The Runaway Queen

This a story of my life.

The Runway Queen
I laid my back on the piled logs that I had been hewing and faced the wide blue sky above. I was exhausted and it felt good with the morning sunrays striking at my face. The air was chilly and soothing, and I could feel it combing through my kinky hair as it blew from the southern valleys up the hill. For a moment, my hand kept my axe fixed in the grip but as my relaxation turned into a deep slumber, it fell away making a loud click sound. Tic! I heard it.
I woke up abruptly, wiped the sweat off my face with my hands and sat there wondering how long I had slept. My axe was there, five feet away and it looked as if someone had tried to snatch it off my hand. I didn’t dwell on that suspicion. Instead, I turned my eyes westward and caught a figure coming along the small path that divided a pine forest, and toward my work place. The morning had been foggy but the mist was now starting to clear away into the sky, giving my eyes a chance to penetrate through the air at a distance, I could see that what had looked like a trapper was a young girl in a heavy winter coat. Like an Eskimo, her head was covered by a fur hood that she kept pulling back and on as she came my way.
At some point, she stopped and looked back at the small path that she had walked, as if she thought someone was on her heel. Then in a lazy move, she turned frontward and laid her bag down shoving her hand into it. I couldn’t see much of what she was sorting out but in a minute or two, I caught her holding out a light green bandana that she stood examining carefully before she tied it around her neck. Without blinking my eyes, I saw her bend over her bag again, this time it took her longer, her hand seemed to be searching for something in the bag and when she pulled it out, I saw that it was a small portable mirror with a yellow frame. It took about five minutes, holding it close to her face and when she was done, she shoved it in her bag, lifted it on her back and continued her way toward me.
Like an immovable rock, I didn’t proceed, and my eyes were still on her as she came closer and in a clear observation. It seemed to me that she had walked a long distance; she looked tired, walking as if she would fall on her knees every time she lifted her foot over a small stone. Was it the heavy load on her back? May be or may be not, she looked like a young energetic girl, not a lazy one by looking at her long quick strides.
Now she was a distance away, possibly eighty yards and I wondered if she had seen me. I wanted her to see me. I wanted to see her fear if not her courage so I reached for my axe and swung it high above me and brought it heavy on a big laying lumber splitting it apart. The sound was loud enough, and the echo cracked like thunder. I saw her head jerk and legs tremble a bit. It was sudden and now it was over. She was not so much moved, or frightened as I had expected, she had now paused, looked left and right, ahead and behind trying to figure out the source of the sound and resumed her walking.
Several yards away, she kept coming, not frightened by the stillness of the forest; she was a strong girl, so determined and I could tell by looking at her legs, her stride over the lonely stone path, and as she approached, just a few feet away from where I stood tall with an axe in my hand, she paused and looked about, I saw her eyes retreat, narrowing the same way a snail backs away into it’s shell in times of danger. I didn’t speak, or move, instead, I threw my axe upon the log pile and stood waiting for her to say something.
“Good morning sir,” she greeted stopping right in front of me. Her voice was soft and carried some element of fear.
“Good morning to you,” greeting her and pulled my self back leaning on logs piled up high.
“ Sir, does this path go all the way to Nyakahita,” she asked in a low tone. Rubbing her left foot against her right, I could see that she was a shy girl trying unsuccessfully to get her posture correct. I nodded taking a step toward her.
“ Where are you coming from madam?” I asked without thinking.
“ Far away from here,” she said after a long hesitation and turned her back on me to go.
“ Wait! Madam,” I yelled “ your name please!” I didn’t know why I had to plead with her, as it just came into my mind. I wasn’t myself. She turned slowly and stood tall in front of me. I could guess her height, may be 5.3 feet or something close. She stared at me, straight in the face making me regret for having stopped her. I was in some way a shy old boy who, in all of his life, never cornered a girl for real boy-girl talk. I felt a purge of fear arising deep within my chest but I tried all I could not to let it show, as I spoke.
“ Your name please,” I said. Such was the only way for me to begin.
“ Kirabo,” she said. “ I have a long way to go sir, thanks for your help,” she added.
