Port Heya Chapter 1A Chapter by David Muchai Frustrated archaeology professor Kwame Adale, receives a call from a mysterious old flip phone buried for ten years under a collapsed building. Port Heya 1 Dr Kwame Adala had reflected on the moment he would once again set foot on the source of his incessant nightmares: an abandoned lot a few metres off the Nairobi River. With growing trepidation, he surveyed the quarter acre of scree enclosed in a latticework fence that had set the scene for two of the most poignant moments in his life, one of which was his closest brush with death. It was neither the first nor would it be the last public land grabbed from a river reserve for private development, but when a single night of horror claimed three hundred and seventy-two souls, the tragedy garnered enough ire from the public to elicit attention from local and international human rights organisations. The pressure on successive governments, corrupt as they all were, meant the property had been abandoned and under strict watch for more than a decade. Kwame and his thirteen archaeology students from Green Valley College were among the select few allowed within the area long since designated a crime scene, a privilege he had only obtained after four long years of dogged determination. “The ground on which you now stand is haunted,” Kwame said softly, his arms spread for effect. “Several residents in this neighbourhood have reported sightings of people who apparently lived here but have since been confirmed dead. Eerie howling at night, mysterious lights, strange voices and so on.” He knew shock would be too lofty an expectation from his languid audience. Maybe heightened interest, at the very least, but only a couple pairs of eyebrows rose. “Come on guys, nothing?” “But, sir,” said Kamaria, Kwame’s star student, “we’re supposed to be scientists. Belief in the occult isn’t a proper science.” “Very true, Miss Kamaria, but as archaeologists, isn’t it our job to prove that point? And don’t forget, mysteries exist that science hasn’t been able to explain to date. Who built the pyramids in Egypt? Or Stonehenge in England? Should we discover evidence that, without a shred of doubt, proves it to be the work of entities from other worlds, should we not endorse such findings?” “But there’s nothing but rubble here,” opined another student. “Yes, to everyone else, this maybe nothing but a pile of rubble, but not to us. To archaeologists, this is a priceless treasure trove of information. Think about it. Only ten years ago, there proudly stood, at this very spot, an eight-storey apartment block home to several hundred people. Who were they? What sort of lives did they live? What were the compositions of each dwelling unit? Only after we sift through this rubble, whatever remains of it, anyway, only after we perform a proper archaeological excavation can we come up with at least some of the answers to those questions.” “You call this a dig?” One of the students said with a sneer. “Unless Tut and Carmen were among the residents in the building.” “Mr Wanjala,” said Kwame, “I believe you mean the Egyptian pharaoh? His name was Tutankhamun. One person, one word.” “Well, did he live here?” Kwame sighed. Why me? At five-foot nine inches tall, Kwame was neither tall nor short, and his median bones carried just the right amount of fat shy of obese. And therein lay the problem. Beginning with his frame and percolating into his professional and personal life, everything about him presented as average. An archaeology professor in a middling college abounding with below average students, his workaday face and unremarkable physique guaranteed he would never feature on the cover of GQ magazine or Farmers Weekly. And on more occasions than he cared to think about, he was afraid that his students would pick up on his frustrations. But Kwame had one thing going for him, his ace in the whole, one might say. A dogged determination to pull the donkey at whatever cost. “I know this is less than ideal when it comes to archaeological digs,” he said with his chin up, trying hard to find more cheer than he felt, “but there was, on the one hand, budgetary constraints within the college, and on the other, government red tape in play. That, I’m afraid, keeps us from accessing what most of you might consider a ‘proper’ dig site or discovering the next Zinjanthropus. Nevertheless, although most of the material on this site was carted away years ago, we have enough left to earn each one of you a top grade.” Wanjala had more hairs to split. “But aren’t we supposed to be studying like, I don’t know… dinosaurs and the middle ages and stuff?” “Mr