Beneath the Lies: Why You Lyin' to Us?

So after all the chatter I finally got around to watching the first few episodes of Beneath The Lies and they're not good. At all.

 My first and biggest problem is with the writing. The narrative drags (what little of it there is), the dialogue is banal beyond belief, the episodes lack any sort of cohesive structure (insipid scenes stacked on top of each other with jokes for cold opens and endings that aren't any better) and even after watching these characters for upwards of an hour I don't care about or even like any of them. 

Which leads me to my next issue --- the "actors". Most of whom are pseudo celebrities scrabbling after their next career move. I understand that show business world over thrives on the looks of beautiful people but one thing has to be remembered; most of them are actually extremely talented. Most of the people that appear in Beneath the Lies, however, are NOT.

Granted the performances have generally gone from laughably bad to somewhat bearable as the episodes have progressed but is that really something to aspire to: below average? I would hope not. 

A few people have actually managed to surprise me with the competence of their performances though; namely Gaetano Kagwa (I honestly thought he was going to fall flat on his face with this one), at times Flavia Tumusiime (who I've always just seen as marginally talented and averagely attractive --- except in extreme close up, she does not look good in ECU, why didn't the DP see this and do something about it?) as well Hellen Lukoma, who in one scene shows flair in hilariously playing the drunk and desperate mistress. Her performance up to that point though? Horrid. Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration. I guess you can sort of tell what she's aiming for but unfortunately 90% of the time she falls terribly short. Something that can be said of almost everyone on screen, some of whom clearly look as if their lost and should be directed towards the nearest exit.

 Sadly, the same thing can be said for most of the post production team. The coloring is inconsistent from episode to episode, the sound mixing is ALSO inconsistent within a single episode (sometimes scene), music is used poorly and as for the actual cutting; it tends to give no context for time, movement or location which makes the telling of what story there is jumbled, confusing and ultimately boring. And oh yeah, the cold opens could have been done away with altogether. They don't service the story and I doubt they were written as such in the original scripts.

 Now, from personal experience I know how hard a job like directing is but I have to call 'em how I see 'em; the directing also left a lot to be desired. As much as the director, Joseph Kitsha, managed to coax well enough performances out of the actors, I felt that other aspects of his directing were lacking. Much of the scene blocking was awkward especially in context of not only the space but the purpose of the scene and the relationships of the players involved. I can say the same for the way the majority of the episodes were photographed (shot). Cameras are placed in awkward places serving no purpose but to record lines being recited and in fact often times inhibit comprehension of and engagement with the story. The cinematography is perfectly serviceable, sure, but nothing really beyond that. As a story telling tool I feel it was completely under utilized. Watching each scene felt like watching a series of squandered opportunities. A couple of interesting shots did catch my eye but again, they were just interesting, they served no real purpose and hence didn't elevate the show in any real way.

 I could go on (costume, make up et al) but I won't. And so to sum everything up (this thing is getting long and I have things to do) I think the show is a creative failure in almost every way. I wish I could find something nice to say about it but if put on the spot I would be forced to say something unconvincing like, "Well, they used good cameras." Or, "At least the cast looks good...for the most part...well except for (insert name) and (insert another) and (you get the point)..." and so I won't even try. Instead I'll just say this, "Guys, better luck next time."

NTV's Be My Date: An Ill Conceived, Poorly Produced Exercise In Sexism

So it's a rainy Sunday evening at my Mom's place (my wife and I rode into Gulu for a cousin's wedding a couple days earlier) and with not much else to watch on TV we somehow crash land on NTV's Be My Date. It's my first time to watch it and although I didn't expect much I didn't expect what I got.

 Within five minutes of the opening credits I find myself going from mild amusement to slight distaste to utter disgust. I could have just changed the channel of course but wanting to see just how bad it could get I task myself with watching it to the very end.

 Thirty minutes and countless groan inducing moments later and I can say without any compulsion that Be My Date is by far one of the most disturbingly sexist and superficial pieces of garbage I have watched in a very long time. If you've never sat down to watch this drivel it literally forces young women barely out of their teens to parade themselves one at a time (to a reggae dub of Adele's "Hello" no less) before a group of six hungry looking men of about the same age who are then forced to make a snap decision on whether they want to go out with the girl based solely on her physical appearance.

 Each guy stands behind a podium with a green lit face and if they don't like what they see they can just push a button and the green light turns to red showing not only the girl but any one who's watching that basically the chick ain't worth shit.

 But it doesn't end there, far from it. The poor girl is then forced to stand there while each guy who just rejected her goes ahead to tell not only her but the whole of Uganda what it is about her that they don't like. Most likely tricking viewers into casting stones of their own.

 Oba she's too light-skinned. Or she's too short. Or she's not "portable" enough. Or maybe she's too skinny. Or too tall. Or too dark. It doesn't really matter what it is because it all boils to the saying the same thing; chick, you're not good enough.

 Like what the fuck? Why are we allowing this? What do we think this does to a girl's self esteem? Or influence how men look at and treat women as well as choose partners? Do we even take the time to think about these things? Do the people who make this trash?

 Granted, an attempt to counter act this disgusting and inexcusable form of objectification is made by letting the girl then choose who SHE wants to date from the remaining green lights (if any) but to me this is a case of trying to put a plaster on a gun shot wound. Not only that, it objectifies the young men as well. The entire process reduces the uniquely human desire and search for genuine connection to a nationally broadcasted booty call service.

 Listen, if I sound a little angry about all of this that's because I am. Livid in fact. And the truth is, I think you should be too. We all should. And to NTV; come on people, surely you can do better than this. You have a responsibility here, what's happening?

#UGBlogWeek By Ugandan Standards: An Expert Talk Gone Horribly Wrong

So I was fortunate enough, or unfortunate depending on how you look at it, to be asked to speak at a long running event called Expert Talks where people making waves in their fields are invited to share ideas.

At first I didn’t really want to do it but my wife and a friend who happened to be one of the organizers colluded and convinced me that it would be a good thing for me to do.  I saw the sense in that and so I agreed.

I wrote down a script I was going to follow, practiced reading from it, put it on my Kindle and without even a shadow of nerves went for the talk. I can honestly say that I was pretty confident that I would ace this shit. I’m not a stranger to the stage. I’ve been acting since forever (although not recently), I’ve given several talks before (although also not recently), I’ve read out my work at various conferences, festivals and fairs to not bad effect (although again, not so recently), I’ve MC’d events, graduation parties and service hosted at my former church numerous times- I had this. Only I didn’t. My Kindle went defunct at the last moment and although I managed to get my script onto a friend’s tablet it still wasn’t my tablet and so I wasn’t used to how it functioned.

The tablet started giving me trouble almost as soon as I stepped on stage. I tried to ditch it but found that as soon as I did, even though I knew exactly what I wanted to say and knew all the facts, figures and information like the back of my hand without my script in front of me everything went *poof!* and was gone. I limped through my talk which was jumbled, incoherent and laced with a series of heart felt apologies. An excruciating experience to the people in the audience I’m sure. I recovered a little during the Q&A but the fact is by that point I just wanted to get off the stage.

Everyone was really nice about it afterwards but on the level, I wasn’t as bothered by it as I thought I would be. That being said, I do feel like I misrepresented myself and what I wanted to talk about and so I’ve decided to publish my script and give guys a look at what I was trying and so epically failed to say and so here.


The Talk

I attended a writer-director friend’s movie premiere a few weeks ago.

It was twenty K for a regular ticket and fifty if you wanted to go home with the DVD, though I doubt very many people paid for one of those. As for myself, I set aside a twenty thou with the intention of showing my solidarity and support but somehow, on the day before the premiere, I scored two free tickets and so decided that my presence was solidarity enough and calling up a friend said, "We go."

The invite said 'Red Carpet' and so I dusted off my one black suit, polished my shoes and got ready to party. I liked the idea of dressing up and celebrating a friend's achievement. Because make no mistake, even if the movie wound up being the worst movie ever made, it was still an achievement.

I guess it shouldn't really have surprised me that I was one of only 10% who actually adhered to the dress code. Even the director just threw on a coat and was done with it.  As much as I was probably being paranoid, the whole night I had this insurmountable feeling that everyone was side eyeing me because I actually took the time to dress up.

In any case, people posed for pictures, walked the red carpet that was more brown than red and made their way into the auditorium.

Two minutes into the movie and my silent knit picking began and didn't let up until the credits rolled and the lights came up.

Turning to the friend I had come with I asked him, "So, what would you give it out of ten?" He gave it a moment's thought and then answered, "3 out of 10." The low score surprised me. Not because I thought it was undeserved but because I assumed that my friend, let's call him Charlie, would show the film a little leniency. A little good will. A comfortable 5/10 to be nice. And so I asked my de facto follow up question, prefacing it with, "As much as I hate using the term, what about by Ugandan Standards?" Charlie looked at me with a wry smile, "That is by Ugandan standards." What? Really? How? And so I followed up again, "And what about by real standards?" There was no pause before Charlie  answered, "Probably like 1.3."

OUCH.

The thing is, he was absolutely right. It was a horrible movie. I know some people who actually walked out of the auditorium half way through because they were so bored. Ask me why I roughed it out, with a hell of a migraine too and I'm not quite sure what I would tell you.

Two things caught my attention about that exchange with Charlie though.

