NOT READY TO DIE

“Vanity of vanities”, says the preacher “vanity of vanities, “all is vanity”
What profit has a man from all his labour in which he toils under the sun?
One generation passes away, and another generation comes;
But the earth abides for ever.
(Eccle; Chap. 1)

No greater love hath any man for his life than this. I wouldn’t give my life for seventy seven virgins, everlasting life or such other arcane pursuits of a dogmatic punishment/ reward equation. In my book Martyrs don’t live (They dead see?) Death is a negation of the joy of living; and martyrdom its defilement. I desire to live. Live so well that maybe in death I will have found a fawning band and consequently, a resurrection. I want to walk; even though I walk as Barnabas or that there Dinda.

Take a look at life’s ironies. They send you out as cannon fodder and you are lucky if you bring back a Purple Heart. For most there is nothing but a plaque at the grave of the Unknown Soldier, while others gain no more than an MIA after their names. Their folks cannot even honour their memories with a shallow grave,. And if they do, it is never too long before the private developer with his earth mover and luxury apartments takes a right royal piss on their parade. All that that soldier gets for giving his life for God and country is a ‘piss out Parade’. But the general, he returns home in an air- conditioned limo; retires to a political career illustrated with Government Defence Contracts.

Isn’t it ironic, that everyday kids are stopping strong bullets as they fight for ‘one of their own’ to put his itchy fingers in the till of some Harambee Avenue dukawala. Evidently, that is how Kenyatta saw it when he preached Harambee- that we all pool our meager resources together and give them to one fellow that he may advance himself. Because of Harambee and martyrs, Uhuru Kenyatta is worth 10 Million USD and Kimathi’s son- well did he have a son, who knows?- cannot even find his father’s grave to pour libation.

Kids die on these streets for tribal chiefs whose on children are out in England getting a quality education and fraternizing with the kind of women we cannot visualize beyond the images on the grainy VCDs at Kamwana’s Video Shack. Their children while away time waiting to return and take care of their father’s business, but you and I have nothing to return to. That Zero by Zero plot at the squatter settlement that you killed your brother for? When your daddy died at Mama Pima’s last July you never went to claim his body, you let the council dump him in a mass grave- ‘A Carcass for Hounds’. (You have nowhere to bury your dead.) Yet when that tribal chief dies, you will be at KICC for the Harambee. A Harambee to offset medical bills from Nairobi hospital all the way to a spa in Southern France. Then there is the matter of the good people ay Lee Funeral making him look like ‘a feast for the gods’- before the State Funeral.

I am no Martyr and unlike Bono, I have no Messianic Complex. I am not ready to die that children may be free. Free from what? This Quixotic existence of mine spent sitting on those stones, sipping on Napshizzle and Tilting at Windmills? Windmills that in turn become a government more rotten than gonorrheal pudenda. Not me. I am not ready to die; until I can afford it! What guarantees are there that in death, I will gift them freedom rather than another kind of wrong? Remember Uhuru? Kenyatta won independence, the freedom that is the privilege of only Pigs at this farm. Dedan Kimathi won Dependence. Dependence on a black Feudal Lord rather than a white one for that quarter inch of squatter space. Uhuru for Kimathi and his issue was, in the end having ‘one of our own’ at Governor’s Mansion. Uhuru was having a fellow black man ride your back and letting you call him Bwana.

I am not ready to die for this cause, that cause, no cause. I am no youth for hire. Yes I am a lone voice in the wilderness and yes I said “Prepare”. But I never said prepare for one that is greater than me. I baptize you with THC and wood alcohol because it pays me. But if Herod were to have my head on a Kalu Works sufuria, you will want to call me Martyr; Father of the Revolution. Too stupid you will remain not even able to see the real gift in my death- sobriety. But you always chose the inebriate path to empty- perpetually drank on rhetoric and hero worship. The smart ones amongst you will at least make T- shirts with my image on them. Take you for your last 3 soc, and not give royalties to my mother.
But Herod; Herod will march on. Herod and or his seed, thereafter.

It is vanity, says the Potash, your labour is vanity.