Once upon a time, farmer Kīrīmi went to the market and bought kales seedlings. He watered them religiously and one evening after a hard day’s work he passed by the posho mill and bought some posho. His stomach now aware of the almost happenings began to rumble as his salivary glands began to secrete the much needed salivary amylase. He could picture himself folding the ugali with the lusciously green kales in his divine kitchen garden. But what he saw on arrival at his compound made him stop on his tracks and his knees gave in like those of, ‘kulikuwa na mfalme Belteshazzar, aliandaa karamu ya heshima, akasema viletwe vile vyombo baba yake alivitoa Yerusalemu.’ Slowly as he froze there, statue mode, his mind replayed back in HD resolution how he’d woken up in the wee hours of the morning, walked a long way to the market, bought the seedlings, planted them, watered them religiously, but now instead of the succelent leaves, stood his neighbours chicken, arms akimbo, if only it had them, belly too full inspecting and marvelling about its precision at ‘kūbutabuta matharu.’
Kīrīmi almost collapsed on his knees like in the, ‘mene mene tekel’ episode but then he remembered, ‘mūrife don’t run’ and alas, that lightbulb in the head came to life. He approached his house on tippy toes while praying, ‘ chicken don’t run.’ He quickly set a trap for the chicken and as the saying goes, ‘yenda mūno ītuthaga rūrīra,’ the chicken could not resist the maize grains temptation despite it’s tummy being full of veggies and boom, the basket hit the ground and Kīrimi grinned from ear to ear. He boiled the water, slaughtered the chicken, boiled it Kebera style with kapiripiri kwa umbali and sat down to enjoy the scrumptious meal. He later lay down on the couch, belched, dozed of and dreamt of a paradise full of chicken wings.
The next day the neighbor realized that one of her chicken had gone missing and paid a courtesy call to Kīrimi who denied ever seeing the said chicken, but as the neighbor was going back home, she saw the chicken feathers that Kīrimi had carelessly thrown in the compost pit. Mwendo ulikuwa ule wa aste aste mpaka kwa, ‘cibū nīwe njanji,’ evidence properly sealed in a polythene bag like in those forensic series. Kīrimi was summoned by the chief and asked why he ate the neighbours chicken. In his defence he brought a whole lorry of evidence showing how he could have enjoyed his kales for a whole year while he enjoyed the chicken for only one night. His opening lines didn’t comprise of peeky, peeky ponky but rather the opening line to Burning Spears’ ‘the crime they charge I man for, I’m not guilty.’
Guess what, the chief acquitted him. Have a crimeless evening.
#StillTheChronicler.
Acquitted
