That morning Maya woke up before he had heard the tik tak from the alarm clock.
The alarm was ticking and it's tongues gave sharp green light. If he had had the authority, all alarm clocks wouldn't have any light, for him this was the only reason why the mosquitoes in his room were larger than houseflies in the busy public loos of Kampala that were visited after each minute.
He had kept this alarm for now eight years and was still in a proper condition as if it had been gifted to him the previous day.
He had received this alarm on his 15th birthday from Janer the first love of his life. He had crushed on Janer for three years in highschool before he had broken the ice and confessed affection to her. Janer had played hard to get for two weeks after which she seemed to love him more than he actually loved her.
He had one time thought they wouldn't break up an assumption solidified by Janer's daily assurance of her availability and wild feelings for him.
"I will always be there for you" she had always assured him with an affectionate smile on her round face. Her small blue eyes and smooth temples were striking and made Maya doubt if anything she told him was a deception. Her beauty couldn't lie to him.
Maya was surprised on how they had been in love with Janer but hadn't been any two feet close to each other, they hadn't hugged, kissed, held palms but continuously felt gross affection for one another.
Maya had caught Janer with his best friend Luiz kissing behind the school tank and the memory incredulously haunted him like it had happened the previous hour.
Robert Katumwa Luiz was an agemate of Maya but handsomer and wiser.
He had learnt the African proverb that said "The food of the foolish, the wise eat"
He had a sharp nose and large blue eyes on his box face. They had been kissing.
This was the end of Maya and Janer. This had compelled Maya to influence his parents to change him to another school.
He had thought he would not Fall in Love soon.
He had learned the hard way at a juvenile age. He wouldn't risk to fall for any other dissapointments.
He was now with Rachel in relationship that looked more of a contract than affectionate cohabitation.
His brain was complaining to his heart, how had his heart fallen for Rachael just because of her beauty. How had his brain failed to examine Rachael's persona in complex totality.
He sat upright on his bed and stared on the second pillow beside him.
He knew she'd gone to prepare breakfast a thing she had done consecutively for each morning in the past years they had been together. He wasn't intrigued by how several such care groomed. But at least he loved the care for the sake and wished such care could have come from a better.
The phone rung and Maya recognized Rachael's ringing tone, he straightened his right hand in attempt to reach it out.
"Sa ........" he attempted to read out the name and his face outrightly frowned as if the caller had made him blue.
Rachael soon entered the room, her face wore a peptic smile staring at Maya and back at the tray that carried His breakfast like the waiters in the most expensive hotels of New York where a smile to the customer was part of the menu.
"Here we go" She sat on the bed next to him.
In the earlier years of their intimacy such utterance would be followed by attempts to feed him. She was nolonger doing this, he wasn't bothered anyway, knowing having a child of 12years they had grown past such sentiments of naivity.
"She called" Maya pointed at her phone that rested on his thighs.
"Who called?"
"Sandra" Maya tried to unshell the boiled egg.
"Let me first prepare Kevin for School" Rachael hated discussing about her mother with her husband. They were two important people in her life that resented each other and yet each required priotisation in her life.
She stood up and started to move. At the lobby she jolted and glanced at Maya who pretended not to be focusing on her by focussing on his meal.
"Fuck that bitch" Maya shouted not at Rachael but at Sandra as if she could mysteriously feel the insult.
He reminisced the cold morning with a Carmine sun at dawn when he still lay in his cozy bed, feeling uncomfortable for a reason he couldn't figure out.
As if he had, through mystical means, known about the pregnancy of Rachael his wife as Gabriel the arch angel had known that Mary was pregnant of the lord.
He regreted this moment like he would never regret a thing in his entire lifetime. This is the reason he had been forced to Marry Rachel, the same reason why his dreams of being a lawyer had died like the biblical amelikites in the act of Herem.
Wait his heart demanded, Did you posses one quality of a good lawyer?, his brain asked. His dreams of being a lawyer had died years before she had been in acquaintance with Rachael.
He still had gross resentment for his wife and Sandra his mother-in-law. He would turn all odds and become someone special if not for forced marriage by Sandra.
