The other side of the coin!
Episode 1
There he was, in the middle of the railway line holding a piece of paper. It was a piece of paper that he had spent the whole night reading. Not that it had much written on it, but, that he read it, again and again, trying to make sense of each word. Gauging by his actions at the moment, it was clear that after spending the night reading this paper, he had not made any sense of it all! His name was Mutuku, a local name meaning darkness. His face told it all, some darkness lingered within him, some untold force that kept him walking until he found himself standing in the middle of the rail line.
When he left his mud house in Kibera, no one saw him, it was all dark, and the few that walked in that darkness never seemed to care about anybody. So he walked and walked. Even though it was in the morning, he did not seem to care about the open drainage system in the area. You could see him kicking everything on his way as if he was blind or he would not feel any pain. His destination was uncertain. The only thing that he knew was that he’d get to the end. That’s how he found himself standing in the middle of the railway line along the outskirts of the Kibera slums.
The sound of a hooting train could be heard from a distance. It was in the wee hours of the morning and the roads were getting piled up with people, people who walked in haste to reach their workplaces on time, people who just walked and disappeared into the vicinity, people who never seemed to care at all. As Mutuku stood there, he could feel death approaching, calling out through the hooting train, shouting as if in jubilation! As the train got closer and closer, a crowd started forming in the area, people who never seemed to care, suddenly appearing to care.
“Get off son, there is so much to live for…”
“Come on boy, you don’t have to do this…!”
“Jesus, what are you doing boy…!”
This could be heard from the forming crowd as people pushed around to get a better view. The others were all set with their cameras locked, just to take the best shot of the moment.
“This would surely sell as the best headline for the day. There is no better news than bad news!” A man said as he switched his camera on to capture this unimaginably odd occurrence.
Mutuku could not hear a thing. He had decided to do this. This, according to him was the only way he would get peace, maybe forget everything and start over, in another life. As the train got closer and closer, Mutuku closed his eyes as his ears got clouded by the overwhelming noise around him. The noise that was so high suddenly disappeared. People stood agape as Kimani thrust forward toward Mutuku.
“Not another one!” An older man shouted!