The first was;  the automatic, almost unconscious lowering of my internal barometer as I sat there in that darkened auditorium. Or maybe it happened earlier, maybe it happened the moment I decided to go and show my solidarity. I mean, I knew this guy, he’d never made anything that I had ever liked but he was a friend and a colleague...I couldn't very well tell him that the movie sucked huge, hairy king-kong sized balls, could I? That would be mean. Plus, the guy had tried. This was a huge step for Ugandan film, is what I told myself...but was it really?

The second was; by my own admission I knew that this "Ugandan Standard" I was talking about was a sham. It was nothing more than an illusion to blind myself and everyone else who subscribed to it to the irrefutable fact that by real standards, by the world's standards, we were off in some corner of the play ground playing duel.

Now, I've come across this notion of "Ugandan Standards" quite a few times, across several different fields, for quite some time now. For me, it's almost become synonymous with settling for less. I try my best to combat this type of thinking but I don’t exactly live in a vacuum and so it gets hard sometimes.

I guess my question to you guys is; are we OK with this? Are we OK with the idea that outside of our very small borders we're not really better than anyone else at anything? Are we OK with the fact that if a Ugandan and a Kenyan apply for the same job, barring any nepotism, tribalism or any other kind of -ism, the Kenyan will almost certainly get the job? Are we really OK with expecting less and therefore receiving less and inversely giving less because less is expected of us; creating this vicious cycle of tepid expectations that solidifies into a culture of mediocrity that starts with our Head of State and ends with the rolex guy I sometimes go to just down the road from my place who rolls his chappatis with the nonchalance of a dog lifting its hind leg.

I know I'm not. It bothers me, a lot, and although I know I'm probably not going to bring everyone along with me on this, I want to look at this thing called the "Ugandan Standard" a little more. Maybe find out what it looks like, where it came from, even maybe what we can do about it and if my search comes out inconclusive I do apologize; if there's one thing I've realized, it's that I know nothing. I'm just trying to shine a little light on something that pierces like a splinter in my mind.

And so like me in that darkened auditorium please lower your expectations.


But What About Us?

I guess I’ll just say come right out and say it, I think many of us have this strange third world apathy-small town mentality kind of thing going on.

As we all know, Uganda's a small country. A poor one too. Our population is about 38 million and of those 38 only about 1.7 live in Kampala. According to The World Bank the average Ugandan earns about 170,000 a month. We're a third world country that has lived through one dictatorship after another, through bush wars and war lords, through power cuts, water cuts, bad roads, horrible health care and a whole long list of things. Politicians can still buy votes with sacks of sugar and bars of soap. Sitting here, it can be easy to forget just how bad most of our country has it. How little it takes to make the average Ugandan, if not happy, then at least relatively comfortable. I mention this because living in such an environment most Ugandans can not really afford the luxury of setting high expectations for themselves, for their lives or the people and institutions around them. Most people live and die fighting to rise just a little higher below the poverty line.

It's disheartening to think that our bar for success is set so low that convincing people to make the effort to raise it is a task that many would say is not worth undertaking. But what’s even more disheartening is that I wouldn't blame them.

But what about us? I mean, I'm pretty sure most of us here are pretty well educated, are in a substantially higher income bracket than a ghastly 170,000 a month; as well as rather exposed too; that’s to say that you've watched the latest episode of Game of Thrones (or maybe you're like me and waiting for all ten), you Snapchat more than you instagram, you use  VPN's whenever the government decides to go loco and you're probably live tweeting this right now on a phone that costs more than some Ugandans' annual income...what's your excuse?

Why aren't you demanding more from the status quo? Why aren't you demanding more from yourself as well as from the establishment? Why aren't you demanding for more on behalf of the people that can't because they've been so brutally beaten into apathy...?

But the more pertinent question is one I have to ask is of myself and that is; why aren't I...?

Because even though I have a little more money, a few more opportunities, a sliver of influence for some reason I keep getting dragged back under by this horrible sense of lethargy that tells me that even though I posses more than most of my compatriots, it's not enough. I'm not American, I'm not British, I'm not even Nigerian- I'm Ugandan. I'm the son of Kony, the son of Obote, the son of Amin and the only thing I can do is to use what I have to either get out or get mine- period.


"This isn't Hollywood, this is Uganda."

A few years ago, long before I knew even the little I know about my field now, I found myself amongst a group of people intent on shooting a pilot for a TV series. They had the will and they had the way and they asked me for my help and so I thought, "why not?" I was brought on as a consultant but quickly found myself in the thick of things, taking on the role of Alpha without even trying or being asked. I over saw the development of the pilot through the locking down of a script (which I co-wrote), casting of the principle characters, scouting for locations, recruiting of the crew and even brought a lawyer friend on board to serve as a consultant (it was supposed to be a legal drama).
Doing as much research as I could on the process of  pre-production I knew that professionally, a certain process was to be followed and demanded for such, my fellow team mates, however, thought differently. After pleading my case I was issued a curt "Relax, this isn't Hollywood." The guy who said it gave me an almost apologetic smile. It was like he felt sorry for me for setting my standards so high. Only I wasn't. I was asking if we could push shooting by one week so that instead of the actor's getting the script on a Friday evening and having to shoot the following day, they would have at least a week with it. Maybe we could even fit in a rehearsal or two but no such luck, I was asking for too much, "This isn't Hollywood."

I walked away from the project without looking back and left them to their own devices.

I feel like that phrase, "This isn't Hollywood.", could be translated into another one I hear quite a lot: "This is UG."

But I have to ask, what exactly does that mean: "This is UG."? Does it mean, "That's just how things are so get used to it."? Or maybe, "Those things are for those people those ends so you leave it to them."? Or maybe even, "You just make your few shillings and be happy, OK?"

I think it’s probably all three, and others as well.

But here's the thing, I believe that we're not supposed to get used to it. That we shouldn't leave it to them and that we should want more than just Shillings;  we should want Dollars, we should want Pounds and we should want Yen- you name it.

And even though not everyone would succeed in their pursuit for something better I still believe that a collective pursuit for something more than just, "OK" would be the beginning of something to behold.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I say all of this, of course, with the full knowledge that not everyone in this country is completely zombified by the apathy thrust upon them by a poverty stricken existence. That there are people out there who do want more than the hand life has dealt them. What of these people? How do they start? Where do they begin?

Well, by studying the people who already have the "more" that they want like they would a formula to an equation or a blueprint to a building. And then what will they do? They will mimic, of course; they will copy and they will paste. They will borrow, they will steal and they will assimilate.

That kind of sounds like a bad thing, doesn't it? I know it does to me. Well...is it? Yes...and no. Let me explain.

I watched a trailer for a Ugandan made horror film the other day. According to its synopsis it's about a group of university students who go on a "camp fire trip" with their lecturer. Their vehicle breaks down and the group has to trek through a forest where they encounter a group of cannibals. Sound familiar? Maybe like half the horror movies made and released in the past fifty years? Now, the production value didn't look half bad but the story looked so half cooked and half-assed that I couldn't wrap my head around a single reason to watch it besides the need to know what people are making out there.

I witness this kind of whole sale rip off almost everywhere I turn. A logo and graphics for a local award that look way too similar to the graphics that BET uses for their own awards to just be a coincidence. Or maybe it's a music video of a popular local artist, shot by one of the premiere music and video production studios in the country that is nothing but a cheap imitation of an Alicia Keys and Maxwell video; without the context, without the sexy and without the cool.

Some supposedly smart white guy once said,
"You need to make a decision - are you an imitator or an innovator?"

And for a very long time my own thoughts mirrored that sentiment. And then, in trying to improve my own craft, I realized something, that imitation is actually one of the very first steps towards innovation.

As Pramoedya Ananta Toer said,
"At the beginning of all growth, everyone imitates. All of us, when we were children, also imitated. But children grow up and begin their own development."

Or as Jane Yolen so poetically put it,
"I have pulled threads from magical tapestries already woven and used them to weave my own cloth."

And so there's nothing inherently wrong with imitation. I do think, however, that there's a right way and a wrong way to imitate.

"Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself." were the words of Jiddu Krishnamurti, the late great thinker and public speaker.

I believe that the form of imitation he's warning against is something that many of us fall victim to. Copying without understanding. Like getting the answer of a particularly hard question on a math test from the kid sitting next to you but not being able to show the work and so still getting the answer wrong.

Or the copy and pasting of a staple horror movie narrative without having a clue about the history of horror in cinema. Or its relation to horror in literature and even before that in folklore.

In other words, if something is imitated without an understanding of the 'why' of that thing, or even the desire to find out, chances are the outcome will be brittle and empty. A mindlessly performed ritual, a god prayed to but not believed in, a serpent intent on wiggling its way into the shed skin of another.

Circling back to what Pramoedya Ananta Toer said, as children we all imitate. "...But children grow up and begin their own development."

I think that even for the few of us who are reaching for more, we've played at being children long enough and that it's time to grow up.

Lets weave our own tapestries, and let's make them magical.


Conclusion

I honestly wish I had some more time to talk about this because I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. There’s still so much to unpack but whether you agree with what I've said or not, I do hope that I've left you with something to think about; that you’ll keep on digging. If I've managed to at least do that then my job is done. Thank you.

***

I did have something to say though, right?

WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH: Welcome to 1984

So I started re-reading Nineteen Eighty Four last night. I don’t think it will take that many guesses to figure out why.

