Under His Roof - Story by Bilman Ogolla

There was full moon outside because the month of February was half way. He felt like someone opened his gate. He felt like a car just left his compound. The clock ticked 2am and he wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or he was really up. He was not the kind of a person who would wake up in the middle of the night even if he remembered he slept with the door wide open. He was a heavy sleeper who was hopeful to change one day. He couldn’t get back his sleep after few minutes of struggle, he felt so tired though. He realized that there was no one besides him.  He detaches himself from the bed and walks to the window. He opens the curtain slightly and sees the full moon outside. He walks to the door as he calls her name. No response, he walks to the washroom perhaps she was there. No signs of life. He goes for a short call and hears noises of these kitchen things fall down, akina hotpot, spoons, bowls and dishes. Seemingly things were not okay under this roof.

 He calls out again and there is no response. ‘In the name of anything holy, can you stop playing games with me’ he walks to the kitchen only to find a strange cat having the best of time down on the floor with meat balls.  The door isn’t properly closed. He rushes back to the bedroom and picks up his phone, quickly dials her number. The number isn’t in use. He sits on the bed and feels his eyes so heavy. He doesn’t know the time he slept. He can’t even remember going to bed. Maybe someone took him there but who could carry him.  He feels confused. He is too sleepy and cannot think properly. He falls on the bed only to wake up ‘thirty five years later with grandchildren, white beards and a walking stick’ as they say.  

He wonders the kind of husband he was whose wife could disappear mysteriously and still sleep till 9am… They had no child yet. Not because they were still planning on family things. This was still a young couple of cause. It just didn’t work out for them and perhaps this was the mother of all these problems. He couldn’t get his erection some times and even if it was there his wife couldn’t get pregnant. He had gone for checkup a number of times, and it came out that he had an erectile dysfunction. This was corrected by those who know it best. Everyone has something he’s good at.

 He felt like he was a man enough who could satisfy his wife. The problem only came when morning sickness and little headaches refused to cooperate. He felt like their relationship was tearing apart. She started spending a lot of her time with her female friends.  He felt lonely and forsaken. So she didn’t stick to her words. People can’t really remember the past and keep their promises. The ‘for better for worse and till death do us part’ things were just said to please those in attendance… the doctor told him he was suffering from retrograde ejaculation, which causes the sperms to travel to the urethra instead of out of the body.

 He walks to the sitting room and picks a piece of paper on the floor.  I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just had to leave to find peace and at least to have a child I can call my own. You think I can’t give you children when I’m not really the problem. I took your bundle of cash from your drawer. I’ve just taken a thousand shilling note, the rest are under this table, don't look for me because you may meet your death. I don't need you ... The letter was contradictive. He looks under the table and picks the cash. It was a sizable bundle so you couldn’t tell if one note had parted.  The handwriting in the letter was not familiar. That wasn’t her handwriting. He picks it again and goes to the shelves to compare. It wasn’t any close. He sees a safaricom line dismantled on the table.  He feels like reporting this matter to the police. His wife just disappeared and now things are not just adding up. He calls her mother in law. She doesn’t pick. He calls his wife’s brother and the phone hangs up. He calls his best friend as he walks towards the kitchen he comes across wrappers of some drugs that he later realizes were sleeping pills.

 He clears the mess that the strange cat had caused. He goes to empty the dust bin and finds the strange cat dead outside his door.  He did not eat the previous day. He only wanted coffee. What the cat was to digest was rightfully his. He takes a picture of the cat. This is what our generation does these days. We take pictures of everything. You meet people seriously injured in an accident but you take a picture of them first and tag ninety nine friends of your on Facebook before you start helping them. Some just take and leave, for what?  

His best guy arrives and they walk around talking. There was an evidence of a car in the compound. At the gate he picks up an identity card belonging to her wife’s closest friend. He can now figure out what was going on. He now knows who poisoned his food.  He was close to perfectly sure that his wife could not poison him. He knows he was unhappy only because they couldn’t get a baby. He didn’t like her best friend; she had always spent nights behind bars for many reasons.

 He felt damaged. He loved her but decided to let go. Once in your life you have to let go to save your heart. You can’t force everything to work out for you, even those that were not meant to be yours. No way. Moving on wasn’t that easy.  Retrograded ejaculation was a thing of the past now, his mom told him to choose his next’ wisely. She always prayed that God who gives and takes away give her son a good wife. She felt like she could find him a wife who could never turn back. You know how moms can feel for their only sons, right? But marrying for your son is a thing of the past, for those who wanted to marry before Kenya got independence. 

At a work shop months later he bumps into a beautiful someone. He doesn’t want anything else but a family.  She was a good singer who believed in God the Father the Son and the Holly spirit. He takes her to her mother after one month. He wanted to marry her as fast as possible and make her trust him before she met someone else to trust and possibly a bad best friend to change her mind.  He didn’t believe that one could meet a lady and marry her after two months until he married his new love after two months of meeting. His friends lambasted him; they say that’s why he can’t keep a wife. How do you meet someone and marry her two months later, before you even know her favorite color and the size of her shoes. He wasn’t in a hurry to wed her. He only wanted her to be his wife legally by choice.

These wedding things become embarrassments when all doesn’t go well with you. They have a baby boy and a Mercedes Benz that your grandfather never had an encounter with; here is a happy marriage he never saw coming. Things were working out well under his roof. Not everything that works for him will work for you. Go try marrying those ladies you’ve dated for sixty one days, you’ll end up in a wedding putting a ring on your own finger and making vows to yourself. She wasn’t there, best of luck anyway.