The College of Tears by Stanley Mungai (red white royal blue txt) 📕

Nowhere to live.

The silence in the tall trees and the dark night was almost tangible. Occasionally, a disturbed cricket would chirp spiritedly before hibernating, making the night quieter than it really was. The chilling wind on the highlands was rounded up by the tall gum trees funneling it into a calm wintry air that almost tore at his lean muscles. The dark sky was spotted by an occasional star that brought life into the otherwise sleeping campus. He walked slowly without knowing where else to go or what else to do since he had missed accommodation on his first day of the semester and there was no way of travelling the two-hundred-miles journey back home. He would have to steal to get enough for the matatu ticket back to the country-side.

Accommodation was on first-come-first-serve basis at least by book. In reality the wealthier students got the best hostels as they were able to buy their way into the scanty hostels whether they turned up earlier or not. He was in his second year and rarely had he received the precious hostels on the first. A lot of times, he had had to wait until all the good ones were given away and get contented with the remaining ones, if he was lucky to have one. Some friends wanted to host him for a few days but today there was no one to hook him up with these services as their girlfriends were back to campus too, and well…..you would not want to be in the room on the floor with all the noise.

This silence normally turned into a din of waking students and graduating into a chaos of hustling, bustling and finally drunken singing in the evenings. But at this time of the night, the students were snoring their night away relieved to have at last seen the last of the burly-looking lecturers drive off in their flashy cars.

The University of Nairobi had seen several years on the foundation of the earth. Even in the almost pitch dark, one would tell that these buildings would come down in the case of extreme weather; especially the ones that had been built on unstable topography of the land. An angry wind now blew from the east chilling the lone student cowered at a corner of a veranda in one of the hostels away from the low temperatures of Kikuyu campus, one of the coldest spots in Kenya.

His features had been carved into a grotesque by the not-so-easy work at his father’s farm back at home but at least there, he had a comfortable bed, warm blankets and people who cared about his tomorrow. The thought of home almost brought tears to his twenty four years old eyes but the determination that had invaded him told him that this was no time for despair. This had been his life for the last six weeks since he left home to come the hundreds of miles away to enrol for his last year in the 8-4-4 system of Education in the College Of Education and External Studies.

The rain stopped and a sigh of relief escaped from his tight cold lips. A grievous longing for a hot cup of coffee burnt in his throat but even the Campus canteen would not be opened at this time of the night. Everyone else seemed to be asleep except him. Emerging from his sanctuary, he smirked longing for just a corner of a warm blanket. The rain had stopped but not the cold wind. It blew urging the rain to come again to accompany it in it endeavours of the night but Soili walked on. He needed to piss.

The hostel toilets radiated stench from a few metres away. This was expected with the water flowing into the toilet cisterns about once in a fortnight. Mounds of human waste sat proudly on the brown stained bowls in a defiant arrogance praying that water would not come soon. Soili almost changed his mind about pissing and he thought of the open fields with fresh air but his bladder was stinging full. With a single downward swish of the Zipper, relief exploded from his bladder and he groaned. He thanked the almighty that he could find the zipper without having to look down for it or he would have wetted his pants on a daily basis.

Graffiti was splashed across the walls of the toilets until you could not find space for more. He guessed that some of it was as old as the foundations of the University. The walls had never been re-painted since then and some of it was peeling wishing it also went to the grave just like the living beings. A spider at a corner of the webs-infested toilets spun a thread of its own. Soili was glad that he was not the only one who was awake. He had company; but the spider would not be required to go for lectures in the morning. He had no Continuous Assessment Tests and term papers to write. He was at home in the webs and had an advantage of appendages. He decided to ignore the eight-legged comrade and his mind went back to the walls as the last of his flow crumbled the bladder with a comfortable emptiness.

“No matter how you shake, the last drop shall be on your pants” Read one of the quotes on the walls. He decide to prove that one wrong even as his eyes fell on one that caused relief and a sparkle of smile at the corners of his mouth. “Shake well after use.” And shaking he did splashing the last of the drops on the sleeves of his leather jacket-on his pants.