I was around thirteen the first time I read it. I was into everything science fiction back then. I remember The Matrix had just put a dent in the universe with its techno-punk kung-fu coolness, Star Wars had just returned to the shores of American pop culture with a not so big, over CGI’ed bang (though to a thirteen year old the pod race scene and its corresponding Nintendo 64 video game were pretty cool) and I had just finished all 720 pages of book three of Tad Williams’ virtual reality opus Otherland.

I was a voracious reader back then, still am for the most part and this is mostly in part to my mother who ever I since I was kid made it a point to take me to a local public library once a week and once we moved backed to Uganda regular trips to Aristoc book shop.

It was on such a visit to a library that the kind librarian;  a rotund Caucasian man with feathery hair graying on the sides and half moon glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose who had keenly sniffed out my love for sci-fi held out a blue covered first edition of George Orwell’s masterpiece. As he proffered it he told me it was the very copy he read when he was my age. I took it from him and turned it over in my hands. I opened the back cover and peeked at George Orwell’s black and white jacket picture. I looked up at the librarian.

“What’s it about?” I asked him in typical youngster fashion.

He smiled.  “Well if I told you, you wouldn’t have to read it now, would you?”

He had a point. I flipped it over in my hands once again. It didn’t look very interesting though.

“Are you sure I’ll like it?” I asked him, still a little skeptical.

“You’ll love it.” He assured me. And so I took it.

And he was right. More than right, I read it three times in one week. It changed my life. The world that Orwell so vividly created; one that was permeated by fear, hate and violence shook me so hard, even at that age, that it had me combing the TV programs, magazines and newspapers I came across for any signs of newspeak for weeks. I constantly racked my own cranium for any signs of double thought for months.

I began spontaneously spouting quotes from the book and started pointing out congruencies between the world around me and the world found in the book. I’m pretty sure I had my mother worried there for a little bit. But of course, as the effects of all such thought provoking works of art must, the effects eventually wore off.

I’ve read the book as well as others like it several more times in the intervening years and every time I’ve read it it’s shaken me out of my apathy, even if for just a little bit. I don’t know what I would do if I had to live in a constant state of righteous anger. I honestly don’t know how people who do possibly do it. In any case, I think the current political atmosphere warrants a little righteous anger. But instead of taking to the streets and walking to electoral commission I will do what I do best, tap away at my keyboard. Who knows, I just might have a Nineteen Eighty Four or a Brave New World in me after all.

#UGBlogWeek Day 3: In Honor of Track No. 3 on Forest Hills Drive

I didn’t start having sex until pretty late. While kids were doing bad manners in class rooms during sports time and after evening prep I was buried neck deep in a copy of Lord of the Rings. Or The Godfather. Or Dune. Or The Stand. It wasn’t that I didn’t like girls (I did); it’s just that I liked books more. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy their company though, because I did. I was quite comfortable around them too. It’s just that I never really learned how to successfully cross the border from the federation of friends to the country of heavy petting and beyond. In other words, I friend zoned myself.

It wasn’t until the wasteland that stretched between senior six and my first failed attempt at university that it finally happened. Those were hot days mostly filled with old R-rated movies that I couldn’t watch as a kid at a nearby video library and hanging out with some of the other guys from the neighborhood who would come around. Most of these guys were either university students on holiday or unemployed graduates still living at home hoping that something would turn up soon. I was the youngest amongst this brood of aimless young men by at least a couple of years.

We would talk trash, drink beer and on the weekends sometimes go out. These were the days of Mateo’s, Alzawadi and Steak Out; Sean Kingston, Brick & Lace and Flo Rida.

On one particular Saturday three of us pooled the little money that we had (I won’t name check anyone but I’m pretty sure at least one of you will read this and remember the night I’m talking about) and decided to check out Steak Out. We got there, found it dull and crossed over to Cheese Bar, some new joint next door.

The place was packed the way only a Kampala hang out can be and playing music that was way too loud. Not that it mattered, back then I thought the disregard for personal space, a set of ringing ears and having to shout at the top of your lungs to make simple conversation was a worthy price to pay for fun.

We bought a round drinks and after not too long found a group of girls to dance with us. The idea was to dance with them and then when it was time to leave, to leave without them. Or in case they left first, to let them. And they did leave first. Only thing was, when they did, one of them decided to stay. Yep, the one who was dancing with me. At first this didn’t pose itself as a problem, she lived in nearby in Wandegeya and so when it was time to leave she would just go home and so would we. And so my two friends watched as me and this girl who had gone rogue danced some more, drank some more and made out in some dark corner of the bar. And then, when it was finally time to leave, she left with us.

She didn’t stop in Wandegaya. Instead she boarded a taxi with us to Ntinda.

While one of my friends was saying I should totally go for it, the other was trying to convince me it was not a good idea. I didn’t know this chick. What if she had something? Use your head man; do you think the first time she is doing this? It’s not worth it man. And he was totally right, I knew he was, I told him he was but the devil on my other shoulder just wouldn’t quit. He told me his brother was out of town and he was crashing at his place, I could crash there too. He knew for a fact that his brother had a box of condoms under his bed, so I wouldn’t have to worry about that. He was 100% OK with sleeping on the couch. Come on, the chick had come this far hadn’t she? What was wrong with crossing the finish line with her? In fact, it would be wrong of me not to cross the finish line with her. I found myself nodding along to everything this friend of mine was saying. He made a very convincing argument.

When our taxi reached the end of the line we got out and stood at Ntinda trading center. My friend against the whole idea was going towards Kiwatule while other friend was heading towards Minister’s Village.

One guess which direction I went.

#UGBlogWeek Day 2: The Presidents Nightmares Are Made Of

I went to sleep at a quarter to twelve and woke up almost four hours later, screaming. My heart was ricocheting around my rib cage and my throat felt like someone tried to drown me in a pool full of sand. I was slick with sweat and my wife was up and peering down at me, asking me what was wrong. Was I OK? She seemed like she wanted to touch me but didn’t know if that was a good idea. “You were screaming and fighting in your sleep.” She told me. “Was it a bad dream?” I nodded. “Do you want to talk about it?” I didn’t but I didn’t tell her that. Instead I gently pushed her aside and sat up. “I need some water.” I stood up, teetered a bit and stretched my arm out, planting my palm flat against the wall to steady myself. After a moment I found my equilibrium, found my slippers and shuffled out of the room.

Three cold glasses of water and I still wanted more. I had to stave myself though, I was no longer drinking because I was thirsty or even hot but because I was trying to wash away the details of my dream, with little success. And so I opened up my lap top and began to type:

He was lying on a steel autopsy table a few yards in front of me. From what I could see he was naked except for a white sheet that covered him from ankle to sternum.  He wasn’t moving, he wasn’t even breathing but my hand still instinctively moved to the holster on my right hip. I didn’t draw but knowing my weapon was there was still reassuring.

I slowly closed the distance between me and the table. It was him alright; I would recognize that face anywhere; Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, the President of Uganda. For someone who had been in power for close to sixty years he looked awfully young. His skin was not only unlined but had a synthetic, rubbery look to it. Taking a deep breath I took a finger and ventured a stab at a cheek. It felt like skin but there was something off about it. I leaned in, examined the face that I knew couldn’t possibly be real. I poked at his nose and when there was no reaction I pulled at it- still nothing. And then, on a hunch I’ll never be able to explain, I grabbed his left ear and tugged at it like I was turning a page. At first there was a little resistance but then suddenly his ear came off, the rest of his face along with it.

It took a moment to process but I was staring down at a skull of gleaming metal, a ghoulish grin of human teeth aimed up at the ceiling. Another moment and I remembered that I was holding this things face by its ear and letting out a small scream I chucked it clear across the room. I turned so I could put some ground between myself and whatever this thing was when a cold hand grabbed me by the wrist and pulled. Turning back I reached for my holster and drew my weapon. I---

“Hey, what are you doing?” I looked up from the screen of my lap top; my wife was standing in the doorway in one of my boxers and a vest. She looked concerned. “Nothing.” I told her. “Then come to bed.” I didn’t move. “Now.” Without thinking about it a second more I closed the lap top and went to bed.

DAY 1: Trying and Mostly Failing to Beat my Brain into Submission

NB: This is a work of fiction. I think. What does that mean? Huh?

Valentine’s Day is for cows. I’ve always thought that and I still do. One might think that since I’m married now that would change but I just pulled out one of my wife’s earphones and asked her if she’s sure she doesn’t want to do anything and she looked at me and was like, “If you wanted a woman who cared about that kind of shit you should have married someone else.” Needless to say, I married the right woman.

She’s listening to Majid Jordan right now. I got their album a couple of days ago and she’s been going crazy over them; humming a melody here, singing a loose couplet there. She even took to her Time Line to knock out a couple of 140’s- hashtagKingCity, hashtagTorontoSwag. I can’t even front though, it’s a good album. The 90’s R&B lushness of “Love Is Always There” is what I’ve got on repeat; she’s more into the Weeknd-esque falsetto and deep house synths of “King City”. We both love the heavy 808’s and bounce of “Warm” though.

So I’ve been thinking about it and maybe I should do something special anyway, you know? Join the herd. Even if just this once. But If I’m going to do that then I need to snap on a pair of horns and get a MOOOOOOOOVE on. She deserves it, right? It would earn me some husband points at the very least.

