You are sweating profusely, standing on a stool with a nylon rope on your neck. The rope is tied on a truss in your bedroom. You only have one more prayer before you meet your creator. Memories of the life you are about to leave play in your mind like scenes of a movie. Two movies, one a romantic movie with lots of love in it and a happy family and two, a horror movie with this act you are about to commit being the sad ending. All you wanted was an average life and a happy family but life had a different story.
       You remember that day, 28th August 2002 when you walked down the aisle with the love of your life. The day was colourful, hundreds of people witnessed as you exchanged vows with the love of your life. They ate and danced to your big day, they wished you a lifetime of happiness. You looked into her eyes and saw pure innocence, she was an angel. You were ready to spend a lifetime with her. For better for worse and for richer for poor, she had vowed before God she would stick with you, to love and to cherish and her white gown made her immaculate.
             Ciru was nice, in fact she was the right choice for you. She made an awesome wife. You remember all the coffee dates you had at Java or the weekend getaways upcountry all this was good for the marriage, it was still young and there was no baby yet. How you helped her cook sometimes or how you took showers together, you remember it all.
    Being a banker in one of the leading banks meant you lived a middle class kind of life. You lived in a posh neighborhood, You owned a katoyota nze, and most importantly you had a smartphone with a great camera for those Intagram moments. The house was furnished nicely and you had state of the art electronic appliances. Life was all good.
    The first baby (Jamal) came. Nothing changed really only that you now had two loves. You made sure that he knew English as his first language and enroll him in those schools that has names ending with "house". In those schools that don't teach 8-4 - 4 but GCSE. A girl too ( Aisha) came, she was the princess. Same treatment and she was pampered. Now the trips upcountry for weekends were more fun with these two on board. The marriage was at its prime, you decided to close the baby-making machine because yours was the perfect family. It was what you had dreamt of_ a lovely wife and two kids ;a boy and a girl. You had it all. All you wanted was to make your family happy.
         Everything was going on well until that morning, you were summoned at the big man's office. That morning you received your dismissal letter. It came as a shock, how would you be linked to a multimillion scandal without your knowledge. It must have been a mistake, they didn't even pay you. That morning things started going downhill, you almost died of alcohol that day, it was your friends who took you home. How would you explain to Ciru that you were jobless, what about the kids. If you had any investments you wouldn't be badly hit by a simple dismissal. You didn't invest, all your six figures salary went into pleasing you young family. Jamal for example had a hoverboard, his school fees was hefty so was Aisha's and Ciru was a housewife. You were fucked.
       You explained to her but she would hear non of it, she was convinced you had a hand in the scandal. How can they just fire you for no reason? It was April and second term was due, you had no school fees for the kids. Rent was due, so was water and electricity and WiFi. You had to move to a cheaper neighborhood and shift the kids to cheaper schools and sell the car to settle all that because your accounts had been frozen by the bank. All this was in a backdrop of insults and cold nights. She was not the girl we walked down the aisle with anymore, the one who swore before God to cherish me for richer for poor. She was different. All you wanted was for her to understand it was about time because your lawyer was on the case.
        Ever since that morning you received your dismissal letter, the walls of life were caving into you ready to crush you. Your job-hunt was not futile, it's never easy to get a job. You remember that evening when you came home after one of the countless sessions in court. There was nothing for your rumbling stomach and when you asked that's when hell broke loose. All you wanted was something to eat. She started, when women talk you listen especially when they are not in the right moods. She dared you to hit her if you were a real man but real men don't hit women so you didn't. You decided to leave and that's when she slapped you, she had surprised you with gifts before but this was the biggest surprise. "you slapped me Ciru" you tell her calmly, to you it must have been a mistake because your wife would never slap you. The second one when it came was as hard as a rock, this brought you to your senses. You returned the favor with an equally hard slap and that how the fight broke up. All you wanted was to teach her a lesson.
     She was not a walk over, in fact she was good at giving those hard fists and you forgot she was a woman and gave her a dog's beating. For all the bad things she did since you lost your job and for lying to God and the congregation. Next thing she wasn't moving, she was unconscious. You rushed her to hospital in critical condition.
   It's now three weeks since your wife was admitted in that hospital bed not moving an inch. Jamal and Aisha are upcountry at grans place. You are here standing on top of a stool ready to kick it and kick the bucket. Ready to let the rope tight on your neck. All you wanted was do things the right way. That's all you wanted.
         You step on the stool with your toes and push it backwards. All you wanted was and end to all this.
           THE END
#AllIWant
#AllYouWant