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The day I saw someone that was long dead and buried
What you need to know:
- There he was, walking towards me, looking more alive than I felt at that moment.
- I involuntarily slowed down, my mouth agape, and stared at him, convinced that I was dreaming.
Over the weekend, I saw someone I was pretty sure was dead. Not only dead, but dead and buried because I had attended his funeral a few years ago. I am the kind of person that tends to walk fast, giving the impression that I am on the way to attend to an emergency, so I’ve been told. When several people pointed out this peculiar habit, I tried to walk slower, but try as I might, I couldn’t sustain it, so I gave up, after all, I wasn’t hurting anyone. But I was telling you about the man whose funeral I attended a couple of years ago.
There he was, walking towards me, looking more alive than I felt at that moment. I involuntarily slowed down, my mouth agape, and stared at him, convinced that I was dreaming, and that come morning, I would wake up and be relieved that it had been a nightmare. I realised that it was no dream when the person walking behind me bumped into me, and in the typical short-tempered Nairobian way, the person I almost tripped barked, Nini mbaya na wewe?, before shoving me aside and walking away. But I was too shocked to react because I was still staring at the dead man walking.
By then he had gone passed me and I turned to stare at his retreating back.Having forgotten where I was going in the first place, heart racing, I entered the first restaurant I saw, sat down heavily and made a call that would confirm whether or not I had lost my mind. You see, the dead man was a close friend’s brother, and I recall how devastated she had been when she and her family laid him to rest. But even as I called, I wondered what I would say. When she answered, I blurted out, “Vivian, I just saw your dead brother…he walked right passed me…”
She was quiet for a couple of long seconds, and then she burst out laughing, confusing me even more. The laughing must have gone on for an eternity before she said, “You probably saw Maina, my cousin, many people thought he and my brother were twins because they looked so much alike…” to which I drew a deep breath and sagged with relief, all the tension that I didn’t know had been building up dissipating.
I’m not a superstitious person, never have been, therefore I was relieved that there was an explanation for that improbability I thought I had witnessed. Had I called my friend and had she not offered an explanation for what I had seen, then recounted that episode to my trusted and valued house manager, she would not have been shocked, rather, she would have gone on to explain what ‘seeing’ a dead person meant, and what I needed to do to send that person back to the grave, where he belonged.
You see, sometime back, while in my living room, the window nearest the seat I was seated on started vibrating. I had noticed that it always did that whenever one of my neighbours who owns a lorry, drove by. At that moment, my house manager was in the living room doing something and casually mentioned that the vibration we were hearing was the spirits of dead people communicating, and that whenever she’s home alone and that window starts to vibrate, she prays to calm them down. More amused than taken aback, I asked, Yaani unasema nyumba yangu iko na mashetani?
To which, unperturbed, she went on to explain that since we weren’t the first inhabitants of that particular piece of land, perhaps the previous residents had “crossed” the spirits. It is at that point that I cut in, respectfully, and informed her that I did not hold such beliefs or any other related ones. We also firmly agreed that we would never have such a conversation again, that if she heard disgruntled ‘spirits’ walking about, she should allow me to remain in blissful ignorance. What I believe in or not though, I will not lie to you that nowadays, I don’t look at that window a certain way whenever my neighbour zooms by on his way to work or his home and it vibrates… So, what superstitions have you overheard lately?