I scratch at my beard. Why I have a beard in this heat is beyond me. It’s just easier not to shave I guess. I’ve been growing my hobo-hiding-in-a-hovel-beard. I haven’t shaved since the wedding and I’m totally OK with that. I’ve barely left the house since then either. Writing for a living makes that pretty easy. I take a walk in the evenings sometimes but that’s not very often. I saw something the other day that made me laugh, “Beards are the new six-pack.” I really hope that’s true because I really need to go to the gym.

Believe it or not but there was a time when people would ask me whether I played rugby. That was a long time ago though. Another time, another me. I don’t really play a sport, unless FIFA on PS3 counts. But then I don’t really play video games anymore either. I really liked fighting games when I did though (“FINISH HIM!!!!”), stealth games like Metal Gear Solid too sometimes but the mayhem and carnage of Grand Theft Auto was my absolute favorite. Screw the missions. What’s the ALL WEAPONS cheat so I can get that kitana, lop people’s heads off and steal all of their money?

Wait a sec, I’m supposed to be writing about Love and Elections aren’t I? I’ve tried, I really have but my brain, it’s messing with me. It’s just decided to pull down its pants and take a hot, smelly deuce right here on my keyboard. How about I try again tomorrow? Deal?

And oh, Happy Valentine’s Day. Cows.

They'll Clap When You're Gone

It's rather disheartening when after taking a rather large step towards banging your life long dream into reality that the people who you always thought are supposed to be the happiest for you aren't because being happy for you would mean that they would have to admit to you and more importantly to themselves that they were wrong about you. It would mean that they would have to acknowledge that your dreams were valid after all. It would mean that your stubborn refusal to give up or to give in was indeed warranted. Worst of all, it would mean that you were more in tune with God's plan for your life than they were. For them that's a hard pill to swallow and so instead of swallowing it they spit it out while you aren't looking and simply pretend to.

It's when you get responses like, "Well, at least you're doing what you enjoy." with a condescending pat on your shoulder and a grimace disguised as a smile and, "Well, you've always wanted to write so I guess you have that going for you." that you start to wonder why these people are congratulating you so begrudgingly. You honestly thought that they would be over the moon that you finally managed to bag a job with an employer and a contract and a salary and an office. That's what they always wanted, wasn't it? For you to be gainfully employed? Well, not necessarily. A month into the new job and you're beginning to realize that what they really wanted was for you to give up on what they thought of as a childish and ignorant pipe dream and do what they wanted you to do- get the kind of job that required you to present your papers just to be offered a seat in the waiting area. The fact that you had gotten a job by using your talent, a thing that they thought was nice to have to be sure but certainly not something they ever thought would ever make you employable, angered them. But hold on a second, why on Earth would that anger them? It didn't make any sense, wasn't that a good thing? To be employable beyond just having a certain piece of paper? If you had to venture a guess however, it was probably because in their minds, any place that would dare to hire you solely based on your talent cant be that serious a place of employment, can it now?

A month surrounded by an entire team of gainfully employed outliers, wild thinkers and charismatic eccentrics and you've come to realize something else too; that it's not just you. A few of your fellow workmates have shared with you how their families don't really take their jobs seriously either and are more often than not expecting them to at some point grow up, get a real job and save being creative for their free time, as if that was even an option. Which begs the question, what is it about creating, and more specifically writing, that causes people not to take it seriously? Think about it. If you say that you write for the New Vision or for the Daily Monitor, people get that. They understand that. They even may respect that.  But if you say you write for a TV show well then everyone's face scrunches up in confusion. You mean that's actually a real thing? Never mind that already your basic salary is twice possibly even three times as much as you would have been making at Vision or Monitor and that there's really only one place to go and that is up. Never mind that what you write will be watched by people all over the continent, not just read by people over the age of 35 who still read the newspapers instead of just scrolling through their Twitter timeline in a country with a literacy rate of 66.8%. Never mind that you are working in a field that you naturally excel in and that even though you have a gift for it have also worked very, very hard to hone into a very precise skill. Never mind that you have consulted the God that you strongly believe in and pass everything by and that he has made it abundantly clear time and time again that you're exactly where you need to be right now. The sad truth of the matter is, if it doesn't fit into their myopic view of what one's life is meant to look like then you're the one in the wrong, not them. Never them.

A part of you also sometimes thinks that another reason for the sour expressions may be because you dared and continue to dream at all. As far as they're concerned your gaze shouldn't be aimed so high, you should be setting your sights on being a work horse, to plowing the field, to harvesting the corn, so to speak. Writing is not working. What's so hard about sitting in front of a computer, tapping at a keyboard and making up stories? At least if you were reporting news, well now that's a real contribution; heck, advertising is even better. But writing a script for actors to read and act out? That's not a job, that's a hobby. It doesn't matter that you're getting paid for it, you cant build a life on a hobby. They'll even throw scripture at you;

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me."

Yeah, Paul said that. According to them dreaming big was childish and it was way past time for you to put the ways of childhood behind you. But the way you look at it, just because they stopped dreaming doesn't mean you have to. Especially since it's God that planted the seeds of those dreams in the first place. And so at the end of the day those people can say what they want to say, they can pretend to smile and pretend to be happy for you while quietly gnashing their teeth when your back's turned but at this point at time you cant waste any more energy on trying to make them happy and doing things for them. You love them, yes, but you can no longer afford for them to be your barometer, there is no joy and no peace in that. God is joy and God is peace and so from here on out he will be your barometer. Now and always. And so if that means that they'll clap when you're gone then so be it. You've got your God on one side and your ride or die on your other and as far as you're concerned, that's all that matters.

There's an Entire Whole World Out There to Get Lost In, Are You Still Breathing?

Note: The above title has nothing to do with the below post. I came up with the title before I wrote the post and then after I wrote it and realized that the post didn't fit the title I just couldn't be bothered to come up with another one. You have been warned.

....................

I've lived in Kampala long enough that versions of myself haunt every corner of this city. They perpetually pass out in muddy ditches and make out with strangers. They haggle over taxi fares and purchase TV chicken, roadside sausages and titanic rolexes. They walk the long way home, hands shoved into pockets at 4 O'clock in the morning after a sweaty booty call and help elderly women collect their groceries after the bag that was holding them tears and spills boxes of cereal, kilos of sugar, packets of milk, bars of dettol, tubes of toothpaste and the such like all over the street.

I bump into these ghosts of Lloyd's past every where I go. I catch glimpses of them while sitting at restaurant tables and peering through taxi windows. They are a constant reminder of who I've been, where I've been & where I've come from. They are my sins, my triumphs and silly stories. They are unavoidable. I think I now understand why people up and move entire cities when they want to get away from their past; it's not only to get away from the people that populate their world, it's to get away from themselves. Every version of themselves.

Different parts of this city haunt me in different ways. Not only with various versions of myself but also the various people I was with and all the chemical reactions and electrical impulses attached to them. The phantom scent of peach body spray whenever I find myself along Ntinda-Kisaasi Road, the softness of lips kissed and the faint taste of Redd's Vodka whenever I walk through the entrance of Zone 7, the crunch of fist on the bridge of my nose whenever Kisimenti becomes the destination of choice. Pangs of heart break, bursts of joy, jolts of pain as well as an array of other sensations bombard me every minute of every day that I am outside the comfort my four walls. And even then, the walls are haunted too. It can be exhausting sometimes constantly having to keep the waves of the past at bay. Especially for someone who tries their best to keep their eyes on tomorrow.

'Learn from the past but don't linger on it.' I heard from someone somewhere, I forget who. But just how does someone do that when the past is everywhere they turn; peeping out from behind parked silver Rav-4's, lapping up spilled beer off of bar counter tops and perched precariously on top of headboards knocking rhythmically against bedroom wall?

If anybody out there knows, heck, please let me know.

Under The Skin

The other day I was sitting in a taxi, up front with the driver when a woman got in and sat down next to me. She was slight of frame, light of skin with relaxed hair pulled back into a pony tail. She wore red, large-framed glasses and an engagement ring on the middle finger of her left hand. A navy blue skirt, striped blouse and black suit jacket with sleeves rolled up to the elbow. She was severely burned from the elbow to the knuckles of her left arm, from wrist to knuckle of her right hand and from ear to ear and hairline to throat. I couldn't see what kind of shoes she was wearing. She greeted me as she got in and I nodded and greeted her back, shifting over slightly to give her a little more room. There was no timidity in her greeting, no shying away from drawing attention to herself. This surprised me. Why? Because even when I just have a pimple I try my best not to draw attention to it or myself, invariably doing so anyway with conspicuously stilted movements. Though to be fair, that says more about me than it does about her.

Now, although the burns were probably the last thing that I noticed about the woman in the seat next to me they were most definitely the thing that left the strongest impression. They set my mind in motion. Not in a morbidly curious kind of way but in a more searchingly introspective one. I found myself wondering about her. Who was this woman under all of that scar tissue? What was her name? Who were her parents? Where did she go to school? Where did she work? What kind of music did she listen to?  Did she watch 'Deception'?

What was her life beyond living with all those scars?

There was a moment when I let my mind dwell on the pain she must have endured. The flames that had licked at her face and arms and for all I know other parts of her body as well; melting her skin, disfiguring her for life.

Had she been beautiful? There was no way for me to know.

