News that I had left Mrembo’s Happy Valley Grills spread across the lengths and widths of Aberdare countryside like a plague. As usual, enemies of my marital stability had updated Queen about the development. To earn their pay from Queen, they had added so much salt that the story grew a life of its own.
The gist of the story was that Mrembo had kicked me out of her premises after milking me dry. That is another way of saying that I had been Mrembo’s mfugo . And despite my Queen knowing very well that I honestly earn my own money, she is so beholden to her spies that she believed them. Despite her high social status in Aberdare, she suffers from a malady that makes her derive pleasure from stories of pain in marriage, real or imagined.
In order to shout loudest for the whole world to know, Queen organised a homecoming party in my honour at the Palace over the Easter holiday. And because of the good times we have been enjoying of late, I did not suspect that it had anything to do with me and my ‘salvation’ from Happy Valley.
Now, my Queen takes advantage of our marital handshake to exploit me financially. Of course, no man would wish to live in marital Siberia forever. Queen knows that I fear the banishment. She therefore uses her womanly wiles to make me do things that I later regret, in exchange for marital nirvana.
“I am organising a prayer and thanksgiving party here,” Queen told me. Queen has always held meetings and parties at the Palace without informing me but because of the current marital nirvana, I did not suspect anything.
“We have a lot to thank God for. Like now, it is only our family car that is working in the whole of Aberdare. This is enough to tell God thank you,” she replied.
“You have my whole support,” I said.
“Thank you. And this time I want you to be there and also invite your close friends,” Queen said.
“Must I be there,” I asked.
“A family that prays together stays happily together,” Queen said. And that is how I got myself deep in the mix of things.
I bought a big goat, ten cocks and four crates of soda to feed our guests. In spite of the weather, a party is no party in Happy Valley without sodas. The D-Day finally came on Easter Saturday. The guest speaker was Queen’s bishop. After heavy feasting, it was time for the ‘sermon at the Palace’.
“God is great! This Easter, God has brought our long lost brother back home,” the bishop said.
I looked around to see the brother being referred to and I was shocked to realise that everyone was looking at me.
“For years, our brother was lost to the evil women of that evil valley but now God has saved him and brought him back to his wife and children!”
The food I had just eaten ‘melted’ and my stomach started rumbling so loudly that the bishop himself heard the sound above his loud voice. I felt a sharp electric-like sensation run down my body from head to toe. I started sweating and shivering at the same time, like one suffering from malaria. Darkness soon fell around me and I saw stars.
I must have fainted and when I came to, only Kimunya, Professor, Queen and the bishop were present in the Palace. Someone must have been told to take our children away from the scene of death. I found myself in the passenger’s seat of my Volkswagen Beetle. They must have been trying to take me to hospital but unfortunately no one in the compound could operate a manual car, leave alone the technicalities of driving my Beetle.
I jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Professor and Kimunya jumped in. Queen and bishop ran away from the Beetle. I drove out of the Palace like a safari rally driver and headed straight to Green Valley.
“That is a story for another day,” I answered.
The story of my death and resurrection on the Easter holiday has superseded the one about my banishment from Happy Valley. This has promoted me in Happy Valley to a legendary position. Yes, Mr. Survivor, the one who died and resurrected on Easter Saturday.