“ I would wait if I were you,” I said. “ I can accompany you, for about a mile, this place is vast and scary, not a place for a girl alone on the way,” I suggested.
Her attitude of me tagging along was neither positive nor negative, just a mixture of both. She had come a long way on her own and my advice didn’t make sense to her as I hoped. Well, as long as she didn’t decline my loyal suggestion, I was at it.
I walked seven feet behind admiring her glamorous cat walk, though not as appealing as the sleek models in fashion industry, I could see that she had her own way of combining natural beauty with her simple country style; her skirt, a sort of plain green cotton material possibly those mostly worn by school girls stopped some inches above her knees revealing her firm relaxed thighs. Her waist was still slim even in heavy cotton jumpers and her short shaved hair was visible with the hood pushed on her back. There was something lovely too about her feet, I couldn’t make well of their size but they looked small, perhaps of a twelve year old girl. At one point as we walked, she hit a stone and had to stop and take off her brown canverse shoes. Staring at her, examining her foot, I could see that it was clean and smooth like that of a newly born baby. She must be a schoolgirl who hardly held a hoe all her life, I thought, and laid my hand gently on her back comforting her. It felt good I must admit, not that I was this kind of a boy who liked touching girls. It came naturally and I felt it arising in my nerves like electric current. I couldn’t forget and I have never found a better way to explain it.
We stood together on a hill and looked down on the far plains with few scattered settlements. She was tired and her face showed some signs of nervousness. With her left hand, she pulled her bag on her back and laid it on a big stone.
“ How far will I have to go?” she asked. The question confused me and raised some feelings of doubt in my mind.
“ You said Nyakahita?” I asked.
“ That’s right, I have never been there but it’s where am going.”
“ That’s it,” I said pointing at the valley down. “ You have a relative there?”
“ No, am just going there,” she said after a long hesitation and placed her bag again on her back. I could sense her journey was personal and I felt embarrassed having asked her about the reason.
“ Thanks very much for the help sir,” she said and extended her hand to me for a shake. Her hand felt warm and fragile in mine. Was it because she had kept it in her jumper pockets all the way as we came up hill? No! Was it the natural feminine touch found amongst many young girls? No! Maybe it was a natural magnetic pull, existing between us as well as the things we like.
I was reluctant, letting it go felt like letting my life go for eternity and when she pulled it away with little force not wanting to show me her attitude, I took it for hostility. She wasn’t mine and I wasn’t hers and so I had to let her go for good, I eased my hand and I felt hers slipping away like a broken rope taken away by a strong force. I didn’t say anything and she didn’t say anything more rather than staring at me with a look that seemed to say Thanks but sorry, someone there is waiting for me.
I watched her stumble over sharp conical stones all the way down the small path and disappear somewhere amongst bamboo forests that grew at the bottom of the hill and covered some part of Nyakahita valley. It took me about twenty minutes of waiting to see her reappear but she didn’t. I wondered why would such a young woman with such great beauty take a journey alone in to unknown land, then my thought drifted drastically about her reserved nature, to me she looked like someone with loads of personal problems sitting on her mind, a sort of unexplainable desire scratching at the walls of her heart; To a teenager with little parental emotional support, this is a problem worth hitting a big road for an escape to into the fantasy world. The whole thing bothered me and it would continue to live on my mind until I met her again. And now that I had tried all the possible ways, shading my eyes with my hand for a clear view of her movements down, I gave up and started on my way back to my logs. The battle had been lost and it made me so sad. I wished I hadn’t thought of myself fighting it.
Two years later, I was still the same person, still working in the same forest, still no one better than a log boy, I worked hard, I worked everyday yet I earned less and if there had been any single day I didn’t throw away my axe in protest and sit with my head bent down regretting my long choices in life, then you can look for the lie in my tone. I was fed up and I only slept on my logs to make myself dream of a good life outside the forest jobs but I would wake up the same person with bruised hands caused by too much friction between my hands and my axe. Life was tough, repeatedly, because it continued to haunt me up to this day, coming alive in my deep slumbers, viewing it in small details that kept glowing into my mind until I realized I had been crying. Sincerely, I hadn’t thought of myself a loser but that was before I met this stranger and even after meeting her for the first time, I had continued with my life, quite happy and coiled in my shell of ignorance. Though, not as happy as before, I still had respect for my job but when I met her for the second time, that’s when I knew how much of a loser I had been.