Though hesitantly he had eventually woken up, the strong rays of light that were refracted by the window glass on his bedroom had hit his eyes directly with a compelling force. His forehead was turning red, he felt it bulge and on the verge of explosion, this is what happened to him every morning and this was the striking factor for his migration desires to what he called a better place. Even after 2 years of such an experience, he was still finding a better place.
He was eventually compelled to raise from his bed.
He couldn't figure out what the date that day was or even one of the day that preceded it, obviously not one of the following day, he only remembered how good the previous night had been while they made love with Rachael.
He had yawned, spreading out his jaws widely as if the best sign to depict his hunger.
" Good morning dear", Rachael had entered the room with his breakfast and placed it at a small table near him, this is something she would do for all the time they would enjoy in marriage after all this restrictive environment in high school.
"Kevin is ready for school" Rachael was astonished at his attitude towards work today.
He acted hastily, so as to catch up with his hot tea, and most importantly time for his work. He had worked as a Public relations officer of Tubirye Bakery for now four years.
He himself couldn't explain comprehensively which particular onus he was obliged to fulfill.
He had worked on the files of the business customers and Target markets but the secretary had claimed this work too.
For now he went latest to the bakery, sat the whole day and awaited his salary.
Thank God the manager of the bakery was his personal long time friend Mr Kizito Paul who seemed to be paying him for his long term friendship.
In a maximum of three long strides he was in the bathroom. He was a tall man, the true favorites of Adolf Hitler in his army recruitments. His legs were longer than the rest of his body parts, they seemed to be products of prosthesis or something near it. No one could be sure of what had truly happed to them but all could figure out the degree of unnaturalness in them. His hair was extra ordinarily black, his eyebrows, lashes and facial hair even darker than the hair.
He carried, on his face a broad kiganda nose, a hide out for his emerging mustache, where the causes of his astuteness, the golden bridged spectacles rested. He had broad shoulders, a huge chest which made his body build up for a rugby player. This is why Rachael had crushed on him while they were still in high school. He was an egomaniac, as enigmatic as new recruits in the army.
Kevin sat still at the back of the car. Maya drove at a very low speed with Rachael beside him.
Each of them could feel the suspense and silence in the car. As if the family was driving through the famous Sahara desert so worried about their lives.
Reaching inside the birth room, his instant sight had caught his nude wife who was herself taking a cold bath, he gazed at her teenage blossoms, as pointed as banana fingers. He embraced her, grasped her waist and killed the distance between them. His hands reached out for her fleshy temples, soapy and full of lather to caress her. He kissed her gently and affectionately bringing his arousals to the extreme.
"I love you Rachael", he said " really love you more than life" he added and still attempted to say it the third time, as if she had not heard it. Rachael kissed him silent, her lips so cold and soapy. He felt a sour chemical test of his tongue when their tongues entangled.
"Do you really love me like you say it Maya?"
"I surely do Rachael, I love you so much dear" he gasped.
This emphasis nerved Rachael but wasn't enough a reason for her to reveal the concealment immolating her heart.
"Do you really love me?" She demanded the third time.
Now Maya hated the fact that he needed, to express his love feelings to her for three consecutive times, so as to be taken serious.
"Am pregnant" she said in a coarse and low tone as if to mean the news wasn't good for him. She saw his face lose expression. He looked breathless as if being chocked by a breeze of smoke from a burning cigarette.
"Who is responsible?", Maya let go of her body. His throat so dry, choking for an iota of breath.
Who's responsible? Had she heard him well, who else would be responsible for the pregnancy of his wife.
" Am sorry" he falsely grinned luring his face in a cumbrous expression.
Rachael had not been happy at the rhetoric question. Did it mean she was unfair, did he think she had on her back a litany of men that would be responsible for her pregnancy.
"Maya are you really fine?"his secretary asked for the third time.
He wasn't fine she supposed. He was behaving wearily
He was over thinking and they didn't know about what.
"Yes am fine" as he handled the glass of water she had delivered for her.
There was a hot fracas in his mind, the dwarf in him was fighting himself.
Don't think about being a father boy, it's the thing you'll never forget, the mistake you'll never forgive yourself.
He some how supported this dwarf, he wasn't ready to be a father.
