A philosophical reflection on mortality, decomposition, and what we truly become—despite the promises of paradise.
Gĩtaũ wa Kũngʼũ ✍🏾 reflects
Stori ya what happened few moments before I took this selfie tukiji-pin at “The 7th Heaven Joy Bar & Lounge” in Nakuru, changed my life in a way that Facebook reminded me today. We were quietly enjoying our life, and preparing for an ecstatic night juu wueh! Life is short—and when you die you disappear—wakua nĩ wora!
That fat guy you see behind me was talking the English of the nose, happily enjoying his hard-earned ndururu, enticing his irresistibly attractive, maffrr-blessed rangi ya thao and Blackforest ‘keki’ catches with KC Ginger Liquer mizinga dirtifying the table—for it is written, “Thou shall eat your sweat.”
Thou shall lively enjoy your life to the fullest in the pleasure of cool places that you earned through the climaxed climate furnace.
Before another shot of Hunter tot danced its way to ruthlessly hunt minyoo— ghafla bin vuu! Kurrr! Kachirr! Pu! Nduru ikapiga then deathly silence!
Nilijiokota chini kama uchumi wa nchi. Stars started dancing around me like poverty ghosts on a Singapore-partying dream. Mamii! Ndorio kĩĩ ningĩ!
I bounced from the ground like a demented Dwayne Johnson ‘The Rock’ lurking to make a fast and furious buffalo dismantling of whatever the devil threw The Undertaker’s spear at me with such V. Diesel power. But only to skid again and fall on a warm horrible flood of blood. Chaos.
The heavenly happiness of that fateful saturday environment at The 7th Heavens suddenly turned into a chaos of the ‘7th Hell’ within the blink of a cheating mpenzi on his vengeance breathing jealous life with her hired gang. “Si muende kwa room sasa mkalaliane!” The deranged wife shouted as the gang lifted her into a nearby get-away car that met faya si faya.
The same place cheerful bottles were clicking cheers moments before was now terribly crashing with flying bottles and raining marungu. The booming music abduction by screaming slayqueens and held silent by dagger-jabbing words kwa koo.
But what did that have to do with me? I pray and hope the keki and their lover were saved from the last deathly glimpse I had on one of them, as the ambulance jolted them to hospital on full-blown sirens.
Remembering that day brings me into today’s reflection.
One day I will die. Nitaoza kwa mchanga. My body will decay, decompose and probably disintegrate into carbon, calcium etc ions. Nikizikwa watalia na kusema we will meet again in heaven. My spirit will disappear into thin air—hewa ile ile tu watakuwa wakivuta. My body will sweat in the coffin to the cerebration of mĩthũa, the termites who will fly to the ground and get eaten by the tasty chicken they will eat with such leisure.
The leather on the bar stools was once skinned from now dead cows who probably promised each other watapatana tena mbinguni after death. Hurray! Here they meet again in ‘7th Heaven Joy’ booming with music from drums made of animal skins.
The clothes I wear once came from wool from some sheep 🐑 that bleated tearfully after watching their fattened relatives get slaughtered to celebrate kuzaliwa kwa Mwanakondoo on Christmas 🎄. Pia they probably thought about meeting again in Paradiso where they will not be dancing to ‘Siaka siaka’, have no sickness ama kuskia baridi.
So I wonder, ningekufa—If I died, si watu wange-rĩra aloud, mourn n say we’ll meet again in heaven only for me to die and decay, feed some avocado 🥑, fruit 🍑 banana 🍌 or coffee trees that people will now be buyimg, eating and drinking—and still be waiting tupatane tena mbinguni?
Wait, who am I eating or eating today? Who are you eating or drinking today?
My Agĩkũyũ ancestors did not believe in heaven or hell after death. They believed that we only transform into the invisible, living as ngoma in the world of ngomi. When we die tĩĩri ũgacooka tĩĩrini, we become spirit and join the living dead waiting to be reborn into ka-mami, ka-baba or ka-maitũ. Nevertheless, the ashes return to ashes. The dust return to dust. Or the air returns to the air. But when I die, make it more modern. Socioscientific. Let the ions return to ions, for ions we are and ions we will remain in Zion— in space, like the great Carolyn Porco would proudly argue. There’s life after death indeed.
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