Intrusion
“Like static cutting through a quiet frequency — her laughter, reckless and uninvited.”
At Maseno University, life was supposed to be predictable; lectures, books, the hum of routine.
Kumbe? Simplicity dies the moment Nyar Kisumu enters a room.
She was striking — voluptuous, ebony, with a mind as sharp as her laughter was reckless.
Intellectually brilliant, yet mischievous to the bone. The kind your mother warned you about, and
your father secretly admired from afar. She carried herself like a storm, and I was the quiet shore
she kept crashing against. No life jacket in sight. No rescue boat. Just me, swallowing wave after
wave, hoping the ocean might one day apologize.
She was what my breed called ka pointee — nice, chubby-looking mashavu. A sample of creation
stencil. In the eyes of the beholder, I believed so.
She borrowed pens without asking, claimed my seat in the library, sipped from my glass — same
side, mind you — and scrolled through my phone like it was her diary. She laughed at the names
she found there, mocking shorthand texters with reckless joy.
“Eh, yawa, ni nani huyu? She types in shorthand? Pole sana.”
Extract from 'A Portrait in Seven Movements' by Brian Ochieng’ Oyollah From Kisumu