The Detour:

Imagine the human body was made with switches. That you had to press it in order to activate any of the human senses. How great that would be! Some of the things our senses take in are so overwhelming. No wonder we sometimes relive them in dreams. This would be controlled. They would really be of great help. At school when something went wrong and a teacher was to cane you. It would have been only a matter of deactivating the sense of touch. There you would feel no pain and the teacher’s punishment would be in vain. I would block my ears while a sleep. So visitors as this one am sharing a room with would not have to bother me in the middle of night. It’s not fair for someone to wake you up just to listen to whatever they have to say. That switch would have saved me a lot from one of my campus room mates who always got back from clubbing in the morning and woke me up to notify me about how pleasurable it was. How they had danced, managed to get guys to sponsor their drinks and then d...

Sometimes I wish there was something unique about the New Year. I would really look forward to it. Yes I want so much to be in the New Year but then it’s the same life that goes on. It would me much better if at the strike of midnight, with the fireworks going on, the sky maintained one of those colors throughout. Maybe a purple sky – or any other color than blue. I would be glad to wake up to a whole new world with a green sun and a blue moon.  In the night, the sky would be with shades of purple and black with stars taking on all colors that ever existed to mother universe. I would have a reason to stay awake in the night to witness all that as it happened. I wouldn't miss it for anything. Such a memorable day it would be. It would be even more interesting if we found ourselves in a new geographical location. Consider swapping places with the USA. How great that would be. I get the feeling they would be delighted to be in the land of cows and milk and having access ...

The waitress served us cake even when we hadn’t ordered anything yet. A black forest cake on a single saucer, with a tiny table knife lying beside it. He grinned at me. I grinned back. He picked up the table knife and cut the cake into half. He split the pieces. We both looked at what lay on the plate and then he said something! I gawked at him. He looked on. Expecting me to say a word. Not just any word but one in line with what he had just said. I was dumbfounded. I ogled his tiny eyes that were sheltered by his large glasses. But they didn’t shield the apprehension his eyes revealed. As much of it that I could feel mine give away. And in mine tears formed too. The words he had just said, initially I was not sure I had heard them right. However they kept playing in my mind. So much that I started seeing them. I could see them on the walls. On the plate of cake. On the back of the uniforms the waiters and waitresses wore. In the soft blue songs that played, I could hear them. I ...

I have hardly graced wedding parties with my presence all my life. I have been to only five so far. That point when my friends start to have a chinwag about experiences of being flower gals, maids is the unvarnished instant I concede it was high time I got something to guzzle, a movie to watch, headsets to put to immediate use as I carry them along wherever I go. Like the way you felt in class whenever a teacher squinted at you as if afraid he might pick on you to give an answer to a question that you blankly didn’t know. How that got me nervous was the same way I felt. Headsets would bail me out. I would place them on my head and turn the music low or play no music at all. I needed to know where the conversation would head so I could stage a re-entry. I nodded my head frequently to signify the music was cool. I sang along, sometimes to the music in my head. If I had kept quiet, they would pick on me. How was I going to say it? ‘Actually I have never been a maid all my life’. Th...

I always wanted to date the most handsome guy – well the guy I considered most handsome according to my own decisive factor and one that many girls were after. I had a list of the should haves of such a man! A dream man! Yes I met that man but like I said he was just a dream. Too good to be true. I had such an obsession that I felt at one point could just tear me apart or take my life with it. Am glad I met that man but I realized life z not all about having everything you have dreamed of. Because sometimes your dreams are just the swathe. They just stop on the cover that you hardly mind to know what’s inside them. The cover deceives you because it’s everything that was on that long list. And it was just a list right?? There were no details written below it. Well that’s what you will get. Then that swathe makes you blind. You can’t tell when it gets grubby. For you it’s always spotless. The intention it covers, you can never know. And if you get to know, you only think it’s...

A m in my bed, ready to catch forty winks and the n the visitor we are expecting gets home. B ut he's not alone. He’s with his son . I start wondering about what they will chomp for dinner . T he food left can only serve the two people it was meant to serve . I t has to serve thre e now S tress attacks me immediately – and such small things can really be overwhelming in the short run . I don't know how to do this. Maybe what I have to do is give them a small share of the food no matter what is going thr ough their minds - in all probability thinking I’ m parsimonious with cuisine. However I have no alternative. What be said may! I go ahead and meet this little boy in the sitting room. I start interacting with him . S uch an interesting chap he was! Telling me about how despite the fact that he lives in Gulu, he hardly knows neither Acholi nor Langi but the worst thing anyone can ever do to him is affront him in those languages! How will he know that he’s...