I Am Not The Faded Beauty

On Tuesday I received an email alerting me of a sound clip, supposedly done by and circulating on the internet. The sender, who had attached the sound clip, also informed me of a stall in an exhibition hall along Moi Avenue selling ’24 Episodes of Nairobi Nights”. Yesterday I went to the stall and met a young lanky man with shifty eyes. ” Do you have Nairobi Nights?” I asked. He grunted, then from somewhere under removed a CD and gave it to me. On the CD was printed a rather pretty girl, skimpily dressed and smiling cheekily. ” Is this Sue?” I asked him. ” Yes, she is the one”. The photo looked like one of the many I had seen online. “The CD contains both audio and some action”. The young man volunteered even before I had asked. ” Have you met Sue yourself?”  I asked. ” Many times. She is my friend”. I am sure he could have given me her ‘telephone number’ if I persisted. I didn’t know what to tell the young man, so I paid for the CD and went home to listen to ‘Myself ‘.

The CD starts with a girl reading Episode 1: I Can’t Feel Your Thing. She has a very high voice, lacking the huskiness of shouting at night in the cold and puffing cigarettes. She reads very fast, as if she is in a hurry, making nonsense of full stops. Not to brag, but I can read better. It’s something I learned from a very strict catholic priest in the boarding primary school I attended, where I used to read the bible in church. Anyway somewhere in the middle of the episode; there is some scratching sound and then ” Welcome to episode 2″ which is the last part of Episode 1.

Then I got to the action. It was nothing like I expected, but photos of some two half-naked women. That was it. The internet clip is lifted from the CD. Let me just make it clear neither the girl on the CD nor the one reading is me. I don’t look, sound, or read like that. I haven’t recorded anything and if I ever decide to, I will announce it here, if at all I will still be writing.

Nowadays, like I mentioned before, I feel like a fading beauty. For a moment listening to the girl, I thought that’s how I would sound when I faded completely. Somehow I pitied her and hoped I wouldn’t fade as she certainly had and ended up pitying myself too. As to the entrepreneurs pretending to be me and making money from it, I am not sure what to do. I am yet to decide whether they are doing right or wrong. My experiences and thoughts are not unique to me, but perhaps the telling is. And actually what to do if they infringe on me?

For now, let them make money and hope someone becomes my customer. I only wish the faded beauty could read much better. She should know once you fade, you are at the end, you should take time in whatever you do. You should not read in a hurry.