The Curse: Part Four (Final)
One of his hands has a thumb and one finger only. The whole arm is horribly scarred. The other arm is a prosthetic.
“I used to think like you. I don’t, not anymore.”
You, too, stare down at those hands in silence. And you realize you want to live, and to live with the hands you were born with, not any like the ones you are looking at.
“Please,” you beg the woman with braids. “Please take the curse back. I will never speed again.”
She looks at you for a moment. “Alright. I take it back.”
“Thank you.”
“You will also never play the radio loudly” adds the old man.
You nod. “I agree.”
“It will come back just now at a comfortable volume. Never put it louder.”
Before you can turn back to the front, the radio comes back on. As the old man said, its volume is lower than you had set it before.
“Wha-a-at?”
Amazed, you turn to the front to see if any of the front passengers had touched the buttons. It didn't seem so. In fact, one man is reading a newspaper and the other is craning his head at it, too. You start to turn back and stop. You look at the two men, puzzled. Hadn’t there been a woman in front? The one whose eyes... you banish the thought with a mental shudder.
You shake your head and turn back. And gulp.
The people seated there are different. The young man with the horrible scars has vanished, so has the young woman who supported you. In their place, a mother and two young children are feeding off a packet of chips. There’s no old man, at least, not the same one. The one there is slim and snoring in the right back seat, which is where the woman in braids had been.
You rub your eyes and blink. Nothing changes. The earlier passengers have disappeared. Or… had they? What's happening?
You turn back to the front and take a large number of deep breaths. Thoughts of opening the door and running away from the matatu* battle with fears that it is your mind that is going.
Didn’t someone say that you had cursed yourself? Is this what you had done to yourself? But where is that person? Were those people real? You are sure they are...were...but where...how...? Did you lose time? Were you drugged?
Then you remember the loan payment due next week: you’ll have to pay it whether you abandon the van or not. And you remember the house you are building brick by brick, on the quarter acre of land you finally paid off last year. The house and the land are real. They have to be.
I am a man, you tell yourself. I am a man. Whatever is happening, I can deal with it. I have to deal with this. You have to say this over and over before your trembling hands are able to grip the steering.
You restart the matatu and drive off. Slowly.
You never speed a gain.
You never touch the radio again.
- a public service vehicle found on Kenya roads. Matatus range in size from 14-seater vans to minibuses. They are notorious for playing loud music and reckless driving.