By Joseph Maina
On Friday evening, my comptroller was rummaging through some of her old stuff when she came across the first love letter I wrote her years back when she was a budding manyanga in high school. Delighted to find this relic of our courtship days, she breathlessly dashed to the living room.
“Baba Jim,” she beamed as she handed over the dog-eared pages. “Take a look at this!”
It was a genuine hand-written, mailed-with-a-stamp and sealed-with-a-kiss love letter; three solid foolscaps of sweet nothings.
Looking at that script, memories came flooding back. I recall sitting through the thick hours of the night as I struggled to pen that letter. If there ever was a time I wrote something akin to a politician’s campaign manifesto, full of pledges and plenty of hot air, it was that epistle.
I engaged the best English that the Eight Foo Foo system could provide, albeit quite pompously, to prove that I had serious brains.
Carefully worded
“Dear Shortcake,” the opening line stated, right below the address and a heart decorated in red ink.
“Allow me to promulgate my eternal love for you in this short missive, although words alone cannot express how I feel. Every time I think about you, my mind gets dizzy.”
Now, for the uninitiated, Shortcake was a crunchy treat from the House of Manji that was greatly cherished by lasses back then.
I then tried to describe her as the only girl I would ever fancy, using carefully selected words:
“If I had to choose between breathing and loving you, I’d save my last breath to say, ‘I love you.’ How lucky I am to have someone who makes saying ‘goodbye’ so hard! You are the only dolphin in my sea!” I relayed, never mind that I am yet to see a dolphin away from the Discovery Channel.
And to relay my agony at being so far from her:
“My sweet banana, you are driving me nuts. Lately, sleepless nights have become the order of the day. You spend so much time in my dreams, I should probably charge you rent! Even the tastiest of meals has become tasteless, thanks to my love for you, and proof of this is manifest in my rapidly decreasing weight.”
Then there was this red-hot piece of air:
“Sugar, my love for you leaves me with an earthquake in my medulla oblongata. Whenever I think about you, my heart goes ‘Kwak!’ Thanks to you, my life has attained a new meaning,” I praised.
Then, in an effort to describe her awesome beauty:
“Darling, your eyes are like deep pools of orange juice, shining in the bright light of a full moon. Your beautiful voice makes my heart beat faster. Your cheeks are as rosy as plums and your soft lips are like succulent peaches. Your hair shines ever so nicely my angel, like the beautiful fur of a giraffe on a warm evening. My soul longs for you just like dry skin thirsts for Solea Pomade.”
Tough look
I had also enclosed a photograph of myself, in which I had donned a multi-coloured shirt over a pair of Tokyo trousers and moccasins while throwing the toughest sura ya kazi look I could manage, with a wallpaper featuring the KICC in the background.
Having, thus, summed up my feelings, I took the letter to the Post Office, then waited for what seemed like eternity for her reply, which came three weeks later.
Thankfully, the sweet nothings were too fascinating for young Mama Jimmy’s mind to handle, and we eventually formed a coalition.
On Friday, she was all blushes after we reviewed the epistle.
“Baba Jim,” she posed, “Were you high on drugs when you wrote these things?”
“Er, not really,” I lied, blushing, as I folded the long-forgotten relic.
I then sat back and threw her an expansive smile, feeling thoroughly impressed by my own genius.
