Plot to shed crocodile tears to win love backfires

BY TONY MASIKONDE

Every time someone mentions crocodile tears, they are often referring to politicians, but for Frao and I, we remember a comical fete achieved by some guy back in our youth.

There is this girl Frao and I knew back in the day when we were at university. She was the kind that led the choir at Christian meetings. Then she met a guy who had gotten saved, just to be near her.

Wolf

Unbeknown to her, the guy was the perfect description of ‘umenivalia ngozi ya kondoo, kumbe ndani ni mbwa mwitu’ (a wolf in a sheep’s skin).

 But the girl did not know that, not that the man was in a hurry. She was one of the most beautiful women in campus, and naturally she was coveted by many men. Pato, for that was the wolf’s name, patiently ‘suffered’ for a couple of months as he practically engineered everything that the girl did.  From doing lunch together, every travel out of town on some outreach ministry work and every skit performed by the girl, Pato somehow had a mundane duty that required him to be always lurking in the backgrounds.

Dusk

It went on like that for quite some time until she began to trust Pato.  Once a player always a player.  Like a cheetah hunting a gazelle, when she got close enough, within his striking distance, Pato made his move. He was smooth and he was smart as he came armed with a smart phone.

On the material day, Pato had it all laid out. They were to spend time at the Nairobi Arboretum, share snacks together with lots of sweet nothings then as dusk approached he would escort the girl back to her hostel. Of course being a well-behaved girl, she would welcome Pato to the room, so that he could wash down the fatigue and the dust from walking in the dusty city with a glass of juice.

It went according to plan, well almost. After the glass of juice, Pato kept staring at the small TV in the room pretending to thoroughly enjoy the soap opera being screened. After the girl had waited long enough and was running out of patience, she politely asked him to leave.

Pato did what he thought we would never do. He started by looking desolate, his chest started heaving and he finally cracked or acted to have cracked. He wept.

The girl was astonished. As a good Christian she could neither admonish or use harsh words on him nor console him in her arms without crossing religious line.

Wailing

She did what she believed was the best thing and rallied her neighbours to help her navigate the tricky situation. As the crowd grew at the door, he had the choice to quit crying and walk away.

Instead, he did what many politicians do when they see a crowd; go into overdrive, notching up the volume. He was no longer weeping, he was wailing.

Someone eventually got hold of the janitors and the dejected man was ejected.

He later claimed that evil spirits could have possessed him, since he could not remember a thing. Talk of selective amnesia!