Wanjala, if you recall our introductory class, archaeology�"” Kamaria cut in: “Archaeology is the study of the ancient and recent human past through material remains.” Kwame nodded proudly. “That’s right, Miss Kamaria.” “Of course, it is, Miss Knowitall,” Wanjala muttered. Kamaria stuck out her tongue at him and raised her hand. “Dr Adala? “Yes, Miss Kamaria?” “Sir, in class you said you would split us into groups.” “Yes, I did.” “Are we allowed to select members of our own group?” “As a matter of fact, you are. Each one of you get a partner of your choice, single out an area, and using the methods we learned in the previous lesson, mark out a six by six-foot square and start digging.” Wanjala shot Kamaria a look that could’ve melted butter. “Don’t worry, Miss Knowitall, I wouldn’t dream of being your partner if I was a hundred you was gonna discover gold.” And thus, went the lively back and forth until the class of thirteen stood in clusters of six pairs and a lone wolf. “Mr Wanjala,” Kwame said, “I guess that leaves you and me.” “But that’s not fair.” “How come?” “If I do good, they’ll think it was only because of you.” Kwame stifled a snigger. “That’s ‘do well’, Mr Wanjala, and I wouldn’t worry about it. You’ll get the grade you deserve.” “Oh, man.” Wanjala slapped his hips. “That ain’t no better neither.” Kwame was still smiling as he drove the last of his two stakes into the ground and looked up to see if the student had done the same. “Now we tie our rope around each of the four pegs and get to work. Exciting, isn’t it?” The loose plaster came off with ease under his small shovel, the bigger blocks he had to pry out with his bare hands. “I’ll be doing that every day?” Wanjala asked. “Even after I graduate? Looks like hard, dirty work for years of college.” “You can always teach.” Wanjala smiled. “Is that why you do it? Because you couldn’t stomach the grime neither?” “It’s a little more complicated than that.” “Lemme guess. You probably hit the sauce a tad too much in your last job, went batshit on your boss, and that’s how you ended up at Green Valley, right?” “Wow. Mr Wanjala, that’s quite… specific. How did you come up with it?” “I didn’t. That’s how Professor Chinua ended up as our math teacher.” “Okay, then.” Kwame sighed. “Anyway, Serenity Towers collapsed due to a series of preventable circumstances. Corruption, shoddy contractors, substandard materials, you name it, resulting in death and destruction. Our task is to determine the veracity of that information or if�"” “Uhm… excuse me,” Wanjala scratched his head. “Which one is Serenity Towers, again?” “The building that once stood here.” Kwame clamped his eyes shut and exhaled. You can do this, Kwame. Patience is the key. He strained to look his student in the eye. “Mr Wanjala, do you deliberately choose to be this…. Erm, never mind.” “This isn’t for me, you know.” Wanjala shrugged. “I’m only here because my father made me.” “Then I suggest you make the most of it, all the same. Start digging.” The young man studied the shovel as if an alien artifact had mysteriously found its way to his hand. “What are we supposed to find, anyway?” What, indeed, had Kwame hoped to accomplish on a return here? For his students, it was merely a chance to get their hands dirty in the field. Personally, his goals were a tad more convoluted. For long, he had attempted with little success to rid his memory of the events of that night ten years ago. His miraculous escape from disaster should have made for sensational news. He had envisioned the headline on just about every newspaper in the country: MAN ESCAPES UNSCATHED AS EIGHT-STOREY BUILDING COLLAPSES. He could probably have bagged a few invites to morning shows too, was it not for the minor inconvenience of the need to carry to the grave the secret of his visit to Serenity Towers. “Anything that tells a story, Mr Wanjala,” he said. “Anything at all.” Glad to be rid of his bothersome student (if only for a while), Kwame made the rounds checking on the progress of the other groups. The assortment of items they deemed important went into a small box provided to each pair. Kwame picked up a few samples and took a few minutes to discuss the finds. “I found that smoking pipe,” Makena announced proudly. “Looks expensive, don’t it?” Kwame turned it over in his hand. “How can you tell?” “My father smokes one, but his looks like he made it in his workshop.” Lighters, clothes, pieces of furniture, photographs, and bits of electronics were among the many items collected, catalogued and boxed. After three hours on location, the iota of excitement that might have been present earlier petered out and the