This time, it was evening and the sunshine had changed from hotness to sweetness, I could feel it warm and soothing on my skin with much pleasure. I had been working since early morning and I still felt some energy because a farmer in need of fencing poles had come to me thirty minutes earlier, pleading for quick service. He had paid me a small deposit and promised to bring the rest within the next two days. With some cash in my pocket, the axe felt lighter than it had always been. I was not bothered with the noisy singing birds as they set home into their little nests, I was ignoring the passers-by as they coughed and cursed the piecing stones in the path down my work place, in other words, I was a busy young man on the business, thinking of money; one hundred and seventy five thousand shillings would be in my purse in two days. So, my axe swung in the air and set a huge pole apart with no felt energy at all but as I raised it again, I heard or I thought I heard a voice behind me. I hesitated, presuming it to be a little forest animal, perhaps a Fox? I thought, but it wasn’t.
“Kirabo?” I screamed dropping my axe away and running down the path where she seemed to have stood for a while watching me. In uncontrollable excitement, I had forgotten my shirt yet it made me feel embarrassed showing off my small physique in front of the girls. I turned my eyes, seeing it lay on the log pile but it was too late now. It doesn’t matter, I comforted myself and took a quick stride toward her without even caring about what force acted within me to be excited over a girl I had met once and not seen for two years.
“ Hello, long time friend!” I said giving her my hand.
“ It’s a coincidence, she said smiling. Her voice was still the same but something had changed about her. I could see it all over her, she was thinner and her youthful cheeks had burst flat and thin, showing the contours of her jawbones. Her hair, once short and black, now looked long, brown and messy, and her beautiful white rounded eyes seemed to disappear into her hollow skull. Her hand in mine felt different too, hard and scratchy has if she had been querying stones.
“ So how have you been friend? I bet you have had a good time”, I said, not that I meant what I said, it seemed to me like a custom way of talking to someone you haven’t been in touch with for a long time.
“ You are wrong in your own way”, she said shyly and looked about, I could see she was trying to dodge my stare and I took it easy, after all it was something girlish.
“ Don’t say it wasn’t enjoyable friend, two years tells it all”, I insisted digging around her.
“ What do you mean?” she said and seemed to be awake of my consciousness.
“ I mean a two years visit must have been interesting.”
“ How do you know it’s been two years?”
“ I work here everyday, no one passes by without my awareness. Well, you would stop by for 'a hello' I know. Wouldn’t you?” I saw her face lighten and a wave of smile swept at her cheeks.
“ Yes, I would. I like to remember each one of the good people I meet on the way”, she said in a low relaxed tone and I watched her lips struggling to add on something she might have not wanted to say at the moment. I kept my eyes straight into hers as my mind worked out something.
“ Is there something you don’t want me to know Kirabo?” I asked after and regretted it even before she responded.
“ May be or may be not, we all have things we don’t want other people to know about”, she said and her tone still held that element of friendliness.
“I am different from all people, may be I’m not normal, I cry my heart and my mind out to everyone, even the birds of this forest know my heart. I’m transparent like the thinnest glass you have ever seen.”
“ That’s you”, she said. “ What would you want to know and how would it help you knowing it friend?” she asked pulling a grass with her left hand.
I knew what to say but the ways of saying things I had always wanted to say was a real hassle. After a minute of consulting my mind, I cleared my throat with a little cough and looked about to avoid her sharp gaze.
“Just about your adventure friend, I’ve never been far away from home. It sounds interesting yet it fills me with envy to see younger people take the courage to go around freely even to places they have no relatives in”
“My adventure”, she began, and pulled herself, as she leaned onto a big tree. “It was fine and taught me something I want to live with in my heart for the rest of my life”
“Really? Perhaps it’s something I’m missing here in the forest”, I said, and took a seat on the tree trunk opposite her.
