Maybe the devil isn’t a lier. Maybe we just put the blame on him to make ourselves feel better. Because blaming someone or something other than yourself is somewhat relieving. In the spirit of the devil and lies and blames, I wasn’t blaming anyone for my mistakes today. I wasn’t going to let this happen. The last time it happened I lost something very valuable to me, and that was the right to sleep on the top most bed of a triple decker.
If you went to a public high school just like every other kid who went to public primary school, then you know that there is something about being the one occupying the top most bed on those 3-decker nap structures. It gave you some type of status. Like a you’re the king and the two people beneath you are your subjects – I mean, you’re literally on top of them! While they can only use their spaces to lie down, the sky (read: ceiling) is your limit. You can sit, bend, open your rusty metal box and even jump if it makes you happy. You get to step on their well spread bed covers on your way down and they can’t do nothing to yours. And the best part is, when the teacher on duty comes round, they see you last!
So on that morning when I lost this privilege, I had woken up drenched in my own piss, and since the mattress was as thin as a slice of bread, the juice trickled down to the bed below me. What the big guy did after he woke up drenched in substantial amounts of concentrated ammonia is a story you’ll read in my biography since you haven’t already in my eulogy.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I know how it begins. It all starts when you close your eyes. If you’re like me, deep sleep doesn’t order an Uber, wait for the driver to call after getting lost and then begin the trip to you traveling at 40KPH! Deep sleep rains down on you like thunder – instantaneous and with devastating effects. Soon, I find myself in a bash. There’s drinks, yengs (girls) and music. There’s also – to my delight- lotsa food! (Despite my size, I eat like I’m saving up for the afterlife. Who wants to be singing in a choir forever without having to break for a snack?!) And so like any other party that’s going on well, the night bangs on, jam after jam, drink after drink, quickie after quickie. Then out of nowhere, nature calls! When you’ve been drinking, it (nature) seems to lose its cool, because it just doesn’t call, it shouts your name in such a temper you drop everything and run. I think nature hates people who’ve been drinking!
I remember hurriedly staggering through people into the washroom: but found that they were all occupied so I had to wait, holding my legs together and making frantic dancing movements to ‘distract’ my bladder. I don’t know how long I stood there but it seemed like 3.5 years. My turn finally came. I remember the feeling. Have you ever been so pressed to pee then you get to relieve yourself? Do you know that sensation? It’s like the sins have you’ve been carrying around for the last twenty something years have literally been offloaded off your back. Like free-falling from the sky without fear of crushing into earth. That’s the feeling I felt. I could feel my bladder emptying into the toilet, and the joy afterwards cannot be compared even to what the freedom fighters felt after they thought they had won Kenya its independence.
I also felt warm. Like I was being immersed in some hot tub. Or steaming jacuzzi. And it felt even better. Then, all of a sudden, the water started becoming cold. Discomfort and confusion merged. Events were happening so fast I was disoriented. So disoriented that I open my eyes. And that’s where it dawned on me: There was no bash. No drinks. No yengs. No food. No quickie. In fact, there wasn’t even anyone in the toilet because there wasn’t a toilet. It was just me, myself and I, in the middle of the night, soaking in my own urine.
I wanted to cry, but it wouldn’t dry the mess. I was in form 4 for God’s sake! A whole form four. A full grown adolescent! A person who has been sent to the shop with 5 shillings coin that has 5 corners and asked to buy bread worth 35 shillings, Blue Band worth 30 shillings and bring back change of 50 shillings. A person who had a dream of becoming an astronaut but because life is not a sleeping session now wants to become a chef. This person, who is expected to join university in few months time, has wetted his own bed. Literally shitting in my his own sheets!
I could not believe myself. As if this was not enough, some noise leaked through the silence of the dorm. I hoped it was not what I thought it was, but it was exactly what I had thought it was – the dripping sound of my piddle! It was in no hurry to drip. It dripped slowly. Hitting the same spot every damn time. After a while, it would make a splattering noise. I was screwed!
I did not want morning to come. But that was not up to me: it would come anyway because that is how it has been the last 7 billion years. It was 0347 hours in the night. I stayed awake until 0500AM. Then, as anticipated, the morning was dramatic, and I was starring. Besides humiliatingly carrying my mattress outside, washing another persons sheets for free, being given an ugly nickname, loosing my voice in the power ranks and losing my position as king of a bed, a form one also heard about me and my story. Ladies and gentlemen, a form one should never hear your stories; only if they are war stories. or stories of academic might. But not stories of you urinating in your bed.
So today, I attended a bash just like that one above and felt the need to wee. I wee’d in my bathroom.
????? but whyyyyyy?????