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Crimson Moon

I am not even going to wonder why my head is aching right now as I probably know the answer to that.

"Did you catch my fall?" I ask after noticing that I am lying on a couch which is presumably still in the club given the dull throb of music I hear.

"And get out of my face," I say to Zippy whose breath above my face is irritating.

"Yes, but you may have bumped your head on something on the way here...can you stand? We should get going." She says and I notice a hint of annoyance and anger in her voice. Whether to me or another I am unaware.

I am not incapacitated, but she insists on helping me stand up and walk

Its really chilly outside with our freeze and shine outfits which I promise myself to never let Zippy dress me in again. We did not carry our phones so our best bet is these overly expensive Nairobi cabs or a matatu and I do not know where we are getting a matatu way past midnight.

"We can drop you off," I hear a familiar voice behind us and I turn to see Alex and Charles who looks like he has been roughed up. I also do not miss the glare Zippy gives him and I am sure she had something to do with his dishevelled state.

Zippy seems to be struggling with something rude to say or ask, but using her better judgement to assess the situation, she agrees.

This is the most uncomfortable car in the history of my life or there is some drug in here. Have you ever got into a car, immediately got motion sickness and felt what turbulence feels like even though you have never been in a plane? That is how I feel. I do not even know the name of this car, but I am sure I will never buy such a thing, I will only remember the names of cars that are comfortable.

So we arrive at my place and I hurriedly exit from the car and rush into the house because whatever was in my stomach was heading towards my mouth.

I know it's disgusting, but I have a preference in vomit, like I prefer it when I actually had food in my stomach to throw up than when all I had is water, air and stomach acids. I know I'm not the only one.

With my head in the sink, I wonder how the situation would have been had Chris been here, but quickly shake the thought out of my mind.

After I am done I take off the dress and throw on one of those oversize shirts I bought in Gikomba for five shillings and I am sure people buy dusters from that pile, but it looked good for a lazy day. I then rinse my mouth like a paranoid or OCD person with water, warm water, warm salty water,Listerine,paradontax then brush my teeth because no way am I letting the taste of vomit acids linger in my mouth. The metallic taste of blood in my thoroughly scrubbed mouth is ten times better than the taste of puke.

All this while Zippy is looking at me like a mad woman, but have I not always been a mad woman?

I am just about to get into bed with four packets of different flavoured crisps and water when I get a smell I do not like. Toilet smell on my body, public toilet smell on my body.

Raise your hands up if you know who took a shower, and changed her sheets too.

By the time I was done with my shower, Zippy shamelessly had her hand in one of my packets of crisps.

"Hungry," I said dropping my last and now empty packet of crisps on the floor beside me.

"You just ate three packets of crisps and they were all two hundred grams!" she exclaimed.

I ignore her as I get out of bed kicking the empty packet of crisps aside and walk to the kitchen to look for some left over food, already forgetting that I was sleepy.

Sukuma,rice and beef are what I find, but not what I want. So I boil noodles without any spice and feel some odd satisfaction from eating it.

Now I can sleep.

I woke up with a dull headache,but headache nonetheless. Too lazy to get out of bed and look for medicine or drink water, I just lay there staring at the ceiling as my mind drifted through thoughts.

I found myself thinking about the events of the previous night and concluded that my drink had been spiked when I was not looking or my glass was laced with some drug.

Nothing else could explain my state.

Either the bartender or Charles tried something because the bartender brought me my drink and Charles was next to me after I poured my drink and turned to look at Zippy.

Maybe it was Charles, he looked beaten up and Zippy looked like she had something to do with his beating. I really do not know because I drifted off to sleep in no time.

"Where did that come from?" Zippy asks pointing at my face in the afternoon when we both decided that it was time to wake up and go though our phones.

"What?" I asked with my mouth full of crisps. I know she is talking about my crisps, but I just act dumb.

"That, " she says still pointing.

"Oh, these?" I ask lifting the pack of crisps up as I think of how to hide the fact that I have a whole secret store of crisps.

"No. That zit on your face." She says and for a second I thought she was being sarcastic until I saw the seriousness in her expression.

So I turned on my front camera and not only did I see a zit, but also a satellite of pimples on my forehead surrounding the zit like a solar system.
But since front cameras are famous for making you uglier than you already are, I picked up my hand mirror from my bedside and saw that nothing changed. That little forehead solar system was real.

"Your periods surely get worse the older you grow," Zippy said taking a handful of crisps.

She is right,every single year my hormones team up with my periods to make my life hell.

Looking on the bright side, at least I do not have any man to make me conscious about my appearance. So I sat and kept on scrolling through my news feed.

Dictionary
Matatu- Van like public service vehicle
Gikomba- Name of a flee market in nairobi
Duster- Mopping rug
Sukuma- Most common green leafy vegetable in Kenya.