WHAT THE DEVIL DID ON CHRISTMAS.

Christmas day is a very special day of the year, the most special in my opinion. So I decided to celebrate it in a special way, by spending time with my beautiful wife of six years. You can probably guess that I am not old enough to be married to anyone for six years. How then do I have a wife? Thank God for wife inheritance, and especially for that golden age when AIDS did not exist, during her late husband’s youth. This latter fact is what made me deem it reasonable not to put her through the stressful process of going to a VCT. Some of my friends call it horniness, but I like to think of it as sensitivity. And not that kind of sensitivity that makes you too eager to reach for the condoms in the bedside drawer. That kind of sensitivity only gets you STIs and unplanned pregnancies. I am referring to the kind of sensitivity that makes you want to marry someone after you’ve dated for some time. More about this lady I call my wife: She was a second wife to her late husband, which I think literally means that she is a great woman. After all, she must have had something extra to make a nigga go like, “I know I have it all at home already, but I am not living one more day without this latest model release of a woman in my life.” So far I am sure I am not mistaken, nothing has given the tiniest shred of evidence to the contrary. These are all things which served to add to my excitement at the thought of seeing her after some time apart.
Don’t ask me how the devil found out that I intended to visit the woman who loves me with all her heart. All I know is that very early on Christmas day he was at my doorstep doing everything he could to ruin my plans. It began with my mobile phone. The moment I picked it to leave the house, it beeped and started to blink red, battery low! I had to delay and charge it first. Then he started using the oldest trick in the book, I started becoming all anxious and nervous about the visit for stupid reasons. When I saw that he was gaining some footing against me, I showed him the one thing which frustrates him most, love. Upon realizing that I loved this woman too much and was resolute on paying her a visit no matter what, he decided to leave me alone. I was to later hear that he was seen at Machakos country-bus station totally drunk and dancing naked in front of the buses that were supposed to leave at night. Consequently, the buses could not travel to their destinations because some pawns chose Christmas to reinforce the night travel ban for PSVs. The devil works in many ways, sorry to those who will be late reporting back to their jobs because of that inconvenience.
Unfortunately for peace loving folks, the devil does not work alone. Indeed, he sent someone to try and recruit me into his gang on Christmas day. And the devil is smart, he uses ordinary people we cannot suspect. This time he had sent a cousin of mine who I was meeting for the first time. He was elated at being introduced to another one of his relatives. It is with that joyous euphoria that he smilingly held a cup to my mouth and insisted that I drink. I looked inside the cup and saw that it was filled with tea, so I took a healthy sip like a good African male. While I was swallowing, my taste buds were simultaneously sending out memos to all my other senses informing them that my eyesight needed serious help and was not to be trusted. My nose confirmed it as he was withdrawing the cup. It turned out that he was actually enjoying a cup of traditional, alcoholic brew. My gag reflexes were too slow to help me keep my promise to myself never to drink again. I conceded that the devil had won that round. I honestly saw no need to cry over that spilt milk, it was alcohol not poison.
Northwards, the truly nasty amongst the devil’s servants and cronies were busy painting a picture of hell in a country still desperately trying to find its own footing as a young nation. Thousands are reported dead already and the count keeps rising. The UN has been forced to move in more peacekeepers. Our own country chartered two planes to fly out the stranded Kenyans out of that hell. But there are others trapped in areas which have already been captured by rebels. Whether they are alive or dead… we can only pray and hope. Everyone keeps saying how it is better to solve the problem and not the symptoms but very few seem interested in doing that. How come that I never heard of a widespread manhunt for the devil? Perhaps a cash reward of like $1 billion? Bill Gates might even be willing to pay the larger share of the reward if he’s promised that upon the devil’s capture, his computing systems will never freeze, crash or overheat again. Who knows if in one of the two times he came to ambush me on Christmas I might not have been able to turn the tables around and hold him until the cops (or would it be pastors?) arrived? With one billion dollars in my pocket, I could buy each Kenyan citizen two thousand shillings worth of Christmas gifts and still remain a multi-millionaire. That’s 40 million people temporarily extricated from the tentacles of poverty.
I know some of you don’t believe that two thousand is enough to remove anyone from poverty for any period of time. Well, there are people who live on fifty bob a day. To them, the two thousand amounts to 40 days of consistent provision. Didn’t I tell you that the devil is smart? He has some of us so deep in poverty that we cannot even look up to sense the smell of chapattis being cooked all over. Some hearths and stoves remained untouched during and after Christmas. The devil is a very busy man. I wonder how those people who make deals with him manage to even book an appointment. Do you know how difficult it is to put anyone down on Christmas day? Everyone is always in an upbeat mood and clings to the smile on their face like it’s the very air they are breathing. But the devil has ways to steal away those cherished smiles on this special day. A friend of mine lost his dad on Christmas, God rest his soul. It is impossible to smile through such a loss.
Despite everything that the devil did on Christmas and is doing right now to cause suffering to earth’s children, we have the heavenly assurance that God is with us. So take heart and do not agree to lose to the devil. If you lose one round, get up and recover your strength then fight another round, until you win. The devil is a bitter old man who is enraged because he knows nothing good will happen to him ever again. You shouldn’t lose to such an opponent considering that you have divine strategy and armour to use in the fight. But remember that the devil never sleeps, he planted the stupid thoughts in this post on my mind when we all thought Christmas was finally over and went to sleep. So never let your guards down even in your sleep. Methinks those erotic dreams are the devil showing you porn in your sleep. Wake up and take a cold shower, give your hands something distracting to do.

Finally, to my late grandpa who I am named after, rest in peace. I am taking good care of grandma for you. She was so happy to see me on Christmas day, joking about how I chose and wooed her myself because I was bewitched by her dark skinned beauty. She tells me you were quite the Romeo, and I think it rubbed off on me. Until we meet again in heaven, keep them angels smiling.