The Weed. The cockroach. The spider.

PART ONE

Honestly, I can’t blame the housewives in my bedsitter apartment complex for spreading rumours that I might have a thing going on with my sixty-year-old, widowed landlady. She’s always knocking on my door at the strangest hours of the night, so people talk. But the truth couldn’t be further from what they imagine.

I smoke enough weed to make a forest proud, and my landlady is forever threatening to kick me out if I don’t stop “cooking with firewood” indoors, as if anyone else would willingly pay for this overpriced, moldy shack where we fear the rain more than we fear the wannabe thugs in the neighborhood.

Anyway, one particular Friday, I figured I’d try to stay out of the gossip for once. I decided to only light up after midnight once I was sure the landlady was fast asleep. This meant it was also my only time to “cook.” And after watching enough *MasterChef* episodes on my fourteen-inch screen, I had decided I was practically a top chef myself.

Tonight’s masterpiece? A bowl of “pilau,” inspired mostly by the fact that I’d burned the onions so badly that the entire dish turned brown. On the side, I had guacamole—fancy name for avocados bought from Wakamau down the street. As I settled in, I turned on my DVD player to finish a *DJ Afro* commentary on an Indian action movie I’d already tried watching about seven times.

That’s when I saw it, sitting boldly on the edge of my table—the cutest cockroach I’d ever seen. I’d just put down my joint and was lifting a spoonful to my mouth when I realized how mean it would be not to share. With pure generosity, I placed a little spoonful of “pilau” and a bit of guacamole near it, but unfortunately, my sudden move scared the cockroach off. Probably because I smacked the table too hard, trying to get the food to unstick from the spoon.

I lost track of the movie, and since I had no remote to rewind, I switched to a local channel instead. As I was finishing up my meal, the cockroach returned—this time with two baby cockroaches. Clearly, it was a single mom. Not wanting to disrupt the happy family, I let them nibble as I flicked through channels. Then, I came across a commercial for Doom insecticide and remembered that cockroaches spread diseases. Since I didn’t have health insurance and didn’t feel like risking an infestation, I decided they had to go.

I didn’t have it in me to kill them, though. In fact, there was a house spider in the corner that I’d considered my “roommate” for a while now. And since I couldn’t afford to keep two pets due to space and hard economic times, the cockroach and the spider would have to fight it out. Winner takes the apartment.

Seconds into the battle, the spider overpowered the cockroach, which honestly felt unfair. I had only said “no biting,” and the spider obviously hadn’t listened. So, in the name of justice, I avenged the cockroach and killed the spider. Now I had two orphaned cockroach babies to care for. Not feeling ready for parenthood, I decided to put them up for adoption. My next-door neighbors, the Otienos, seemed like the perfect fit. If they could feed seven kids, two more wouldn’t hurt.

I was just about to sneak the cockroaches over with a little avocado as a farewell gift when the landlady emerged from her house, wrapped in a towel that barely reached her knees. She stormed over and gave me a solid thump on the chest. “I told you to stop cooking with firewood in here!” she hissed, grinding her teeth. Apparently, it was only a few minutes past nine.

I clutched my chest, bowing slightly in an attempt to apologize, and that’s when I saw her—the neighborhood gossip queen, Mrs. Otieno herself, walking through the gate with a bag full of kale. I didn’t even have to guess the new rumor: Steve Daniels G’John, caught in the dead of night, pleading desperately with his sixty-year-old landlady to take him back, ready to die if she wouldn’t.

And just like that, the neighborhood gossip mill kicked into high gear—again.