Heartbreak has an interesting way of dealing with people, or rather people have an interesting way of dealing with heartbreak… After undergoing sufficient character development at the hands of one of the daughters of Eve, I found an emotional outlet through exercise. I highly suspect this was influenced by the many kung fu movies I watched as a kid growing up; the heroes always retreated into intense training sessions after receiving the beating of their lives.
Since there were no mountains in my vicinity (that I could go up to and carry buckets of water through treacherous terrain while shirtless as I did splits among the rocks) I settled for good old jogging, as it allowed me to imagine I was running away from my problems. Little did I know that one morning my feet would transport me from the land of heartbreak to the realm of the paranormal.
It was a warm sunny morning; I was jogging along Mbagathi Way heading towards T-Mall when a passing vehicle caught my attention. A pick-up truck, transporting a coffin and heavily overloaded with mourners, speeded past me as the car swayed from side to side from the overbearing weight. I had a very unsettling feel about the whole scenario, but I ignored it and carried on with my run as the dilapidated vehicle disappeared out of view into a bend.
A few moments later…
I saw a crowd gathered in the distance and as I came nearer, I could see there was a commotion. On closer and investigation, Lo and behold! The pick-up truck had overturned and there sprawled in the middle of the highway was a corpse that had rolled a few meters away from a damaged coffin, a bunch of injured mourners, 2 people that had just died from the resulting accident and one lady, who had nothing more than a grazed elbow crying out, “I told you; I told you; I told you…”
They say you should mind your business, but if people indeed are your business, then you should mind people, no? I went to speak to the lady who spoke as if she had forewarned of the current tragedy to find out what exactly was going on and see how we could help the casualties. I was not prepared for what I heard next…
She identified herself as the deceased’s sister and narrated how she received a call informing her that her brother had died from a work accident. She arrived at the scene but claims that when they were transporting his body to the morgue the deceased spoke to her and told her that it was not accident but colleagues who conspired to kill him and went on to identify those responsible. She communicated this to friends and family at the funeral planning meetings, even identifying the alleged culprits, but they dismissed her as being crazy and delusional, resorting to violence to silence her.
She went back to the morgue to view her brother’s body and had another conversation where her brother told her to inform the family that he will not allow himself to be buried if they do not address the issue. Having dutifully delivered her message from the land of the dead to the living, she retreated to silence in seclusion as she awaited the D-day.
The deceased resided in Kibera and the vehicle overturned right at the corner turning into Kibera from Mbagathi Way. The coffin fell on 3 people; two men and the sister. The two men, who the deceased earlier identified to his sister as his murderers, died instantly. However, the sister had nothing more than a minor scratch on the elbow. Other mourners were severely injured. The sister asked why else we thought that amid so many casualties she would be the only spared one.
The other mourners convinced by the ordeal deliberated on the matter, put the corpse back in the coffin and settled on transporting the body by foot from there on lest the deceased causes another accident.
They cleared the scene and left me there, baffled by the whole incident and narrative. Some matters are better left unresolved. I never imagined before that I would prefer to think about heartbreak to get my mind off something.
People have an interesting way of dealing with heartbreak.
