A destination. And Her.

There is a moment of panic when you answer the phone, especially when it is the office touch-tone phone, say, Hello, this is Samson. May I help you? and get dead silence on the other end. You are not sure whether they heard you. So you repeat your tried-and-tested phone etiquette at a higher octave. Then she blurts out, Olivia yuko hapo?! No introduction. No warm-up, Hali ya asubuhi. Nothing! How do you even begin to respond?

There is a moment of irritation that borders on the angry-twelve-men that grips you when you are about to alight from a lift, especially a lift in a serikali office where watu wamekuja kuhudumiwa na wako na haraka kidogo. I don't know if users of lifts in private-sector building go through this. I should hope not. Anyway, the doors open, the lift is six-people strong, the outside of the lift is ten people-strong and the momentum is inwards, not outwards. Sometimes the outside is one-man strong - usually the boss, or the boss's minion-with-power. The momentum is definitely inwards in those moments 'cos, Wakubwa hawatakungojea. Does the strength it takes to hold your tongue require a nap afterwards?

There is a moment of despair when, five-minutes before the clock strikes five, your boss's boss decides that he hasn't had you volunteer your free time in a while so he says, Samson, I think this is right up your alley. I need it tonight. You stare at the file and your instinct is, Hell fuckin' no! But then you think on it. He knows your name. They never know your name, but he knows it. Which means his secretary knows your name and if there is a person you don't want to piss of it is her because if he is unhappy, then by God so is she and when she is unhappy your life is fucked six ways to hell. Does the despair need copious amounts of intoxicating libations in order for the desperation to be less desperate?

There is a moment, after strategising and maneuvering, long after you have patiently shaken your head, No, at that kanges, when you finally get that window seat you love so much, the one one row beyond the door on the left that lets you watch Nairobi-at-dusk slide by as you daydream of the E55 AMG and the plot in Runda. There's a moment, right after you've planted yourself with a little distaste in your seat, when One of Them sits next to you. Grossly overweight. Sweaty. Armpit-y smelly. Halitosis from here to Dandora and beyond. Chatty as hell, which means that it is going to be a forty-minute Oh-God-Don't-Let-Me-Puke ride. At that moment, wouldn't you pay anything, wouldn't you'd murder anyone, wouldn't you spend eternity on your knees supplicating to Him, if it meant that this cup would be passed to someone else? Wouldn't you?

There is a moment when, having made it there, there it sits, brooding malevolently, as if it would like nothing better than to take you by the neck - and snap it like a twig. You approach it tentatively, cautiously. You dare not startle it. It has been there all day. Under the inclement elements of a hostile Nairobi. You sense it's frustration, its resentment at being left behind with them, watchmen of ill will and greater ill repute. It doesn't have modern gee-gaws, so you slide the key in its door and, gently, turn, pull the handle and, smoothly, slide in its still-smells-like-new driver seat. 

You soak it in. You savour the moment. Leather. Paint. Polish. Oil. Something. You don't pull the door after you. You want the heat to abate, but then you don't because it is your heat, maybe. You stroke the 'wheel, lecherously, amorously, a little too creepily, but, Hey! a guy and his wheels, eh? When you switch it on, you can feel it come alive, because it spools up first, the carbs pulling Super Petrol from somewhere in the back, before the sparkplugs, one, two, three, all the way to forty-eight, explosively ignite the air-petrol mixture and it rumbles alive like a baby volcano. That is the moment that you have been waiting for. All day. Phone calls from hell. Lift passengers made in Beelzebub's image. Boss's bosses with a streak of sadism. Halitosis that will keep Colgate-Palmolive in business till the end of time. The moment when all petty irritations fade away. The moment when you are in command, control. You yank the door shut and all that is left is a destination. And Her.