exercise grew old. Also… “It’s past time for lunch, Mr Kwame,” Wanjala announced, rubbing his tummy for emphasis. For once, he elicited supportive nods from most of his fellow classmates. “After digging dirt all day, the least you can do is treat us to pizza.” Kwame prided himself in being a competent tutor, and every competent tutor knew when not to cross the fine line between his students being awake and retrogressing to the previous weekend’s keg party. He raised his arms to quell the imminent revolt. “Alright, alright. We can call it a day. Pull up your pegs, roll up your ropes, pack up, and carefully make your way to the bus.” Kwame watched as the students slipped and slid up to the school bus parked on the road. A sad lot, in his opinion. Save for Kamaria and Makena who were in his class on full academic scholarships (the institution had to seem competent, somehow), the rest were to college what the indigenous githeri was to gourmet cuisine. And as unpalatable as the situation was, Kwame was as much out of options as were his students. He bent down to pick up the box Wanjala had left behind and caught a glint off the corner of his eye. He followed the glimmer to one edge of the shallow depression he and his most inept student had made. S**t. It’s a piece of glass, he thought before the scientist in him took over. But what if it turns out to be something else entirely? What if, indeed? It would make for a great talking point in class. “You see, thee benighted, young, not-so-eager to learn minds, sometimes the most innocuous item on a dig site turns out to be the most significant find of all. Innocuous means harmless, Mr Wanjala.” He scraped the dirt off, ferreting out a perfectly-preserved rectangular piece of glass affixed to a larger mould of plastic material. What the…? The more of the artefact he exposed, the more a sense of you-must-be-shitting-me washed over him. How could this be? He removed a handkerchief and wiped clean the undeniably astounding find�"an old-fashioned flip phone. Save for a few minor scrapes, it appeared undamaged even after an eight-storey building collapsed upon it. “Hey, Mr Kwame,” Wanjala called from the bus. “Are you coming or what?” Kwame stashed the phone into his pocket and joined the students in the bus for an uneventful ride back to the campus. The professor in him could hardly wait for the following Monday’s class to analyse the treasures they had brought back from their short road trip. That, and the load of work awaiting him back at the campus meant that the phone dug out of the abandoned lot lay inside his pocket all but forgotten. On his way home that evening, the old-fashioned flip phone rang.
***
A large half-moon hung low in the sky and the few stars visible through the city’s smog twinkled away. The car radio was off, just the way Kwame liked it, the roads nearly deserted and the usual urban noise a low murmur. All was as it should be, save for a little extra ache on his bones from the added ordeal of the field excursion with his students. “Tintintin-tin, tintintin-tin, tintintin-tin…” A sharp tune tore through the interior of the vehicle. Though vaguely familiar, it was out of place and shouldn’t be ringing in his car. “What the f**k!” Kwame screamed, veering off his lane and into the fast lane. “Tintintin-tin, tintintin-tin, tintintin-tin…” the ditty kept on. He worked to calm his nerves, taking huge gasps of air and exhaling slowly. That slacked up his breathing, but his heart still raced at a clop, and his fingers squeezed the steering wheel in a death grip. “Calm down, Kwame,” he said to himself. “There’s got to be a perfectly good explanation for this.” “Tintintin-tin, tintintin-tin, tintintin-tin tiiiiiin…” the tune persisted as he steered back past the slow lane and onto the shoulder, caressed the brakes and brought the vehicle to a stop. The melody stopped, and for a moment a strange silence persisted. Even the vehicles rushing past on the road seemed to do so without a sound. Kwame looked around. Could I have imagined it? Maybe it was all in my�" “Tintintin-tin, tintintin-tin, tintintin-tin…” came the tune again. Kwame jumped, and his heartbeat leapt to the beat of a mad drum in a tribal harvest feast dance. He whipped his head back. Nobody in the back seat. Where the heck is it coming from? “Tintintin-tin, tintintin-tin, tintintin-tin…” It was close, too close. As if coming from within his own body. He began patting himself. First his breast pockets, then his trouser pockets. His hand stopped on the outer pocket of his coat. Something there�"a lump. “Tintintin-tin, tintintin-tin, tintintin-tin…” Slowly he slid his hand inside the