"DRIP… DRIP… DRIP…"
Each icy pinprick of water striking his face was a miniature explosion, yanking Amani abruptly from the murky, suffocating depths of a sleep that felt more like a shallow grave. A low, guttural groan escaped his lips as he instinctively recoiled, his body protesting the unwelcome assault.
He lay in a damp, chill room, the persistent drip a daily, infuriating reminder that the fundi's solemn promise to fix the perpetually leaking roof had once again dissolved into the ether of shoddy workmanship and broken vows.
With a muttered curse that tasted bitter on his tongue and a frustrated sigh that seemed to carry the weight of a thousand such mornings, he shifted his body to the left, seeking refuge from the relentless aquatic torture.
His movement, however, only introduced a new dimension of discomfort. The so-called mattress beneath him, he discovered with a fresh wave of irritation, was nothing more than a thin, uneven pile of coarse hay, loosely bound and offering scant protection from the hard-packed earth floor.
Each bump and lump sent a jolt of acute discomfort through his already aching body. The rough, abrasive fabric of the makeshift bedding, likely a repurposed grain sack, scraped against his skin until it itched with an unbearable intensity. "Have I been robbed again?" he thought, a familiar bitterness rising in his gorge.
His mind, already weary, began to listlessly scheme about catching those mischievous neighborhood kids he suspected were responsible for his perpetually missing comforts, though a deeper, more unsettling feeling was beginning to stir.
As he squinted his eyes against the oppressive gloom, the only discernible light filtered through a small, jagged hole in the corrugated iron roof - the very source of his watery torment. He attempted to rise, to drag his protesting limbs towards what he vaguely remembered as the washroom.
His limbs, however, felt stiff, heavy, and oddly unresponsive, yet strangely devoid of the usual symphony of aches and the familiar, grinding pain of his old injuries. His left ACL, for years a source of constant, debilitating torment, felt unexpectedly… fine. More than fine, it felt whole, as if he'd been miraculously freed from its long-held, tyrannical grip.
For a fleeting, disorienting moment, he entertained the ludicrous notion that he'd somehow slept on a bed of clouds, a stark, almost laughable contrast to the harsh reality of his hay-strewn hovel.
Everything felt different, subtly yet profoundly altered. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but the air itself seemed to vibrate with an unfamiliar resonance. His surroundings, too, while retaining a veneer of familiarity, felt… off.
The musty scent of damp earth and decaying thatch was sharper, more pungent than he remembered. The quality of the silence, broken only by the dripping water and the distant crowing of a rooster, was deeper, more primal.
Yet, amid the pervasive discomfort and the unsettling sense of dislocation, a strange, unexpected tendril of nostalgia crept into his awareness. The very roughness of the hay mattress, the way it pricked and scratched his skin, unexpectedly transported him back, conjuring vivid, long-forgotten sensations from the sun-drenched days of his early childhood.
He recalled the hot, humid air after a sudden downpour, the rich, loamy scent of freshly turned earth and wet grass heralding endless summer adventures on sprawling, emerald-green fields.
But as these bittersweet memories washed over him, a stark, sobering realization brought him crashing back to the present: he was no longer a carefree child. Responsibilities, harsh realities, and the crushing weight of a life unlived awaited him outside the cramped, dilapidated confines of this shack.
He stumbled forward, his legs still leaden and uncooperative, his eyes struggling to adjust to the dim light. He was searching for the washroom, or at least the outhouse he vaguely recalled, but instead, he collided heavily with a curtain - a rather curious, out-of-place relic of faded floral fabric hanging limply in his otherwise starkly rustic surroundings.
Brushing it aside with a grunt of annoyance, he was greeted not by a doorway, but by the sight of a small, grime-streaked window, through which the nascent morning sun was just beginning to spill its pale, golden light, painting stripes across the dusty floor.
As he took in the sights and sounds filtering through that small window - the vibrant green of unfamiliar foliage, the chirping of unseen birds, the distant, rhythmic chopping of wood - a profound wave of disorientation washed over him, so potent it nearly buckled his knees.
He felt as if he had been violently uprooted and transported to a different time, a different place, one that was achingly familiar yet terrifyingly alien, far removed from the grimy, desperate existence he had known.
He wondered, his mind reeling, if he had somehow been reincarnated, if his weary soul had been inexplicably reborn into a new body, a new life. Or, a more mundane but equally unsettling thought, had he just been kidnapped again, a pawn in some forgotten vendetta from his shadowed past?
He leaned against the rough-hewn wooden wall, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps. His fingers, tracing the deep grooves in the wood, came across a series of small, childish carvings - a lopsided football, a stick figure with impossibly long legs, the initials 'A.C.H.' His own initials.
A cold dread, mixed with a wild, improbable hope, began to snake its way through him. He looked down at his hands - they were smaller, smoother, the callouses of years of hardship and menial labor gone. He touched his face - the stubble he'd neglected to shave for days was absent, replaced by soft, youthful skin.
'Reincarnation? Regression?' he thought, the words echoing strangely in his mind. That kind of fantastical nonsense only happened in those cliché soap operas his mother used to watch, the ones he'd secretly pirated in his later, more desperate years, or in the light novels he'd devoured online, seeking escape from his bleak reality.
Had his mind finally fractured under the accumulated weight of all the traumas he'd experienced? The idea of regression, of truly being back in his own past, filled him with a dizzying cocktail of wonder and existential fear. Was he really living in the past? Was this his childhood home, the one he hadn't seen in over two decades?
Was he destined to relive the same life, make the same catastrophic mistakes, experience the same fleeting joys and crushing sorrows, over and over again, an eternal, agonizing loop?
His thoughts swirled around him like a tempestuous, chaotic storm, threatening to pull him under.
Then, a voice - a sound that pierced through the maelstrom of his confusion like a ray of pure, unadulterated sunlight - shattered the fragile tranquility of the morning.
It was a familiar voice, a soothing melody he hadn't heard in decades, a voice that resonated with the very essence of home, a voice he had sworn, in his youth, to protect with his life, but had ultimately, devastatingly, failed.
It was his mother's voice, clear and strong, carrying from just outside the thin walls of the shack: "Amani! Amani, wake up, my son! You'll be late! Go to school and collect your K.C.P.E result slip!"
The Kenya Certificate of Primary Education. He was thirteen again.
Tears, hot and unstoppable, streamed down his cheeks, blurring the already hazy outline of the small room. Memories, a torrential flood of them, crashed into his mind - memories of this life, the one he was apparently reliving, intertwined with the bitter, haunting remnants of the future he had already endured.
Was it a dream, this second chance? Or was his past life the nightmare? Either way, they were the echoes of a past that had both irrevocably scarred and inexplicably strengthened him, a bittersweet, poignant reminder that even shattered dreams, even a life laid to waste, could somehow, impossibly, sow the seeds of a new, terrifying, and wondrous beginning.
***
Fundi - Repairman
AUTHOR NOTE:
K.C.P.E - Kenya Certificate of Primary Education is an academic qualification taken after primary education (A combination of elementary and middle school) in Kenya, and it goes on for a whole week. Passing it means entering a Good High school, which are grouped into several schools ranging from sub-county schools to National schools.