The pungent fumes of cheap cigarettes had chased me away from the back of the bar – where I liked to sit – to the counter. I found a spot that was being bathed by the evening breeze hissing through a broken pane and pulled a stool. It’s fine, I thought, no need to fuss…
Underachievement in Gifted Students It is a warm, Saturday afternoon, and I am sitting in the library of a certain National school in the distant outskirts of Nairobi. I cast my eyes about and admire the impressive collection of books all around. In front of me, a quiet Form 2 student flips through an old…
“I, Uhuru Kenyatta, in full realization of the high calling…do swear that I will be faithful, and bear true allegiance to the Republic of Kenya…and that I will obey, protect and uphold the sovereignty, integrity and dignity of the people of Kenya.“ These were the words that, at the time, the President-elect of the Republic…
The Greater East African Colony: 2084 AD Department of Astrobiology (DoA), Sector C. 12: 45pm He sat silently at his bench, motionless, and not a hair on his skin acknowledged the presence of the young lass hovering beside him. Aliya Kendi was a post-doctoral beauty that had but a scanty supply of flesh around her…
The warm sunshine struggled through the heavy fog that hang above the town. The morning seemed calm and quiet, such that one would be led to believe that all was well with the world. From a red Corrado that had just sped into the hospital’s parking lot, emerged a man. It was 7.00 am. The…
“I need you to lie on your side, Mr. James. Can you do that for me? Good, good. Now, pull your knees up towards your chest and relax.” Mr. James complied. It was his sixth day here, and he was now willing to do anything in order to get out. Well, perhaps not anything, but,…
Parents often toss a prayer into the heavens when their little minions run off to school – their small hands clutching onto their jingling pockets, heavy with the pennies that they had stolen and those that their mothers had reluctantly given them. Parents hope that their children’s march…
The sharp clank of a metal bar colliding with bone filled the midnight air. A scream, and then silence. The weapon glowed dimly as it was spun, melting into the air with the typical transparency of a rotating blade. Beneath an amber street lamp in Nairobi, a man lay dead. At arm’s length, another man…
As a faithful lover of science, experiments are my prayers, my toil in study is my worship, discoveries are my offering and the laboratory is the cathedral of my soul. I had never imagined, ever since I was a little primary school boy, that I would one day set foot in a Hindu temple. But when…
A few problems with Capital Punishment When the body is rested, and the mind, subdued by deep contemplation, seems unbent by the impulses of its vessel, stranger creatures stir, and bring to surface emotions old. It is here that our pretentious affirmations of certitude are revealed by the circumspect eye of self-scrutiny, and that our…