“That day you saw me” she continued, her voice now changed from normal to emotional. “I was on the run, not that someone was on my heel, I was running away from myself, running away to catch up with a future that would in one way or another be my past.” Her last statement had changed her tone and I caught her starting to tremble, her eyes too, became wet. I could see some tears dancing in her eyes. “I have learnt my worth in the hands of the world and in the eyes of the boys who say more than they mean, the boy I was running to, taught me something so special about girls in the eyes of boys.” She said it loudly and proudly as if it was something she had wanted to know.
“ You were going for a man?” I asked winkling my face to show how shocked and attached I was.
“I wish I we’re going for a man, men don’t go back on their promises, men are independent and they tie the buddle they know they would carry” Her voice was louder each time she had to respond to my question. It felt as if she was blaming me for whatever had happened to her. Then there was a minute of silence and I hated standing like a sack in front of a girl. It made me feel less of a man so I gathered the strength within me.
“You must have chosen wrongly friend,” I said. “ It must have been a crazy boy.”
“Of course, fooling a crazy school girl,” she said sparklingly.
“But no one is a fool for two years,” I seemed to have touched her where she seemed to feel it and I saw her retreating into herself. I could see her melting like snow put on an oven.
“It was my fault any way,” she said in a defeated tone.
“ It couldn’t have been your fault Kirabo. You don’t look it.”
“Well,” she said, and coughed twice, “ It was. It’s always the woman’s fault when she can’t conceive. It’s known, everywhere and you can’t change it,” she said and coughed again. I stared for a moment without saying a word and then took a step towards her. I didn’t touch her, and wished I had that courage.
“ Is that how it went?” I asked, looking into her eyes.
“Obviously, that’s how it went but thank God it has taught me something and now I know my worth.”
“ What?” I wondered. “You’re still young and the doors are still open in front of you.”
“ Not anymore, I’m good for nothing, my in-laws told me that too. I can’t blame them, no one can. Society is always right on something.” she said carelessly. Moving her feet and pulling herself from the tree she leaned on, I knew she was going and who knows, may be she had come to me for comfort, everyone looks out to someone they can talk to when things get to be too heavy on their shoulders so I planted myself in front of her, blocking her way, I could see through her eyes now. She was confused and she was desperate. Nothing seems to matter.
“Your in-laws were wrong on it Kirabo,” I said, and threw my hand on her shoulder. I could feel her fear vibrating through my hand as she breathed hard.
“ Let me go friend,” she cried, I have a long way to go before the sun dives behind the hills.
“ Where are you headed Kirabo, I thought you were going home,” I said retreating my hand.
“ Home doesn’t feel like home anymore. It feels different from the time and you make your mind to leave it. It won’t be the same home again.” Her last statement was emotional. I felt it touching the core part of my heart.
“ You can stay with me Kirabo,” the words slipped away from my tongue. I couldn’t take them back. She could stay, that was right, but where? My purse couldn’t afford me three meals a day how about if I had to add on another mouth. She stood staring at me for a minute or two, and when she finally shook her head in disbelief, I knew exactly what she meant.
“ Thanks for the offer friend. I’m sorry I've got to leave now, I can’t go back on my word. I’ve learnt something with boys and I want to live with it all my life.”
I stood like a scarecrow and watched her back fading away into the pine. The forest path seemed to narrow under the dark scary floral canopies, she didn’t look back, not until she reached a distance where she knew I couldn’t bother her with my useless warnings. I saw her turn swiftly and wave her hand to me. It happened in a flash and before I waved back, she was gone.
I walked lazily back to my logs, not thinking about them at all, I had money in my pocket, but it didn’t matter now, I felt unlucky, I felt empty, working hard or not working at all meant the same, I had been working hard, I had been earning less and if life had been quite different, I would have done something two years back. I mean the first day I had met her. Maybe we would be happily married, or maybe she would be embracing our baby on her lap. Things work differently. She hadn’t learned as she claimed she had. She blamed herself for her failure to conceive just because her in-laws made her think she was a failure. What of her husband? To them, it seemed a woman was to blame herself.
To relieve my self of such a great loss of an opportunity, I held the axe in my hand and laid my back on my log pile, that way had always been my way into the world where sleeping and dreaming was the only beautiful place for me.

Author's Note

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