THE WEIRD ARCHANGEL MEDIA.

The song of death, © Wallpaper Safari, 2023

PART 2

For as long as time has existed, fire has been a very integral part of society and humanity’s way of life. Whether it’s for its heating purposes or the light it there’s no life without fire, it is both a foe and a friend.

Just like fire has been a very important part of living, the use of charcoal in jikos has been the way to go for most communities in Kenya. What that produces is a ton of carbon monoxide in the air. Enough that it is always advisable to leave a window or a door open when using a jiko.

Like the genius I am, I decided that opening windows or doors was something done by weaklings, “Mimi ni big-man bazuu,” I thought to myself, “so I will open a window. Not now and not when I finally go to slumber land.” This became the 4th mistake I made.

The third one of course being falling asleep.

Ever since you (if you are from a community or nationality that uses a jikos alot) and I were born, there have always existed stories of people who died from carbon monoxide poisoning, specifically people who slept and never woke up because, “alilala kama amewasha jiko na hakuwa amefungua dirisha” ([s]he slept without opening a window while the jiko was on). So whatever is about to happen next shouldn’t really surprise you.

I woke up at around 3: 13am, and immediately knew that something was wrong because I could feel a “distant” headache. I have never woken up experiencing what might be a headache. It’s either a proper headache or no headache at all. This felt like the headache was “trying to get lucky”.

“I am just imagining things,” I thought to myself as I got up off the couch.

I was up for about five seconds before I lost both complete control and absolute balance of my body falling face first on the living room table. “This is weird,” I thought to myself as I tried to get up. I eventually made it off the floor and got far enough to fall, this time of the TV stand. “Something is definitely wrong,” I thought to myself as I tried to scream for my dear mother and brother. I remember my mouth opening up and I also remember mouthing the words “mum” and “ED” but no voice or sound came out.

I then passed out for at least 10 minutes before waking back up and trying to make my way to the door. This proved to be a very futile attempt to salvation as I could no longer walk, so I resorted to the next best thing, crawling. I crawled all the way to the door, slowly got up and using the door for support I flung it wide open scaring our dog that was snoring in its sleep completely unfazed by what was happening.

The dog got scared and panicked, pushing past me and rushing into the house. This led me to lose my balance, falling back down. I went back to crawling all the way to out of the house. “I’ll try to grab on to the door. There is nothing that could make this worse than it already is,” I thought as I tried to get myself back up. This was not my brightest idea as I ended up kissing the very wet and very muddy ground.

“This is much better,” I thought to myself seconds before passing out once again.

I woke up, I have no idea how many minutes later, a bit better (or so I thought) and made it off the ground onto the veranda. Here my back met a 200 liter tank of water. Thinking about it now, I would rather hurt my back than hurt my face. That is my money maker.

“Oh, Come on!” I tried to scream, only to mouth these very angry words. I was out cold for God knows how long before I made it back up and tried to make it to my final destination, the car.

I know what you are thinking, why the car? Well, to answer that very funny question, I would rather have died in the car than outside in the cold, like some dog. I would have accepted my fate in the car rather than in the living room or in my bedroom. A car they could have easily gotten rid of but the house would be an absolute hassle to do away with. Also, who would say no to a new car? Not my family, that much I know. So you see, I was only thinking of my family.

After the very tedious, strenuous thousand mile journey, I finally made it to the car. I opened all doors, rolled the windows down, took my purple shawl (everyone has a car shawl for when it gets cold, stop judging me because I can feel it) and lay there thinking about what my life had been like.

 Having accepted fate, I couldn’t help but be a little bit proud. My brother and I had after all become an unstoppable force, we were both healthy, well kind of healthy (one of us was doing better than the other at that specific time, I was dying and he was in bed snoring), our family was stronger than ever and I knew that I had experienced one of the greatest life’s. I got to experience love, joy, sadness, anger, happiness and laughter with my people and I wouldn’t have wanted it to be with anyone or anywhere else. There were some regrets too; I never performed in front of 100,000 people, I never got to make a blockbuster film, I never got to record music with my brother, but most importantly, I never told the people I loved how I really felt about them more often.

“Oh fuck! What will they do? They can’t survive without me! How will they react? (Long pause) Dear God, I am very important to die but if I do, I hope they don’t invite the extended and nuclear families. I want less than 20 people at my funeral. Maybe I should writing all this d…” I passed out again before finishing my thoughts.

Was this the end of the road? Is this the way heroes die?

To be continued…?