With no water on the gaping taps and a sink that was blocked with food remains, Soili wished that the rain would come back and shower his hands clean. He skirted a pool of dirty water and escaped from the human stench that clung to his garments with unwanted comradeship. The rain came again and thunder followed in accurate intervals that the lightning designated for it. He watched the rain for hours sneezing reminiscent of his years in high school.

Lights went on in a room close to where he was standing. Students who were lucky enough to get the campus accommodation were waking up to write their term papers and cook breakfast; his classmates whom he was supposed to be sitting exams with at the end of the semester and pass just like them. Students who had paid the same amount of tuition and accommodation fees just like him. But the Students Management Unit and the Students Welfare Association had sold out their rooms to the wealthy module 2 students. The process of refund would take him the few remaining months in campus to complete. The few remaining rooms were reserved for some ghost students who the manager still insisted that they were on their way from home; for the last six weeks.

A blast emanated from the lit room. It did not cause a stir. It just succeeded to drown the dry cough from Soili’s pneumonic chest. He was used to these both sounds. The former was a blast from the electric cooking coils the students used in the rooms. He had given up cooking while he was in second year after being electrocuted twice by the naked wires germinating from the walls where the sockets were supposed to be. He decided that he was better alive and buying food that dying trying to cook.

Several lights went on and the campus was waking. He would routinely walk to one of his friend’s room and sleep until 11 am in the morning. He could have slept with him in the night but the metallic creaking beds were made just for one. An extra human would cause a gross accident in the night and too much strain on the ancient sheets of mattresses.

Good. Sayona was wake. Soili could see light emanating from his window whose glass pane was broken and had been replaced with a piece of cardboard. This served just to stop the severe cold blowing in these highlands of Central Province. Soili hoped that Sayona would have prepared a cup of coffee for him as this had become a routine too for the last six months.

“Good morning comrade.” He greeted as he walked in without knocking. Sayona looked at him with pity ignoring the greetings.

“I told you that pneumonia will kill you.”

“The University will kill me. Pneumonia has got nothing to do with this.”

“You refused to sleep on the floor. Inside here is at least warm.”

“This is as rebellion Sayona. I have paid for my accommodation. The room next to us is empty awaiting the ghost students to come and pay hefty amounts to our beloved SMU manager.”

“The first years are sleeping on the floor mate but they are surviving; without the risk of Pneumonia.”

“They are naive. Just came into campus and do not know anything. I am not a freshman Sayona and I know what’s going on.”

Darkness. The power went off before the water boiled and they had to take half-way cooked coffee which was not uncommon too. Soili knew that despite the colossal automated generator, there was not going to be any electricity in the Campus for the next few hours. He had seen the notification by the Power and Lighting Company the day before in the newspaper concerning the power interruption. But no one wanted to purchase fuel for the generator. He silently changed his program for the day. That research he was going to carry out in the computer labs would have to wait another day or other days. This was because there was no guarantee that he was going to get a free computer in the crowded labs. And even if he got one, it was not guaranteed to boot at all. What generation were these machines anyway? He thought of washing clothes in the afternoon but he remembered the gaping taps and dismissed the idea with a silent click and an unnoticed shake of his hooded head.

The lukewarm coffee did little to stop his body from shivering. He thought of going to the mess but the dismissed the idea too. The last time he ate beans from that place, he had a bad stomach ache and passed air the whole day. Blankets were the closest option and he grabbed it physically. He watched as Sayona whipped his books and literally ran for the morning classes. Not that he was late; he would need to book a seat for himself or he would have to attend the lecture standing. A few times, Soili had been forced to write notes with the books on his laps. This was better than combing every room in the campus to get a chair. At times, you would be lucky to get a broken one that looks more of mockery that of any help.

Under the blankets, Soili wished that tears would come. When he was young, he hid under blankets and cried. Now, he could not remember the last time he cried. His tear glands must have dried. No. He knew the tears were there stinging the back of his eyes. Only that they would not flow; tears of blood. He lay on Sayona’s bed dreaming constantly of shadowy outlines which seemed to well-up before him from the bottomless depths of time, waiting to escort him back to his lonely nights in the cold. He often wondered where all these beings in his dreams were when he desperately needed their company out there in the open. He had sworn to pose that question to them once they appeared in his dreams but they always seemed to be busy going about their dreams’ business undeterred. The mound under the