ANGELS ON MY SHOULDER!

Typical I is not exactly a daredevil. I am however not easily shaken by events that would be quite unnerving to the average man, for instance, I have brushed moving cars before. The most remarkable being when the car, a green Toyota VX, grazed me with such force that the side mirror was pushed backwards, out of place. Naturally I kept moving, like I had seen rat crossing a village path. That was a normal day to me. Today however, I have been left shaken, sweating, panic-stricken…

It is a normal morning. I have not worked the previous night, so I kick the beddings early enough, yawn widely like a hungry crocodile and as usual I remember too late to hold on my mouth. No one is seeing anyway, so I don’t care. It’s going to be a busy day, I have to go back to campus, pick up my clearance form and then panic my way to work in the afternoon. So I brush, take a cold shower after much hesitation and just as am getting through, the lights go off.

“Damn it!” I swear angrily, majorly because I had postponed ironing till the last minute.

So I get a back pack, pack my clothes and move to my sister’s. There, I am doubtless that they have electricity. They do not share the Yaka calamity with us. So I iron my clothes and put on a black tie. Well it’s a Friday, but then I want to meet her and the idiot in me (which she magically induces) decides that I will put on a tie anyway.

I hold one of those Ironman-Captain America arguments with my brother-in-law. Apparently, he thinks he can get off the grid, live without electricity or fuel and eat organic for five years. I think its bull-shit, he thinks it’s not. No point in arguing with him anyway. It’s hard to find a man who has a bachelor’s degree in Telecommunication Engineering and is a film maker. He is taking music lessons. He wants to be a farmer next and a lawyer lastly. You watched concussion, right?

It’s getting late, so I jump on the Boda-boda, half denting my daily budget through. I am feeling like Trump today, so I will fly to school, I say to myself quietly.

Flash-forward. I am in the bursar’s office, the whole place is buzzing with people, desperate students and staff alike. I sift through the heap of clearance forms, haphazardly strewn on the table and I solicit for the help of as friend because they are four piles of clearance forms and I don’t feel like spending the whole day sifting through the forms. I find it, I am not happy. I do not know why.

My phone rings. It’s Damien Marley, so I listen to the first lines, because my ringtone is my favorite song.

“Affairs of the heart, together we grown… if ever apart…”

Am not getting apart from anyone. Not soon. I still want the idiot in me anyway. I jump out of the eerie and pick up the phone. Kiiza is on the other end of the line. It’s been long since I saw him. Half a year? I do not know. We set up a meeting. I see him, it’s always a pleasure old boy.

I meet bae. Things do not go fine. I am having the teenage mood swings although I am decade past that. It’s amazing what love can do to a man.

By this time it is getting late. I have to go to work. So I walk to Nakawa Park. It’s a packed taxi, hot and murky like a coffin in the Sahara afternoon. Jesus Christ. I can see why I want a Mercedes cross country as soon as possible. Public transport in Uganda is pathetic. It’s my economic status however, so I curse under my breath and endure. I am humming the ‘we shall overcome tune’ and it’s stuck on replay in my head so I hardly realize that we are at the Electoral commission. I jump out. I give the wretched conductor a one thousand note. Of course I know that the fare is 500. He stares at me like the undertaker so I lose the courage to ask for my balance. No point in meeting my death over the price of a bun. Not today.

I cross the road and stand on the middle pavement, I still have another lane to cross. That’s when I am saved. I prepare to jump into the road and as soon as I put my foot into the road, I feel a swoosh coming towards me. A white Toyota Prado is setting upon me with such speed that I freeze in the moment. I can see my grave so clearly and for a moment I knew my maker was not far away. Then in a trice, I instinctively step back onto the pavement. People whistled. A loud mummer spreads through the taxis behind me as people stare at me like I have green eyes and webbed feet. I am dazed. I am shaken. I am blessed. I stand there befuddled. The white mist sweeps past me, it’s the car. All that in a second. Painful tears trickle down my face but they are invisible. All the while am thinking, of the Angel that pulled me by the collar like the kid I am not, right out of the road right before I met my maker. I have a second shot at life…

It’s 10.23 pm and am using the company computer to write a testimony. Who gives a dump anyway? I almost died today. It’s such providence that I had Angels ridding on my shoulder. I live to die another day.