“That Thing In Nyakundi’s Head”

You’re 26. Maybe 27. Probably 35. You look like a cabbage and have the smile of a deformed Army veteran. You dress like a typhoon victim or like a man whose just escaped a crowded cell. You talk alot. Maybe too much. And talk very poorly too. Like a tribal chief,an uneducated bimbo. You’ve dropped from Campus. No,you just dropped from Campus. You were studying some rubbish which matches your rubbish character anyway. And then you start questioning the school rules too much. Start cursing the system. Decrying the sorry state of affairs in your Campus. From where,as we pointed out earlier,you had gone for a rubbish course.

Unable to handle you and your belligerency,you and your nefarious desire to be popular and be a hero,you are expelled. You don’t know what to do. You are frustrated… Not because you were really into books. But because you’re an ugly,odious whiner. Who will probably never be accepted to any other Campus. Anywhere in Kenya.

Exasperated,you make it your mission to demolish the character of the Campus. You hurriedly set up a Twitter account. You toy around with names. Acronyms. Internet aliases. You finally settle on Cyprian Nyakundi,the same ugly name you’ve carried along with you since your ugly birth. And in a spirited effort to get back at your former Lecturer,or Dean,or Vice Chancellor,you passionately start recruiting an army of followers. Mostly losers like you. Or pieces of garbage who look as bad as you do. And smile like wounded dogs,just like you. Luckily,you find them.

Slowly,you start marshaling an army of idlers,now that you’ve just been declared one by your former school. Unable to reach as many ‘followers’ as you’d wish,you sit and think. You hold a meeting with yourself. In your little single room. Where nothing goes on… Just misery and pain and loneliness and ugliness. Unable to come up with a proper plan to congregate the most menacing Twitter gang,you call up a couple friends. Equal losers. You ask to meet them. And you actually meet them. It’s urgent,you tell them. And two days later,you’re in town. In a shady restaurant,as shady as the checked shirts you have worn for a decade,and the meeting is on.

Over a cup of shoddy tea,accompanied by some crackly,cold Andazi,you ask your friend what to do to gain a massive Twitter ‘following’ within a week. Your friend,luckily for you,is smarter than you. And somehow looks better. But still as miserable as you are. Maybe more broke.

He tells you of a little secret. You listen intently. Bending over,smiling like the sheep you are,your face lighting up. And as the waitress passes by to ask to collect the empty tea cups,you can barely see her. As you keenly listen on the secret to acquire fictitious followers. Meeting ends. You’re elated. But still ugly. You profusely thank your friend,an equal loser,pay the bill that doesn’t cross the one dollar mark,and you part ways.

Armed with secret Internet information,you have acquired over 100,000 followers withing a week. You’re overjoyed. You jump up in glee on the little,stuffy shack you call-and probably still call-a house. You have entered a secret Internet realm. You’re now boasting of hundreds of thousands of followers. Problem is,they’re all as fake as the shit face smile you wear in Court . None of all these ‘followers’ even exist. Most of them are actually you. Following yourself. And no matter how silly that sounds,you don’t care anyway. Because you’re been born silly.

Armed with an account that looks superficially impressive,you start attacking people. You go at your former school and harangue it. You are now attempting to be the newest,sharpest blogger in town. You’re dying to be noticed. And heard. You’re now desperately trying to Court the media. You even start a little silly blog. And in it, start lumping all manner of bellicose articles. You trawl the Internet and watch news avidly. You’ve recently bought a tiny TV anyway. So you can afford watching News. You pick on the biggest corruption stories and pretend to analyze them in the little cave that you now call a blog. Trouble is,you can’t even write. Or wire together a delicious article. But you write anyway.

You start attracting a little buzz. You call the little loser you met months ago. The one who taught you how to buy followers. And start a billion fake accounts to Retweet your own stuff. You tell him to check your last Tweet. He checks. He calls you back. He,just like you,can’t talk English. But you talk anyway. He congratulates you in your recent Twitter infamy. You’re over the moon. You’re even planning on buying another shirt. And lose the same checked one you’ve won for the last 70 occasions. You’re happy. You’re feeling yourself. You sit at home and watch your little activities getting some blog mentions. You watch Robert Alai and,like a crazed Delilah,burning with cheekiness and wicked plots,you want to be the next Alai.

But unlike you,Alai is actually a passionate man. He’s dead to the cause. He was made for the struggle. He’s outstandingly brutal. You’re just a college drop out seeking quick Internet mentions,but you don’t care anyway.

You slowly start going for the corporate Bigwigs. You start ‘exposing’ them and making their improprieties a big deal. You sensationalize scandals and revel in the aftermath of your notoriety. You’re now feeling important. You even get invited to a TV show or two. As a panelist. You show up. But talk as bad as you look. Next time, the TV honchos conclude,they cannot even invite you as the tea guy. You curse them out. And start a fight with one of them.

He’s a TV star. He has the biggest TV tabloid show on Friday nights. Let me go for him,you think. It’s all fun and games until he doesn’t have time for you. Spurned,you start a little Trend (no pun intended) about suing him. He laughs. We all laugh. Everyone laughs. Oh,what a pure of shit you’ve become.

Having recently found a house that has actual water system,a simple sink and a kitchen cabinet, you start devising survival ways. You want to live large. Ok,you just want to survive.

You call up that loser friend again. He’s now tagging along Gospel artists and appearing to be ‘born again’. Splitting time between you and the Lord,he gives you another little secret – You can arm-twist businessmen and politicians into paying you to Tweet. Oh,another brilliant idea.

And because you must survive in this city,and you don’t have the looks or brains to keep you afloat for too long,you decide to start blackmailing business people and CEO’s. You start accepting as little as 2,000 Shillings to help some mogul sell a product. You start taking as little as 5,000 to help some mid-sized company avoid closure.

You even start kidnapping yourself and starting a Trend about your disappearance to create hype around you. And thus,safeguard your business.

You also start publishing conspiracies and far-fetched exposes. You get arrested. Maybe once. Maybe twice. Maybe too much. Unable to pay your legal bills and still pay rent and still buy another shirt and still afford facial reconstructive surgery and still educate the many siblings you still have back at home,you start a Twitter Fundraiser. To offset your Court bills. We laugh and laugh and laugh. And contribute nothing.

Still,you keep up the secret of buying followers. And sited at home alone,as usual,you don’t forget to whip up another 10,000 fake accounts. All of which you use to follow yourself.

Your attempts to be the next Alai fail. Because you lack the tenacity,the truth,the grit,the rawness,the skill,the shrewdity or the sincerity.

Your attempts to be a star fail too. Your attempts to malign huge companies fail. Your attempts to crush powerful institutions fail terribly too. Your attempts to denigrate media personalities fail. And so do your hopeless attempts to slander CEO’s too.

You’re back to square one. Ugly,silly and tired.

And the doctor looks up to you,shakes his head,puts away the stethoscope and sadly announces that you have a thing in your head.

You’re declared insane. And Twitter erupts. As usual.