I was cleaning my room that Thursday, because it looked like a tornado had passed through it and my mother had put her foot down.
"Clean that room! Today! Right now!" she had shouted at me before leaving for work. Obviously, I went to the living room and bummed around the whole day, but she was due in thirty minutes and I needed a miracle.
Throwing clean socks to one side and simultaneously picking a plate from under my bed, I accidentally hit my go to interview bag and everything spilt onto the already disorganized and packed floor. I groaned thinking of how I was going to separate my certificates from beans that had accidentally spilt earlier. Chaos on Chaos. As I continued my endeavours that seemed to be fruitless, I accidentally stabbed myself on something sharp.
"Crap, I have a needle in this mess! I'm not even cleaning up. This is dangerous. I'm bleeding. That's my excuse!" I gave up even before I was five minutes in. Realizing that this wasn't prudent, I began searching for the sharp toothpick that had drawn blood.
It wasn't a toothpick. It was the shiniest dagger that I had ever seen in my life. And I had picked it up two weeks earlier on grass. Let me explain.
As a recent graduate, I don't need to tell you about the drudgery and complete and utter desperation to get a job. No, not just a job but a good one. A source of income, a way to pay bills. A measure of independence and a show of success. My parents were still supporting me and seeing other people go on succeeding while being left behind was not what I had in mind. And yes, I had listened to all the Gary Vaynerchuk, Impact theory and Tim Ferris that I could but in the end, action needed to be taken.
I was absolutely scared shitless of my future. It didn't look like it was going anywhere.
That Thursday, I woke up in the morning, perfectly ready to continue my lifestyle. I decided that in addition to sending out hundreds of emails which had a one in 15 rates of reply, I was also going to hit the streets and try to talk to those human resource people if they would have me...
Hitting the offices one by one leaving my certificates around was torture unto itself. A necessary Torture. The sun was scorching hot, and the unbearable levels of heat were affecting me terribly as I run around in the streets. The air was hard to inhale, hot and thick, my lungs felt like they couldn't get enough. My throat was dry as I had no way to refill my water bottle. My outfit, a black pantsuit and black, slightly heeled interview shoes, was not helping me out.
When 3 pm hit, I was done, sore, thirsty and drained, I made my way to the Central Park. A huge park facing Uhuru Park, which once, a Nobel Laureate Wangari Mathai fought for. I thanked God for her sacrifice (may she rest in peace) as I lay on the grass. Fellow unemployed ladies and men were across me on both sides.
As I stretched on the grass, dirtying my suit and white blouse, I felt a sharp pain on my back. Rising quickly, I looked back to see what exactly disturbed me. There was nothing. Laying back down, I felt betrayed when the pain came back tenfold, sharp, concentrated and white-hot, a literal stab in the back.
I rose up on a gasp when I had my name being called faintly beneath me. Now naturally, any normal person, especially Africans would get up, not look back and walk away quickly. A power walk, not an outright run, to maintain sanity and not show weakness.
Now understanding well, the myths and traditions that follow through when you hear your name being called by an unknown entity in an impossible place- with the result either being your death or a haunting. I woke up, brushed myself off and started to walk nonchalantly to the bus station fastidiously ignoring everything. Nope!
I was foolish and not known for the best ideas.
1. I looked! Foolish me! Isn't it funny how one thing can change your life? Because I looked! A split glance that changed my life. And on the grass was the most beautiful dagger I had ever seen in my life. It had three blades, was a little rusty and at the pommel was the most magnificently winged dragon I had ever seen in my life. The eyes were glowing red, an effect of the rubies.
2.I took it. Of all the idiotic things I could have ever done in that year, taking that dagger was the worst one. Everyone knows bad witches leave such things to entice people to take them and get bewitched. But no. It was so beautiful and alluring that I didn't, I couldn't question where it came from when the pommel glittered with stones I had never seen before.
"Rehema. I choose you." A voice, extremely male, husky with a foreign intonation said.
3. I did not freak out. Any normal person knows that one should freak out. Not about the dagger but the weird voice in my head. It wasn't one of my voices. My heart was beating at a million miles per minute. However, I felt compelled to silently slip the dagger into my bag and head home. Which I did.
4. Lastly, I completely forgot about it for two weeks. Everything, from the sound in my head to the fact that the tri-blade knife existed.