In an instant my mind conjured up the hospital bed, the painful rehabilitation, the hopelessness and horror she must have felt the first time she looked at herself in the mirror; the doctors telling her and her family that there was nothing else they could do. The alienation. The inferiority. The despondency. I didn't know her but I grieved for her.

And then I remembered the engagement ring. I looked down at it. Golden band, shiny stone perched on top. Did that happen before or after the accident? Either way though, that was one hell of a man. He had that hell or high water love. That for better or worse love. I didn't know him but I kind of envied him. I envied his strength, his dedication, his refusal to quit. I'm loath to admit it but a part of me hoped that the ring was just for show. That ring, on that finger, belonging to that woman threw my up to that point unquestionable dedication to my beloved into the harsh light of scrutiny. If, God forbid, something was to ever happen to her; stripping her of physical beauty, relegating her to crutches or wheel chair or hospital bed, would I have the the strength and fortitude to stand by her? Would I have that immovable, unshakable, invincible love that I swore both to her and myself that I would have for the rest of our days together?

I didn't know. I really didn't. I always thought I did but faced with 'Hell or high water' the way I was sitting in that taxi I just didn't know. And that's what scared me the most. It threw into question my entire notion of my perceived 'goodness'. Would I really still love her if she looked like the woman sitting next to me? It's easy to say yes from this side of things. My beloved is gorgeously and wondrously put together. But the truth is, I really don't know.

What's more, does any of us?

Day 18: Untitled

I used to think that I would write until the day I died. That I would pass away with a pen in my hand and a posthumous novel slated for publication once the right amount of respectable time had passed. I know different now. I know that I wont be writing that seven book saga that requires years and years and sometimes decades of dedication or clinking champagne glasses while shouting out, "Eight seasons & a movie!" or penning the next big film franchise. Nope, not this nigga.

The last few weeks have been rather illuminating for me. I've discovered things about myself that I think I have always known but never thought were really of much importance.

As I've mentioned in an earlier post, I've been reading Sir Ken Robinson's book The Element, a book about marrying your passion with natural aptitude in the search for direction in one's life. I've been reading it with this whole, yeah, I've already found my Element, it's right here and it's called writing. thing going on. But then I was having a conversation with my mother, a cousin and another cousin's wife the other day and she went around to each of us and asked us, "What is your passion?" when it came to my turn to answer my cousin said, "I think we all know what that is." She was referring to my writing of course. I countered her by saying, "Um, actually..." and went on to tell them that although writing has always been a part of my life, and will probably always be my actual passion is seeing people pin-point, pursue and achieve their passions. Especially within the arts. To provide them with anything that I can to help in achieving this. Which at the moment mostly consists of nothing more than the knowledge that I myself have accrued in my own pursuit.'

Looking around I've realized that as a creative there are very few platforms with which I can express myself without feeling hampered or inhibited. As a writer I have no desire to be an "African Writer"- I just want to be a writer. Yet most of the platforms available out there are on the look out for "authentically African" writers that produce "authentically African" work. Whatever that's supposed to mean in 2014. I may be wrong but I feel as if there are a lot of writers out there that want to break free of what I think is a rather dated and constricting construct. I may be wrong but if I'm right then I believe that they can not do it alone. We can not do it alone. We need help. We need platforms that will say, "OK, here we are. You can express yourself exactly how you want. We wont force you to be politically conscious or socially aware or subtly pan-African or brazenly feminist. You can just be you. And if you are any of those things, good for you!"

But where are these platforms? I've searched high, I've searched low. I've cracked Google in half looking for them. I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe they still need to be built. From foundation to helipad roof. And it is this, that I realize, that I truly see myself doing in the years to come. And I say this not only for the writers out there but for creatives across the board. We. Need. Help. But don't get me wrong though, I'll still be writing- certainly; creating things- always. but at the end of the day all I really want to be is the coach, not the star player.

Day 15: But Some People Can Be Bold

I love going places but I hate being in transit, if that makes any sense. Even the trips that I make frequently, like Kampala-Gulu, Gulu-Kampala annoy the hell out of me with their cramped buses and often times rather intrusive passengers. For, for every one passenger you exchange numbers at the end of the journey and plan to hang out with there four or five others that you wish you could hire a hit man to have them shot. Over the years I've been puked on by babies, shat on by chickens, rained on by motormouths and crushed by obese, smelly women who spend four hours out of six screaming into their phone in a mixture of fluent Acholi, competent Luganda and broken English.

Now, although yesterday wasn't as bad as any of those, it was still kind of a little annoying. Thank God I didn't have to sit through that for the entire ride.

So I'm sitting there, waiting for the bus to fill up, sitting in the isle seat so I would be able to stretch out my leg during the journey when a woman, probably in her early to mid twenties asked me if the seat next to me was taken. I shaking my head I told her, "No, it's free." and got up to let her sit at the window.

She was tall, almost my height with short, red texturized hair and black thick-rimmed glasses. She was attractive, if not necessarily pretty. She was wearing a yellow, low cut, sleeveless top and tight blue jeans that hugged her ample hips and thighs.

We sat down and although it was only about three quarters of the way full a few minutes later the bus was putting tarmac under tire and we were off.

Phillips head phones, music turned all the way up, SZA's new album "Z". Thirty seconds into the third song I felt a tap on my shoulder. I removed the head phones, "Yeah?"

"Where are you reaching?"

"Kampala."

"Huh. OK. Where do you stay in Kampala?"

"Bukoto." I lied. I wasn't about to tell this complete stranger where I lived.

"Bukoto?" She repeated, this time as a question. It was like she knew I was lying.

"Bukoto." I confirmed.

"That's nice."

This was where I was supposed to ask her where she was reaching, where she lived. I put my headphones back on. No thank you.

A few minutes later, another tap.

"Yes?"

"You work in Gulu?"

"No. I was visiting family."

"You're an Acholi?"

"Yes."

"Really? You don't look."

Instead of responding to this I stood up, reached into the overhead baggage compartment, dug into my bag, pulled out my Kindle and sat back down. If she didn't get the hint this time, I didn't know if she would at all.

I turned it on and began to read. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's double António Claro was telling him that he was going to go away with Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's fiance and sleep with her as a form of revenge for the intrusion of his life that Tertuliano Máximo Afonso had caused and there was nothing that Tertuliano Máximo Afonso could do about it. But there was you see. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso resolved to himself right there and then that after Antonio Claro had escaped the city limits with Maria De Paz he would in turn assume the identity of Antonio Claro and sleep with his wife. Tit for tat. An eye for an eye and all of that.

Another tap.

"But I don't get what is happening. What is it that you are reading?"

I gave the woman a sidelong glance. Was this chick being serious right now? What the hell was her problem? Why couldn't she just leave me alone? Didn't she get that I didn't want to talk?

I took a deep breath to calm myself.

"It's a novel about a man who finds out there is someone who looks exactly like him living in the same city."

The woman leaned closer as if for further explanation. I didn't give her one. Instead I said,

"Now if you don't mind I would really like to read this."

And the headphones came back on. And I really thought that would be the end of it. I really did. I really, really did. I was wrong.

Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes passed without any disturbance. I was about to finish the book, I could feel it, the book that had been on a tortoise like pace from the very first page had suddenly revved it up to hare and was sprinting towards the finish line. And then, tap-tap-tap.

"Yes?" This time I didn't try to mask my growing agitation.

"I have an idea."

"Yes?"

"Why don't you get off with me in Bweyale & then go to Kampala tomorrow. It would be fun."

It took me a moment to process what she was saying. And then, once I did I was in complete shock. Was? She? Being? For real? She didn't even know my name. What kind of woman propositioned a man who they know completely nothing about? Wait, I take that back, stranger things have happened. Stranger things have happened to me. Stranger things have happened to me on a bus. I think I had just forgotten how things could be sometimes. In my earlier days maybe, I would have taken her up on her offer. If nothing but to have a story to tell the boys. It would have been one hell of a story. Not anymore though.

"No." I told her. I did a pretty good job of covering up my surprise and disgust I think. "I have to get back to Kampala today."

"Then we can just take a couple of hours and then you can proceed."

If there was any doubt as to what she was suggesting, there wasn't any more.

"Still no. I have a girlfriend I have to get back to."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

That shut her up real quick. She didn't say another word until she was getting up to get off the bus nearly half an hour later.

"Have a safe journey." she said after pulling down her luggage from the overhead compartment.
I nodded but said nothing.

I watched as she climbed off the bus and standing with her back to me signaled for a Boda.

In another life, I told myself. Just not this one.

Slipping my headphones on I pressed play and dug back into my book. Three and half more hours to go.

Day 13: Please Insert Your Name Here

Truth is, (and you may hate me for it but I'll make it up to you I promise) I really couldn't bring myself to write about anything else. Mom's better now; she's walking around, watching bad Eddy Murphy movies, making tasty omelettes & getting finicky about food containers that she is convinced are missing and so I no longer have an adequate excuse. I miss you. Miles and time have made this aching that I carry around with me every waking moment frighteningly poignant. I don't know what we would have done if we had lived at the beginning of the last century instead of this one. One with no phones or Facebook or instant messaging. I reckon this full head of hair would have become a few lonely wisps of longing looking for something to cling on to by now.

I'm coming back to you soon though, I promise. Maybe not as soon as I thought but we have plenty of days ahead of us to make up for the tortuous ones we've had to endure these past few weeks. And oh, please make sure that when I do you don't make any witty quips about my busting gut or bulging cheeks; going home = good food and it being fed to me virtually all the time and so it's really not my fault. Who am I to say 'no thank you' or 'I'm not hungry'? When Grandma says you eat, you eat. But just so you know, even though you said that I don't really have to, I'm gonna make sure I fit in that suit yo.

