“… lock the door…yes…yes even 1 minute…yes you are still late…Hapana… all meetings are sacred… That was the voice of one of the ladies, who looked to be in her mid-twenties, with gold-dyed hair. She was standing next to a glass door, with few other young guys trying to plead their way into a small structure that had seats all over, which I later came to realize it was their office. That’s what woke me up. It was on a Monday, 8:05 in the morning. Those guys stopped talking and were looking straight into my window. “Are they seeing me, or they are just imagining there’s someone here?” All this time I was placing my leg over the window with my torn boxer and an old Lakers vest. I knew the windows were tinted, one-way, if better phrased. You can imagine when I realized they were all transparent, I almost fainted. They were all laughing while I hurriedly spread out the curtains. Embarrassment!

The house was quiet, lonely, and empty. The floor was cold. All my items sat there, waiting for my next move.  There was some background Afro-beat music from my neighbors. I lay on my seat and murmured a few words, a prayer I mean, reached for my toothbrush, and dragged my feet to the loo. I was tired, too exhausted to fully open my eyes. Despite the disarrangement in the house and the fatigue, I was still proud of the step I had made in life. I had never imagined that one day I’ll wake up without my mum’s help. Oh no! Is it really help? no way. There’s no day Mama Melvin has woken me up with some decency, unless she wants to solicit some cash from me with her temporary soft voice, I’ll refund you my son once nimepokea kwa chama, that she never refunds. The last time I asked for my money back, she said I refund her the school fees she paid first then we can talk about my 5k. Mothers!

I finished arranging my items in the house – which literally fitted in one corner of house – and went out to look for breakfast. Outside was calm, nice landscaping, curtains all over the apartment. Some guys in uniform were busy cleaning around the office and the pavements. Some did the corridors inside. Vehicles moved in and out of the building as I went out. Some biometrics at the gate. I had to wait for someone moving in or out to open the gate for me. That thing felt like I was back to uni, back then in USIU.

There was a Range Rover KDB packed on one side as I strolled back carrying a Superloaf bread in one hand and two eggs on the other hand. The week had started. Everybody looked busy except me, in my Snoop Dogg baggy side-pocket shot, walking nonchalantly as I headed back to my crib. As I boarded the elevator, I just wished my mum could see how independent her son had become – Melvin mwenyewe – kijana Independent. All this phantasmagoria was suddenly disrupted by a delivery guy who was coming into the elevator with a pink gas cyclinder to deliver to one of the residents. It just hit me that I didn’t have one in the house. Damn, bills again!…