Overview

It is strange how we find love. Sometimes, you are just curious about that beard, those eyes and that laughing mouth of his. But it turns out, a beautiful soul lies beneath. A soul that loves the wonder of sunsets. A soul that has been waiting years for you.

He is sitting at the edge of the heated spa right now, and I am checking him out. Shamelessly, if you really want to know. Because, really, nobody ever died from admiring a good body, yes? And I know he knows that I am checking him out, but he pretends not to notice. That’s how entitled boys of nowadays have become…lol…not that I mind it very much. Let me have a good look at that chest while I’m at it.

He has the open face that mama ought to have warned me about. Yes, your mother too. She ought to have warned you about the 'man with the laughing face'. A face that looks like it needs only a little ignition, and it would burst forth in flames of laughter. A boyish face waiting for laughter. That man has a laughing face. And like a moth, I gravitate towards that face. And maybe I have a thing for fire, because I find myself looking for flames in that face.

It is a sunny day at the Olkaria Heated Spa in Naivasha, and the place bears the excitement of youth and laughter and selfies. But what good is a good body if you cannot talk to the person? Heh?  I figure, I will hover around him and he will have no option but to talk to me. Yea, a woman must prosper…hallelujah?

So, I swim towards him, and stop a short distance away, just enough for him not to feel invaded, but close enough to make my intentions clear. And what are my intentions, exactly? Simple, I intend for this mandevu guy to talk to me. I intend to prosper, that’s what.

Anyways, I’m waiting for him to break down his walls and talk to me, and he isn’t doing anything. He is just watching me hover around him and says nothing. And then I see it. The thing that is standing in the way of our conversation. There is a bee between us, swimming in the water. Yes, a BEE. The bee is swimming right at the middle of the distance between me and him. No, really, a bee could be standing between me and my ‘happily ever after.’ Can ya believe that?

And because I am the ish, I give him a contemptuous look and break the truce. I swoop the bee in my hands, and with a palm-full of water, I throw it out of the pool.

"It would never have stung you". Oh...the man speaks!

"And how do you know that, Einstein?"

My smart-mouth comment stings at him, for only a second, but he doesn't bite into it.

And that is how he opens a door into himself. It turns out, Njoro is the name, and he is a bee charmer...he loves bees. Gosh. The way he talks about bees sounds like he is gonna ask a bee to marry him. Jesus, no. I need to stop him from marrying a bee.

And for some reason, even the heavens are rooting for me. Because as I look up, the sun is setting westwards, and there is a pretty sunset right there for us. I start cooing about how that sunset just gives me the ‘feels’, and how I would loo..oove to take a picture, except that my phone has just died. So, could he please take a photo for me and send it to me later? That was a year ago.

As we speak, he sips his coffee, holds my hand and whispers: “The sunset is gorgeous, would you like to go for a walk?”

“Of course!”

WRITER: Mwende Stardust, 20th Jan 2020