Being home has been nice though. A little exhausting, having to make the rounds of grandmas (well, Grandma - singular really), aunties, cousins, family friends, friends I used to party with, friends I used to work with, friends I used to pray with and the such like and so on. It's all been a little tainted though, being home but still being soul crushingly away from home. It's the oddest of feelings. It's the most conflicted of feelings. I cant make heads or tails of it. And it is probably this that is the most exhausting.

I'm coming home soon though, I'm coming home soon.

And oh, just one more thing before I pack it in; please, please, please make sure you have a big, tall glass of juice waiting for me once I arrive, OK? And before you ask, yes, that is a euphemism.

Day 10: On Giving My Maisha Idea Legs

So my best ideas usually come to me in one of four places; in the shower, on the toilet, during a church service or on the road. I've never really thought to think about it and so I really have no idea why. I know each place probably has its own catalog of reasons but I'm not sure I want to attempt to make sense of any of them right now.

What I do know though is that my latest 'good idea' (I won't really know whether it's really good or not until it comes to fruition- if it ever does) came to me on the bus ride up to Gulu last Sunday. For the last couple of weeks I've been reading Jose Saramago's The Double; an equally intriguing, frustratingly mundane, unputdownable and grade-A snooze fest of a novel. Whatever the case, however, I've promised myself that I will get through it and was reading it during that bus riding while my latest crush Kelela (good bye  Lupita- it was fun while it lasted) tickled my heart and sang sweet nothings to me through my headphones. It was then that the idea (blind and limbless) wiggled its way up and down the various passage ways of my brain looking for somewhere to lodge itself and make its presence known. And after a little searching, lodge itself it did. Presence seen and felt. Mission accomplished.

As such ideas usually do, it came to me hapless and rather hopeless looking for a little help. "Give me some legs." it told me, "I would really like to Kiprotich this bitch."

I said that, that could probably be arranged.

"And some arms too." it added a minute later, a tad too smugly for my liking, "I've got a five star, five course meal to make. And make it snappy."

It obviously thought it had me.

I begrudgingly obliged.

"And don't forget the eyes!"

It did.

The 2014 Maisha Film lab is coming up in a few months, you see, and I'm planning on submitting something. It is for this that the idea had swam the canals of my brain.

was racking my brain for over a week trying to figure out what I was going to write when after the rest stop just outside of Kigumba the idea stuck it's head up and said, "Hey. You. If you want me, I'm right over here."

I could tell instantly that it was trying to play it off as if it didn't want me as much as I wanted it. Complete hogwash of course. I still decided to play it the same way though.

With a nonchalance that I'm pretty sure it knew was put on as its own I told the idea that as much as I saw some potential I wouldn't get my hopes too high. On the inside though, I was ecstatic.

It hasn't been all sunshine and swimming pools though, I've been lugging this armless, legless pile of slime around for the past few days trying to figure just what I'm going to do with it.

This morning though, I think I had a breakthrough. Not a big one but one enough to start drawing some blueprints for the limbs that its asking for. And yes, the eyes too.

I guess some thanks goes to Jose Saramago (the book isn't a total wash) as well as to Haruki Murakami whose story A Poor-Aunt Story I posted yesterday. Hopefully something will come of it. If not then oh well, they'll always be other ideas.

Day 9: A Poor-Aunt Story

For me, walking around with a story unwritten is like walking around with a bag of boulders strapped onto my back. It weighs me down and makes everything about me and around me just that more glum. Sort of like the protagonist in Haruki Murakami's short story A Poor-Aunt story. A story about a man who wants to write a story about a poor aunt of which he does not have. In his attempt to write the story a spectral poor aunt attaches itself to his back who he is forced to carry around with him everywhere he goes.

Today I kind of feel like that man and so instead of trying to write about it I've decided to share with you the story that says it better than I ever could. Here is A Poor-Aunt Story by Haruki Murakami. Enjoy.

A POOR-AUNT STORY

by HARUKI MURAKAMI

Translated by Jay Rubin

It started on a perfectly beautiful Sunday afternoon in July - the very first Sunday afternoon in July. Two or three chunks of cloud, white and tiny in a distant corner of the sky, were like punctuation marks placed with exceptional care. Unobstructed, the light of the sun poured down on the world. In this kingdom of July, even a crumpled silver sphere of a chocolate wrapper discarded on the lawn gave off a proud sparkle, like a crystal at the bottom of a lake. If you stared at the scene for long enough, you could see that the sunlight was enfolding yet another kind of light, like one Chinese box inside another. The inner light seemed to be made up of countless grains of pollen - grains that hung in the sky, almost motionless, until finally they drifted down to the surface of the earth.

I had gone for a stroll with a friend, and on the way home we stopped in the plaza outside the Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery. Sitting by the pond, we gazed across the water at two bronze unicorns on the opposite shore. A breeze was stirring the leaves of the oak trees and raising tiny ripples on the pond's surface. Time seemed to move like the breeze: starting and stopping, stopping and starting. Soda cans shone through the clear water, like the sunken ruins of a lost city. Before us passed a softball team in uniform, a boy on a bicycle, an old man walking his dog, a young foreigner in jogging shorts. We caught snatches of music from a large portable radio on the grass: a sugary song about love soon to be lost. I thought I recognized the tune, but could not be certain. It may have just sounded like one I knew. I could feel my bare arms silently soaking up the sunlight. Summer was here.

Why a poor aunt, of all things, should have taken hold of my heart on a Sunday afternoon like this I have no idea. There was no poor aunt to be seen in the vicinity, nothing to make me imagine the existence of one. But a poor aunt came to me, nonetheless, and then she was gone. If only for a hundredth of a second, she had been inside me. And when she moved on she left a strange, human-shaped emptiness behind. It felt as if someone had raced past a window and disappeared - I ran to the window and stuck my head out, but no one was there.

A poor aunt?

I tried the words out on my companion. "I'd like to write something about a poor aunt," I said.

"A poor aunt?" She seemed a bit surprised. "Why a poor aunt?"

I didn't know why. For some reason, the things that grabbed me were always things I didn't understand. I said nothing for a time, just ran my finger along the edge of that human-shaped emptiness inside me.

"I wonder if anybody would want to read a story like that," my companion said.

"True," I said. "It might not be what you'd call a good read."

"Then why write about such a thing?"

"I can't put it into words very well," I said. "In order to explain why I want to write a story about a poor aunt, I'd have to write the story. But once the story was finished there wouldn't be any need to explain the reason for writing the story or would there?"

She smiled and lit a crumpled cigarette she'd taken from her pocket. Her cigarettes were always crumpled,
sometimes so badly they wouldn't light. This one lit.

"Do you have any poor aunts among your relatives?" she asked.

"Not a one," I said.

"Well, I do. Exactly one. The genuine article. I even lived with her for a few years."

I watched her eyes. They were as calm as ever.

"But I don't want to write about her," she added. "I don't want to write a single word about that aunt of
mine."

The portable radio started playing a different tune, much like the first, but this one I didn't recognize at all.

"You don't have a single poor aunt in your family, but still you want to write a poor-aunt story.

Meanwhile, I have a real, live poor aunt, but I don't want to write about her."

I nodded. "I wonder why that is."

She tipped her head a little and said nothing. With her back to me, she allowed her slender fingers to trail in the water. It seemed as if my question were running through her fingers and down to the ruined city beneath the water.

I wonder why. I wonder why. I wonder why.

"To tell you the truth," she said, "there are some things I'd like to say about my poor aunt. But it's impossible for me to come up with the right words. I just can't do it, because I know a real poor aunt."
She bit her lip. "It's hard - a lot harder than you seem to realize."

I looked up at the bronze unicorns again, their front hooves thrust out as if in angry protest at the flow of time for leaving them behind. She wiped her fingers on the hem of her shirt. "You're going to try to write about a poor aunt," she said. "You're going to take on this task. I wonder whether you are capable of it just now. You don't even have a real poor aunt."

I released a long, deep sigh.

"Sorry," she said.

"That's O.K.," I replied. "You're probably right."

And she was.I didn't even have
A poor aunt of my own.

Huh. Like lines from a song.

Chances are you don't have a poor aunt among your relatives, either. In which case we have something in common. But you must at least have seen a poor aunt at someone's wedding. Just as every bookshelf has a book no one has read and every closet has a shirt that has never been worn, every wedding reception has a poor aunt.

No one bothers to introduce her. No one talks to her. No one asks her to give a speech. She just sits at the table, like an empty milk bottle. With sad little slurps she consumes her consomm . She eats her salad with her fish fork, and she's the only one who doesn't have a spoon when the ice cream comes.

Her picture is there, all right, whenever they pull out the wedding album, but her image is as cheering as a
drowned corpse.

"Honey, who's this woman here, in the second row, with glasses?"

"Never mind, that's nobody," the young husband says. "Just a poor aunt of mine."

No name. Just a poor aunt.

All names fade away, of course. There are those whose names fade the minute they die. There are those who go out like an old television set, leaving snow flickering across the screen, until suddenly one day it burns out completely. And then there are those whose names fade even before they die - the poor aunts. I myself fall into this poor-aunt state of namelessness now and then. In the bustle of a train station or airport terminal, my destination, my name, my address are suddenly no longer there in my brain. But this never lasts long: five or ten seconds at the most.

