Questions

On the eve of Christmas, the Christmas of 2012. I was driving to Fort portal from Kampala. Towards Mubende, I remember driving through perpetual grassy plains heavy with light. Marabou stocks and bold vultures flew low over brackish swampy waters, dragging their feet and the pine woods closed in again on either side of the tar laced road I was on. Mubende was almost half way the entire length of my journey.

At this roadside market, I met a group of of kids. Just like me, they were traveling upcountry to their village for Christmas. There was about five or seven kids with three chaperons. Howbeit, there was this one kid, a little girl about 5 or 6 years old who resuscitated my sense of wonder. She had bought a stick of roasted chicken and was having trouble eating it because it was too hot. I offered her mine and asked what her name was. "Kimora" , she said. "My name is Kimora but you can call me Kim. My mother calls me Kim" . She told me about her mother and her little kitten and how much she loved it. She said she was constantly worried about her kitty dying in its sleep and for this reason, she stayed awake all night long watching over it. I gave her my hankie as an avalanche of tears escaped her eyes. She said "Thank you Garfield. Garfield is what I'll call you" . Moments after she was gone, I found myself shading tears. With a heavy heart, I entered my sedan and drove away. Uncontrollable qualms of unfathomable loneliness and a forlorn longing for something I quite couldn't lay claim to obsessed me.

Two months later, I was at capital shopper's Nakawa going up the escalator when I caught eye of this kid waving at me on the escalator descending from the first floor. At the landing, were about two dozen people. The woman she was with stared down at her as I approached the first floor landing. I jumped off the escalator and turned around to look for the little girl. She was gone.

This little girl remained in my memory over the years like an indelible print consuming my peace of mind. Sometimes in the middle of a busy street, I have caught myself staring at a total stranger or at a mother and her daughter as though I would get the answers to some of the questions that plagued me. Questions I knew would go answered for life. Answers I probably should never hanker for and yet I still looked, looked in all the forbidden perspectives.