in boys. He became a pariah, an oddball. He was ostracised. Nobody wanted to be associated with him, save for his four friends: Jamal, Leah, Hussein and Jacob. He withdrew. “This and the fact that my parents divorced when I was 11, destabilising me in the process, really set off a series of events that caused my depression and anxiety. I felt exposed, my humanity not recognised.” He contemplated suicide – jumping into the ocean – but instead withdrew into a world of books, art and intelligentsia. High school finally ended and he came to Nairobi for university.
Nairobi offered a fresh start with no baggage. He was leaving all that history behind in Mombasa, leaving the humiliation and discordance and hurt. A clean – sorta – slate, if you will. But what he didn’t anticipate was how impersonal Nairobi would be, especially coming from a warm place like the coast where every conversation with a stranger started with a long winded salutation.
He has struggled to connect socially in Nairobi, struggled to connect with the people here. “It’s hard to find love here, people date with their egos, not with their hearts.” He said. “I don’t feel good enough here. I have stopped trusting myself to be loved as a result.” Because of this, he has always thrown himself at work and his creative pursuits and in his books. He’s a voracious reader. Therapy has helped him a great deal; what he calls cognitive behavioural therapy. “I have the power to keep darkness out. I am able to tell when the anxiety and depressive spells are coming, when my energy is waning, when I don’t enjoy anything anymore, when negative thoughts start seeping through my mind, thoughts leaning towards darkness. I know when it’s coming now and I know how to manage it.”
He shows me his flowers. They are potted. Some are drooping as if drunk or have weak cores. [“I went to shags in December, so they suffered, some died.”] They are in the living room and on the balcony. He introduces them to me like they are his children and I’m supposed to pat their heads and tell them, “study hard, Marigold, it’s tough out there.”
There are African daisies and Glass flowers, there are Zinnias and Foxgloves, Jade plants and Petunias. “Each flower has its own symbolism,” he strokes the petals of a daisy, who blushes, “so when I plant one from a seed every month I anchor my mental energy into cultivating that symbolism into my life. Zinnia, for example, celebrates the spirit of friends and endurance. I planted some in Dec. My Jade plants are thriving and thriving, it’s known to activate financial energies.” We pass the chaotic shambles of the kitchen and step into the balcony, “These plants have taught me to be more patient. I’m currently planting plants that take two years to flower and they are toxic to humans. Ha-ha.”
He always speaks to his plants, he informs me. He says that speaking to plants makes them thrive. “I know it sounds like one of those kumbaya things but I did an experiment once where I ignored some plants and spoke to others, the ones I ignored withered and died. People with anxiety worry and worry is a sense of care and that energy I would have spent worrying I pour it all into plants.”
When he wakes up now he doesn’t linger in bed with his thoughts. He walks out and inspects his plants. He says, Good morning, oh look at how beautiful you are today, did we just flower in the night? Good Daisy, you are a good flower. Keep flowering. Oh, and who do we have here, Petunias, how are we doing today? I know you are taking time to show me what you are made of but lucky for you, I have time and patience and love. Show me your heart but take your time because heart takes time. Oh, and looky looky…good morning Zinnia, I was wondering what that lovely smell was. I should have known it’s you. My, I don’t deserve you. Let’s see that ear Jade, who nibbled you in the night? Wait, is that a hickey? You naughty flower. If you keep up like this we will have baby flowers here. Win-win. Oh no, look who rested last night. What a tragedy, people. Can we please have a moment of silence for our friend Foxglove ? It’s not a sad day, it’s a day of celebration because all flowers go to heaven. Yes, even you cactus.
He turns thirty in a few months. He shows me a booklet with 30 things he wants to do. It has pictures pasted on them, like a vision board. Some of them are: achieve body goals, do a self-appreciating photoshoot, mentor someone, gift Wangari for being a good mentor, get a pet, join a gun shooting club, get back to writing, get a tattoo, buy a bottle of Chivas and crack it on his 30th, plant more flowers, buy an Audi, climb Mount Kenya, get daddy a grand gift, read a new book each month. Speaking of books, he shows me books that have helped him with his mental health; ‘The Boy Who Was Raised as A Dog’ by Bruce D. Perry, ‘What Happened To You’ also by Bruce D. Perry, and Oprah Winfrey; as well as ‘The Body Keeps The Score’ by Bessel Van Der Kolk.
He has a tattoo under his right wrist. It’s written I AM. Like Will I AM only without the Will. He had it done after the episode at Prestige Plaza. It symbolizes true acceptance for the person he is. He can be intense, too. Over the hill erudite. Dense with information that sometimes bedazzles and baffles.
For example he tells me about his next tattoo, that represents the new spiritual identity he wants to fashion himself around. He’s a Harry Potter geek. He used it to escape high school period. Now once every December he rewatches the entire series. He talks about Expecto Patronum, something to do with a spell, a Harry Potter spell. He talks about this positive spell that evoked a positive energy force. “ It’s a spell to ward off these dark, hooded and looming creatures called Dementors. They suck the soul out of you by feeding on your happiness. They taunt you into hopelessness. The way to fight them is to think of the happiest memory you ever had, hold it in your mind and wave your wand and charge Expecto Patronum with as much will as you can muster. Your wand then creates a giant white light that serves as a powerful shield to dispel the Dementors.”
I asked if he shouts these words out loud in the house, because, you know, I’m worried about the flowers hearing the chants and getting unmoored. He laughs and says no, he only chants under his breath while tapping his racing heart whenever he feels himself getting untethered. Anyway, when he gets to that metaphysical state, it’s hard to follow him sometimes. So I look at my watch and say, “You mentioned that you have to be in town by midday, I will not take up any more of your time.” So I put on my shoes, wink at the naughty Jade, and wave at a Marigold, “goodbye lovely, now be a good flower. Hopefully we shall see you in a bouquet one day.”
As I eased down the staircase, I tried to remember that cool saying I once read about flowers so I could share with him, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember it because I hadn’t had carbs or animal protein the whole year. [Day 16 today. The body and mind are one now].
Later it came to me in the car: Earth laughs in flowers.
***
I met someone who said they enjoyed my book THURSDAY. “Write the second one!” They urged. I said it was actually my second one. They said, “no!” They never heard of or read DRUNK. I went to the car and got one from the boot because I’m a hawker at heart. Have you read DRUNK? Has your friend? If not then get a copy HERE. I intend to autograph something diabolic on it.