pocket, wrapped his fingers around a smooth blocky object. He pulled it out fast and threw it onto the passenger seat. “Good gracious!” he yelled and put a hand on his heaving chest. “It’s that bloody flip phone.” Now he recognised the tune. It was Tárrega’s Gran Vals, but little comfort the discovery brought him. The old phone had been buried under a foot of debris for God knows how long. It shouldn’t be ringing. Should it? “Tintintin-tin, tiiiiiin…” The phone’s screen was bright blue and across it two words in black caps scrolled from right to left: INCOMING CALL… When the absurdity of the situation hit him, he almost slapped himself. He threw his head back and barked with relief. “Wanjala,” he said, “you stupid little s**t.” It now made all the sense in the world. Wanjala, infamous for his affinity for pranks, must have placed the phone inside the trench hoping Kwame would happen upon it and mindful of the heebie-jeebies it would instil upon his victim. Confident that he had solved the mystery, Kwame picked up the phone, flipped it open and hit the “Receive” button. “Mr Wanjala,” he said, “this is not funny. Not one bit.” “Finally!” said a man’s relieved voice on the other end of the call. “Thank God someone answered.” “Thank God?” Kwame laughed. “What did you expect? I’d be scared to death?” “Trust me, I do not mean to scare you, sir,” said the caller who sounded nothing like Wanjala. “If anything, I was the one who was afraid no one would answer.” “Who are you?” Kwame barked, a little of the earlier panic returning. “Did Wanjala put you up to this? Whoever you are, you and Wanjala are in a huge heap of trouble, mister. Wait till I�"” “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned that name. I am not him and he put me up to nothing.” “Then who are you?” “Simply put, I am the owner of the phone you’re now holding.” Kwame scoffed. “Yeah, that explains everything.” “Sir, if you would please indulge me for a second, where did you happen upon my phone?” “No, you tell me. Where did you leave your phone?” “Fair enough. Last I remember having it was at Serenity Towers. Is that where you found it? Are you a friend of Darius?” Now Kwame was confused more than anything else. “Who’s Darius?” “Look, let’s cut to the chase, shall we? That phone contains some crucial addresses and other information that is priceless to me and I’ll do anything to get it back. I’m willing to reward you for returning it.” “Are you sure�"” “Yes, sir. This has nothing to do with Wanjala, whoever the�"wait! Your voice. It sounds very familiar. Do I know you?” “How am I supposed to answer that? I don’t even know you from Christ.” “Oh my God!” The excitement in the caller’s voice was unmistakeable. “It is you, isn’t it? Jesus Christ! Kwame Adala, right?” “How do you know…” “It’s me. Muhammed Juma.” The name registered immediately. “Sod off!” Kwame cried. “Muhammed…” No freaking way! What are the odds? “Mohammed Juma from college?” “I’ll be damned. What are�"” The connection died. “Juma?” Kwame called. “You still there?” He brought the phone down from his ear. It too was dead. Kwame and Juma had been best friends in their first three years of college, only to fallout and spend the rest of the time actively avoiding each other. It had been more than twenty years since the two had spoken. Twenty years was long enough for old wounds to heal and old passions to reignite. The strange call had left a thousand questions swirling inside Kwame’s head. How had Juma’s phone ended up buried at the former site of Serenity Towers? Who was Darius? And how serendipitous (or not) is this bizarre reunion? Kwame spent the next few days searching for a compatible charger that would revive the old phone. It took one week before he found one and charged the phone, but Juma had blocked the caller ID and Kwame had no way of reaching him. Two weeks since that one call, the phone stayed in Kwame’s pocket, but Juma was yet to call again. And Kwame did not expect him to. He had done an online search to see how his friend had fared all those years they had been apart. Juma had been dead for ten years. © 2023 David MuchaiAuthor's Note
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2 Reviews  Last Updated on October 23, 2023 Tags: fantasy, fiction, african, mystery, black, self-published, unpublished, excerpts, chapter Author
David MuchaiNairobi, Kariobangi South, KenyaAboutI am a Kenyan gentleman who enjoys quite a bit of reading. I write two humour columns for Kenya's third largest daily newspaper, The Star, but my dream is be a published fiction writer. I have book.. more..Writing
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