THE MOST HIGH.

If you met him this weekend, you would be chocking. Later you would possibly feel like you were riding on a cloud.

Ben stares at his friend. Denno has this idiotic look sagging his face. Matto is on the roof. Naked to his pair of boxers, singing circumcision songs.

How he got there, is a tale on its own. Ben followed Sam’s advice. A short guy from Mombasa with a beefy handshake. Sam is a very wise man.

“I have a problem with my girl, we’ve broken up because my side-chic called her and threw tantrums.”

“We ni nini hii? Piga weedi yako freshi, halafu utulie kejani. Utapata solution.” (What is it with you? Smoke your weed then relax in your house. You will get a solution.)

With the ‘wise’ counsel, he walked to a cigarettes joint.

Some slender guy in an oversized t-shirt moves over on the bench. He passes him a cigarette. Ben shakes his head. Some guy is rocking forth and back continuously. For once you could think he is a mental case. There are other three, with their heads bent very close to their knees.

“You don’t really look like a guy who would come to ‘meditate’ here.” His English is very polished. Unlike his shaggy hair and a very tight pair of denim. Or jeans, is it?

Ben nods, slowly.

“Neither do you say much.”

 He nods again, slowly.

“How can I be of assistance to you?”

Ben gestures the smoking sign. The guy shifts his gaze towards the back of a pub across the road. He looks at Ben and gestures with his head, they walk to the back almost simultaneously.

In a narrow corridor, Ben jumps over a puddle of urine. The air is densely humid. You can feel it as it hits the back of your throat. They stand next to a toppled rubbish bin. Some bony dogs look up then continue digging the dirt with little concern.

“How much do you have?”

Ben fishes out a five-hundred-shilling note. A transparent polythene bag full of rolled up ‘blunts’ appears from under his large t-shirt. Ben’s eyes widen. The guy gives him a black polythene bag which he uses to carry the goods. On his way back, he buys kales worth twenty shillings which he has no use for.

His steps are quick with this awkward smile which is half nervous. He can feel his palms sweat.

Ben looks at his blunt, smoke can be beautiful at times. A slender wavy line rises from his fingers. The way it coils upwards is very amazing. The abstract image it creates is a piece of wonder. He takes a good puff after another while his friends throw cheap jokes at him. Each concluding with, “There are many more ladies around.”

Matto and Denno begin a slapping contest. None of them seems to feel a thing as they smack each other’s faces. Somehow Matto figured it was very hot, he began peeling his clothes off. With a smile he says, “The higher you go, the cooler it becomes.” He scales the wall and somehow finds himself on the roof.

I can explain how all this happened.

 This is the Chinese character for weed. I mean Cannabis Sativa. Specifically hemp, which is a type of bhang which was cultivated as early as 3000 years ago in Taiwan. Bhang was also found in Egyptian pyramids dating to 950 BC. If this plant had been used in Kenya that early, then we would have a ‘tripped’ nation. Traces of this plant were found in pipes dug from Shakespeare’s garden.

‘Weed’ grows in different forms. There is even the one that won’t have an effect on you. The hemp is used to make fiber. In other words, you can smoke a sack and feel nothing, literally. How people get high or stupefied is a different matter altogether.

THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) chemical is responsible for most psychological effects. It attaches itself to Cannabinoid receptors in the brain then activates them. When this happens thinking, concentration, memory, movement, speech, time perception, pleasure and coordination are affected. The strain Cannabis Indica has a high concentration of CBD (cannabidiol) which blocks the effects of THC thus having a sedative effect. “Inatuliza kiupuzi” as my friend once put it. (It relaxes you in a stupefying manner).

Surprise! Bhang has a lower physical harm and dependence levels as compared to tobacco.  Given chance I would spoil you with all the scientific details. Since I am no scientist, I would appreciate if you got the joke in the last paragraph.

Either way, if people smoked weed in church, would they be appreciating the most high?

By Sad Poet.

THE THING ABOUT TWENTY-YEAR-OLDS.

I squint into the screen, YAWN, feel my stiff neck then close my big mouth. I chew nothing, if you know what I mean. I have been seated in the same spot for the last five hours; it comes with a shifting manner into different positions for a change. How about we talk of age mates?

You might walk by without notice but you won’t if he flashes the smile. He has the irritating-joker’s-intellectual face. He is 22, Ezekiel. I like opinionated individuals, he is one. He once said, “Being a twenty-year-old is a phase of self-discovery. We find ourselves only to lose ourselves to another. ” Last time I checked, I was lost myself.

Ezekiel keeps a tidy place; the kind that a lady can appreciate while it is still comfortable for a guy. There are fellows that keep an extremely neat place till it gets spooky. One that you silently ask, “Are you the one who cleans?” Many a times I have been in his company and we often sound like a debating club. If not that, a movie or music plays as I wander off in thought.

Severally, I have asked myself; when is the right time to pull the I-love-you card? For two decades of life, love seems real. Some play I-am-no-longer-a-teen while others deal with love-doesn’t-exist. With that dimpled blank face plus the hoaxing eyes, my friend dropped this one, “Most people of our age do not know what love is. They are simply in love with the idea of falling in love.”

“Have you felt love yourself?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Is she your woman now?”

“No. I haven’t found someone worth falling for here.”

Unlike the Richter scale; what scale is used to measure worth, surely, at this age? Do achievements to your name really count? I mean the academic ones? What about keeping a steady relationship? An older financially stable guy will do for most girls just as a faithful age mate settles a guy. Or is it principality and has to do with character to be judged by? Might it be having the kind of money to impress an adult on a pay-roll? Well those definitely won’t be answered today.

In my quest to answer the vital question; I am past twenty now, what next? I found myself sounding like a 39-year-old bachelor to my age mates. I sounded like an over-ambitious kid to a 46-year-old mother. I believed it is not yet time to take liquor alone at my place till I began writing. I only found clubbing irritating a girl walked into my face and kissed me. The problem was the brandy in her breath, a stranger for that matter. I am even afraid I possibly began dressing like a responsible married man.

Someone finds that boring, they have the right to do so.

My friend has an untouchable sense of balance. He has one too many accounts of spiritual adventure. You know the scary-prayer-warrior stuff though I have met several ladies who were quite taken by his charm. The devil’s nectar doesn’t feature among the fluids that go down his throat though. He never lacks an answer to anything, only, how girls do not know what they want, beats Guru Ezekiel hands down.  

I believe there is no proper way to carry out your age. It would really help if a random fellow came up with the formulae of being twenty. I strictly advise the non-involvement of parents in this competition because it often ends up with Wepukhulu wishing he had had a better childhood.

I would be wrong to hold a do-what-you-want rally. All I know is, in defining such persons the following things matter; FRIENDS, FUN, INDEPENDENCE, RESPONSIBILITY, CHANGE and GOD. Whatever you consider God to be. I guess I won’t be wrong to ask you to identify yourself. Not what I expect you to be.

My watch has a suggestive V, it reads 4.00 AM.  What were you thinking?

Sad Poet.