And sometimes this happens: "For the life of me, I can't remember your name," someone says.

"Never mind. Don't let it bother you. It's not much of a name, anyway."

Over and over, he points to his mouth. "It's right here, on the tip of my tongue, I swear."

I feel as if I've been buried in the earth with half of my left foot sticking out. People trip over it and start to apologize. "I swear, it's right here, on the tip of my tongue."

Where do the lost names go? The probability of their surviving in this maze of a city must be extremely low. Still, there may be some that do survive and find their way to the town of lost names, where they build a quiet little community. A tiny town, with a sign at the entrance that reads "No Admittance Except on Business." Those who dare to enter without business receive an appropriately tiny punishment.

Perhaps that was why a tiny punishment had been prepared for me. A poor aunt - a little one - was stuck to my back.

It was the middle of August when I first realized that she was there. Nothing in particular happened to alert me to her presence. I simply felt it one day: I had a poor aunt on my back. It was not an unpleasant sensation. She wasn't especially heavy. She didn't puff bad breath across my shoulder. She was just stuck there, on my back, like a shadow. People had to look hard even to see that she was there. True, the cats I shared my apartment with gave her suspicious looks for the first few days, but as soon as they understood that she had no designs on their territory they got used to her.

She made some of my friends nervous. We'd be sitting at a table with drinks and she'd peek over my shoulder.

"She gives me the creeps," one friend said.

"Don't let her bother you. She minds her own business. She's harmless enough."

"I know, I know. But I don't know - she's depressing."

"So try not to look."

"Yeah, I guess." Then a sigh. "Where'd you have to go to get something like that on your back?"

"It's not that I went anywhere. I just kept thinking about some things. That's all."

He nodded and sighed again. "I think I get it. It's your personality. You've always been like this."

"Uh-huh."

We downed several whiskeys over the next hour without much enthusiasm.

"Tell me," I said. "What's so depressing about her?"

"I don't know. It's like my mother's keeping an eye on me."

Judging by the impressions of a number of people (since I myself was unable to see her), what I had on my back was not a poor aunt with a single, fixed form: she seemed to change shape according to the person who was observing her, as though she were made of ether.

For one friend, she was a dog of his, an Akita, who had died the previous fall from cancer of the esophagus.

"She was on her last legs, anyway, I guess. Fifteen years old. But what an awful way to die, poor thing."

"Cancer of the esophagus?"

"Yeah. It's really painful. All she did was cry - though she had pretty much lost her voice by then. I wanted to put her to sleep, but my mother wouldn't let me."

"Why not?"

"Who the hell knows? We kept the dog alive for two months on a feeding tube. Out in the shed. God, what a stench."

He was silent for a while.

"She wasn't much of a dog. Scared of her own shadow. Barked at everybody who came by. A really useless animal. Noisy, covered with scabs."

I nodded.

"She'd have been better off born a cicada. Could have screamed her head off and nobody would have given a damn. No cancer of the esophagus, either."

But there she was, up on my back still, a dog with a plastic tube sticking out of her.

For a real-estate agent I knew, my poor aunt was his old elementary-school teacher.

"Must have been 1950, the first year of the Korean War," he said, using a thick towel to wipe the sweat from his face. "I had her two years in a row. It's like old times seeing her again. Not that I missed her, exactly. I'd forgotten she even existed."

The way he offered me a cup of ice-cold barley tea, he seemed to think I must be some kind of relative of his old elementary-school teacher.

"She was a sad case, come to think of it. Husband got drafted the year they were married. He was on a transport ship, and boom! Must have been '43. She stayed on teaching school after that. Got bad burns in the air raids of '44. Left side of her face, down to her arm." He drew an arc from his cheek to his left arm. Then he drained his cup of tea and wiped his face again. "Poor thing. She must have been pretty before that happened. Changed her personality, too. She'd be near eighty if she's still alive."

At the same time, my friends began to drop away from me, the way teeth fall out of a comb. "He's not a bad guy," they would say, "but I don't want to have to look at my depressing old mother" -or the dog that died of esophageal cancer, or the teacher with her burn scars - "whenever I see him."

I was beginning to feel like a dentist's chair溶ot hated but avoided by everyone. If I bumped into friends on the street, they'd find some reason to get away as soon as possible. "I don't know," one girl confessed with difficulty - and honesty. "It's hard to be around you these days. I wouldn't mind so much if you had an umbrella stand on your back or something."

An umbrella stand.

While friends avoided me, the media couldn't get enough of me. Reporters would show up every couple of days, take photos of me and the aunt, complain when her image didn't come out clearly, and shower me with pointless questions. I kept hoping that if I cooperated with them they'd lead me to a new discovery or explanation with regard to the poor aunt, but instead they just exhausted me.

Once, I appeared on a morning show. They dragged me out of bed at six o'clock, drove me to the TV studio, and filled me full of terrible coffee. Incomprehensible people ran around me doing incomprehensible things. I thought about leaving, but before I could bring myself to do it they said it was my turn. When the cameras weren't on, the show's host was a grumpy, arrogant bastard who did nothing but attack the people around him, but the second the camera's red light lit he was all smiles and intelligence: your regulation middle-aged nice guy.

"And now it's time for our daily feature, 'Look What Else Is Out There,' " he announced to the camera. "Today's guest is Mr. ______, who suddenly found he had a poor aunt on his back. Not many people have this particular problem, and what I'd like to do today is ask our guest how it happened to him, and what kind of difficulties he's had to face." Turning to me, he continued, "Do you find having a poor aunt on your back in any way inconvenient?"

"Well, no," I said. "I wouldn't exactly call it inconvenient. She's not heavy, and I don't have to feed her."

"No lower-back pain?"

"No, none at all."

"When did you find her stuck there?"

I briefly summarized my afternoon by the pond with the bronze unicorns, but he seemed unable to grasp my point.

"In other words," he said, clearing his throat, "she was lurking in the pond near where you were sitting, and she possessed your back. Is that it?"

No, I said, shaking my head, that was not it.

How had I let myself in for this? All they wanted was jokes or horror stories.

"The poor aunt is not a ghost," I tried to explain. "She doesn't 'lurk' anywhere, and she doesn't 'possess' anybody. The poor aunt is just words," I said. "Just words."

No one said anything. I would have to be more specific.

"A word is like an electrode connected to the mind. If you keep sending the same stimulus through it, there is bound to be some kind of response, some effect. Each individual's response will be different, of course, and in my case the response is something like a sense of independent existence. What I have stuck to my back, really, is the phrase 'poor aunt' - those words, without meaning, without form. If I had to give it a label, I'd call it a conceptual sign or something like that."

The host looked confused. "You say it has no meaning or form," he observed, "but we can clearly see . . . something . . . some real image there on your back. And it gives rise to some sort of meaning in each of us."
I shrugged. "Of course," I said. "That's what signs do."

"So," the host's young female assistant interjected, in the hope of easing the atmosphere, "you could just erase this image or this being, or whatever it is, if you wanted to."

"No, I can't," I said. "Once something has come into being, it continues to exist independent of my will.

It's like a memory - a memory you wish you could forget but you can't. It's just like that."

She went on, seemingly unconvinced: "This process you mentioned of turning a word into a conceptual sign, is that something even I could do?"

"I can't say how well it would work, but in principle, at least, you could," I answered.

Now the host got into the act. "Say if I were to keep repeating the word 'conceptual' over and over every day, the image of 'conceptual' might appear on my back, is that it?"

"In principle, at least, that could happen," I repeated mechanically. The strong lights and stale air of the studio were beginning to give me a headache.

"What would a 'conceptual' look like?" the host ventured, drawing laughter from some of the other guests.

I said I didn't know. It was not something I wanted to think about. My hands were full already with just one poor aunt. None of them really gave a damn about any of this. All they were concerned about was keeping the patter alive until the next commercial.

The whole world is a farce. From the glare of a TV studio to the gloom of a hermit's cabin in the woods, it all comes down to the same thing. Walking through this clownish world with the poor aunt on my back,
I was the biggest clown of all. Maybe the girl had been right: I'd have been better off with an umbrella
stand. I could have painted it a new color twice a month and taken it to parties.

"All riiight! Your umbrella stand is pink this week!" someone might say.

"Sure," I'd answer. "Next week I'm going for British racing green."

Perhaps there were girls out there who were eager to get into bed with a guy wearing a pink umbrella stand on his back. Unfortunately, though, what I had on my back was not an umbrella stand but a poor aunt. As time passed, people's interest in me and in the poor aunt on my back faded. My friend in the park had been right: nobody was interested in poor aunts.

"I saw you on TV," my friend said. We were sitting by the pond again. I hadn't seen her for three months. It was now early autumn. The time had shot by. We had never gone so long without seeing each other.

"You looked a little tired."

"I was."

"You weren't yourself."

I nodded. It was true: I hadn't been myself.

She kept folding and unfolding a sweatshirt on her knees.

"So you finally succeeded in getting your own poor aunt."

"Yes."

She smiled, caressing the soft sweatshirt on her knees as if it were a cat.

"Do you understand her better now?"

"A little," I said. "I think."

"And has it helped you to write something?"

"Nope." I gave my head a little shake. "Not a thing. The urge to write just isn't there. Maybe I'll never be able to do it."

She was silent for a while.

"I've got an idea," she said finally. "Ask me some questions. I'll try to help out a little."

"As the poor-aunt authority?"

"Uh-huh." She smiled. "Fire away. I feel like answering poor-aunt questions right now, and I may never want to again."

I didn't know where to start.

"Sometimes," I said, "I wonder what kind of person becomes a poor aunt. Are they born that way? Or does it take special poor-aunt conditions? Is there some kind of bug that turns people into poor aunts?"

She nodded several times as if to say that these were very good questions.

"Both," she said. "They're the same thing."

"The same thing?"

"Uh-huh. Well, look. A poor aunt might have had a poor-aunt childhood. Or she might not. It really doesn't matter. There are millions of reasons floating around the world for millions of results. Millions of reasons to live, and millions of reasons to die. Millions of reasons for giving reasons. Reasons like that are easy to come by. But what you're looking for is not one of those, is it?"

"Well," I said, "I guess not."

"She exists. That's all. Your poor aunt is there. You have to recognize that fact and accept it. She exists. And that's what a poor aunt is. Her existence is her reason. Just like us. We exist here and now, without any particular reason or cause."

We sat by the pond for a long time, neither of us moving or speaking. The clear autumn sunlight cast shadows on her face.

"Well," she said, "aren't you going to ask me what I see on your back?"

"What do you see on my back?"

"Nothing at all," she said with a smile. "I see only you."

"Thanks," I said.

Time, of course, topples everyone, but the thrashing that most of us receive is frightfully gentle. Few of us even realize that we are being beaten. In a poor aunt, however, we can actually witness the tyranny of time. It has squeezed the poor aunt like an orange, until there's not a single drop of juice left. What draws me to the poor aunt is that completeness of hers, that utter perfection.

She is like a corpse sealed inside a glacier - a magnificent glacier with ice like steel. Only ten thousand years of sunshine could melt such a glacier. But no poor aunt can live for ten thousand years, and so she will have to live with her perfection, die with her perfection, and be buried with her perfection.

It was late in autumn when the poor aunt left my back. Recalling some work I had to complete before the winter, I boarded a suburban train with my poor aunt on my back. Like any suburban train in the afternoon, it was practically empty. This was my first trip out of the city for quite some time, and I enjoyed watching the scenery go by. The air was crisp and clear, the hills almost unnaturally green, and here and there along the tracks there were trees with bright-red berries.

Sitting across the aisle from me on the return trip were a skinny woman in her mid-thirties and her two children. The older child, a girl in a navy-blue serge dress and a gray felt hat with a red ribbon a kindergarten uniform - sat on her mother's left. On the mother's right sat a boy who was perhaps three years old. Nothing about the mother or her children was particularly noteworthy. Their faces, their clothing were ordinary in the extreme. The mother held a large package. She looked tired, but then most mothers look tired. I had hardly noticed them boarding the train.

Not long afterward, however, sounds from the little girl began to reach me across the aisle. There was an edge to her voice, an urgency that suggested pleading.

Then I heard the mother say, "I told you to keep still on the train!" She had a magazine spread open on top of her bundle and seemed reluctant to tear her eyes from it.

"But, Mama, look at what he's doing to my hat," the little girl said.

"Just shut up!"

The girl made as if to speak, but then she swallowed her words. The little boy was holding the hat that she'd been wearing earlier, and he kept pawing it and pulling on it. The girl reached out and tried to grab it back, but he twisted himself away, determined to keep it out of her grasp.

"He's going to ruin my hat," the girl said, on the verge of tears.

The mother glanced up from her magazine with a look of annoyance and went through the motions of reaching for the hat, but the boy clamped both his hands on the brim and refused to give it up. "Let him play with it for a while," she said to the girl. "He'll get bored soon enough." The girl did not look convinced, but she didn't try to argue. She pursed her lips and glared at the hat in her brother's hands.

Encouraged by his mother's indifference, the boy started yanking at the red ribbon. He clearly knew that this would drive his sister crazy - and it had that effect on me as well. I was ready to stomp across the aisle and snatch the thing out of his hands.

The girl stared at her brother in silence, but you could see that she had a plan. Then, all of a sudden, she got to her feet and slapped him hard on the cheek. In the stunned moment that followed, she grabbed the hat and returned to her seat. She did this with such speed and dispatch that it took the interval of one deep breath before the mother and brother realized what had happened. As the brother let out a wail, the mother smacked the girl's bare knee. She then turned to comfort the boy, but he kept on wailing.

"But, Mama, he was ruining my hat," the little girl said.

"Don't talk to me," the mother said. "You don't belong to me anymore."

The girl looked down, staring at her hat.

"Get away from me," the mother said. "Go over there." She pointed at the empty seat next to me.

The girl looked away, trying to ignore her mother's outstretched finger, but it continued pointing to my left, as if it were frozen in midair.

"Go on," the mother insisted. "You're not part of this family anymore."

Resigned to her fate, the girl stood up with her hat and schoolbag, trudged across the aisle, and sat down next to me, her head bowed. Hat on her lap, she tried to smooth its brim with her little fingers. It's his fault, she was clearly thinking. He was going to tear the ribbon off my hat. Her cheeks were streaked with tears.

It was almost evening now. Dull yellow light filtered down from the train ceiling like dust from the wings of a doleful moth. It hovered there to be silently inhaled through the passengers' mouths and noses. I closed my book. Resting my hands on my knees, I stared at my upturned palms for a long time. When had I last studied my hands like this? In the smoky light, they seemed grimy, even dirty溶ot like my hands at all. The sight of them filled me with sadness: these were hands that would never make anyone happy, that would never save anyone. I wanted to place a reassuring hand on the shoulder of the little girl sobbing next to me, to tell her that she had been right, that she had done a great job, taking the hat that way. But of course I didn't touch her or speak to her. It would only have confused and frightened her more. And, besides, those hands of mine were so dirty.

By the time I left the train, a cold winter wind was blowing. Soon the sweater season would be over, and the time for thick winter coats would be upon us. I thought about coats for a while, trying to decide whether or not to buy myself a new one. I was already down the stairs and out the gate before I became aware that the poor aunt had vanished from my back.

I had no idea when it had happened. Just as she had come, she had gone. She had gone back to wherever it was that she had existed before, and I was my original self again.

But what was my original self? I couldn't be sure anymore. I couldn't help feeling that this was another me, another self that strongly resembled my original self. So now what was I to do? I had lost all sense of direction. I shoved my hand in my pocket and fed every piece of change I found there into a pay phone.

Eight rings. Nine. And then she answered.

"I was sleeping," she said with a yawn.

"At six o'clock in the evening?"

"I was up all last night working. Just finished two hours ago."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," I said. "This may sound strange, but I called just to make sure you're still alive. That's all. Really."

I could feel her smiling into the phone.

"Thanks. That was nice of you," she said. "Don't worry, though. I'm still alive. And I'm working my tail off to stay alive. Which is why I'm dead tired. O.K.? Are you relieved?"

"I'm relieved."

"You know," she said, as if she were about to share a secret with me, "life is pretty damn hard."

"I know," I said. And she was right. "How would you like to have dinner with me?"

In the silence at her end, I could sense her biting her lip and touching her little finger to her eyebrow.

"Not right now," she said, emphasizing each syllable. "We'll talk later. You have to let me sleep now.

Everything will be fine if I can just sleep a little. I'll call you when I wake up. O.K.?"

"O.K.," I said. "Good night."

"You, too. Good night."

She hesitated a moment. "Was it some kind of emergency - what you wanted to talk about?"

"No, no emergency," I said. "We can talk about it later."

It was true - we had plenty of time. Ten thousand, twenty thousand years. I could wait.

"Good night," she said again, and she hung up. For a while, I looked at the receiver in my hand, then I placed it in its cradle. The moment I let go of it, I felt an incredible hunger. I'd go insane if I didn't get something to eat. I'd eat anything. Anything at all. If someone offered me something to put in my mouth,

I'd crawl to him on all fours. I might even suck his fingers clean. Yes, I would, I would suck your fingers clean. And then I'd sleep like a weathered crosstie. The meanest kick wouldn't wake me. For ten thousand years I'd be sound asleep.


I leaned against the pay phone, emptied my mind out, and closed my eyes. Then I heard footsteps, thousands of footsteps. They washed over me like a wave. They kept walking, on and on, tramping in time. Where was the poor aunt now? I wondered. Where had she gone back to? And where had I come back to?

If, ten thousand years from now, a society came into being that was peopled exclusively by poor aunts - with a town hall run by poor aunts who had been elected by poor aunts, streetcars for poor aunts driven by poor aunts, novels for poor aunts written by poor aunts - would they open the gates for me?

Then again they might not need any of those things - the town hall or the streetcars or the novels. They might prefer instead to live quietly in giant vinegar bottles of their own making. From the air you'd be able to see tens - hundreds - of thousands of vinegar bottles lined up, covering the earth. It would be a sight so beautiful it would take your breath away.

Yes, that's it. And if, by any chance, that world had room to admit a single poem, I would gladly be the one to write it: the first poet laureate of the world of poor aunts. I would sing in praise of the glow of the sun on the green bottles, of the broad sea of grass below.

But this is looking far ahead, to the year 12001, and ten thousand years is too long for me to wait. I have many winters to survive before then.