SHE WANTED YOU DEAD

What is that sound? Sounds like a pulse machine, beeping rather slowly at regular intervals. I hear people talking. I can’t process what they are saying. Where am I anyway? I can’t feel my feet. Why am I feeling pain on my chest? Let me open my eyes. They are a little bit rheumy. Had I been crying? When was the last time I cried by the way? Maybe when laughing so hard when watching Trevor Noah’s stand-up comedy. But my eyes feel sore as if I had been crying all night. The room was garish thus making it hard for me to open my eyes as fast as I wanted. I wanted to see where I was and why it smelled like iodoform. I can’t breathe heavily or cough. My chest will hurt even the more. Though I can’t stand this fazing wheezing sound in my throat. I am so uncomfortable. I want to get up and go. I manage to create a window in my eyes.
“He is awake.” I heard one man say. There are two of them in the room. The one in a leather jacket is skinny and has red eyes. The other is in a black coat. He’s got the brawls and a bald head. They go well together. They didn’t look like they were happy. Of course that is not a good sign and neither did they look like they were angry at me. That’s relieving. I think they are the ones who will tell me why I am in a hospital. So why are they not saying anything? They are just staring at me as if I was run over by a train and survived. Or was I? The pain in my chest and the lost feeling on my legs is not normal. My head is also so damn heavy. What happened to me? Just before I could escalate my left hand to my head, someone touches my hand.
“No please dear one. You’re not supposed to strain any part of you now. Just remain still.” I struggled to turn my neck and take a look at the source of the feminine voice and touch. It’s a good thing I haven’t lost my sixth sense; the ability to sense a woman. She has a stethoscope hanging by her neck. She has short hair, slightly dyed and complimenting her complexion. Her glasses seemed to be the icing on her pretty look. She studied the pulse machine for a while. She had a look that I’m not sure I read well. She is a doctor and doctors know how to play peek-a-boo with their diagnosis. She reaches for her stethoscope, places the bell on my chest and listens for something only she can hear. I get sick of the confusion and worry bombarding in my heavy head.
“What… What happ…” My throat was clogged like an old rusty pipe.
It’s like she knew what I want to ask, “We did a surgery and you were…” 
“No please daktari. Leave that to us. Is he suit for interrogation?” The skinny man asks.
“Yes he is. I am even surprised that he can speak. But he should not make any unnecessary movements.” She said and walked out. 
The room felt cold when she left. I was now left with the stone faces that seemed to have some unfinished business with me.
“Mjango right?” The bald guy asked. 
After trying to carefully clear my throat, “Yes. That’s my name.”
“I am Don and this is my partner James.” He said and muted as if that should explain what the hell they are doing in my recovery room and even dismissing the pretty doctor who also happens to be surgeon. They don’t understand that I need doses of not just pain killers but empathy and sympathy that they don’t seem to have even from their facial expressions.
“We are CID officers investigating an attempt of murder on your life.” said James. 
“Murder?” I managed to utter.
“Are you able to remember the events that took place on a Wednesday two months ago?” James asked.
My heart sunk into a bog of deep confusion. Two months ago? I had so many questions.
“What do you mean two months ago? When is today?” I asked.
“It’s the 20th of April 2016.” He said and went silent. We looked at each other eye to eye. He read my expression and perhaps that was what tipped him to drop the bombshell. Maybe he thought if he did, I would remember everything. And yes, it did.
“Mjango two months ago you were shot twice on your back in cold blood…” James began.
“You are supposed to be dead.” Don continued. 
Dead? I thought. My head drooped. 
“Yes. So far nobody knows you’re alive apart from the team that operated your gunshot wounds for over 18 hours, James and I and our head of investigations who ordered us to look into your case.” 
Like a tag team, James picked up, “That means to everyone who heard about your shooting, you are as good as dead. Even your next of kins. I suggest that you trust us when we also ask you to keep it that way.”
“You will not have contact with anyone on the outside and will remain under ideal protection.” Don said.
“That should not be too much of a problem because…” James paused. It was an awkward pause. Like the vacuum like pause when time seems to stop just before terror strikes. 
He sighed and said, “Mjango you will never be able to walk again. We know that because the doctor who was here touched your feet first but you didn’t feel anything. It was a 90% chance that you wouldn’t be able to walk again.”
My eyes are now welling. I can feel my heart throwing tantrums and thus hurtling my breath. My mind is in a tail spin round and round rummaging through thoughts and memories insidiously flowing from the limbic system in my brain.
Twa! Twa! I could hear the gunshots in my head. Still as loud and supersonic. Now I remember. 
***
I was in a party in Nakuru. In fact it was my girlfriend’s party, Rita. She looked so beautiful that night. I had never seen her look as stately as she did that day. She was in a red crepe one shoulder bow sleeve midi dress, courtesy of her stinking rich dad. She told me her dad didn’t like me but that changed when he realised how much she loved me. Wait. Red dress? Ah yes it was Valentine’s. She hosted a Valentine’s party just for me.
 “Babe aki don’t fail to come. I have something special for you.” I remember she said while we spoke over the phone a day before Valentine’s.
“Baby I have a rugby game on Saturday. Homeboyz beat us last time, this is our final shot to get back to the league.” I said. She had planned that party so abruptly yet I was still supposed to be grateful. 
“So you’re not coming?” She asked sounding like she was going to break down any minute from then.
I sighed, “Okay honey. I will be in Nakuru tomorrow night just for you. I promise.” 
The excitement she had after my response was out of this world. She then said, “Come in your best official outfit and make sure you wear the red silk coat I bought you.”
As far as I can recall, something felt off but I brushed it off. Besides, what could possibly be the surprise she had for me? I couldn’t wait to find out.
Some minutes to 8pm I was picked up by a black range rover from Nakuru town. The driver said that he was under instructions to only take me where the rendezvous was. In no time, we were driving across the lawn of their 50 acre compound. The entire compound is lit as if it has a sun of its own at night. 
I was then escorted to the main door of the palace kind of a house with two fine ladies in black dresses. Oh, there was a red carpet spread on the entire trail to the house. And as if they had prepped for it, they simultaneously swung the huge door open. 
Party spirits gushed out along with a uniform shout of “Happy Valentines” followed by an applause and party music. The house was full of countless revellers all looking flashy. In my astonishment of the showy party that so far seems to have been the ‘something special’ I was assured of, I saw her. She was standing by the grand stairs at the rear end of the stadium like living room that had turned into raving grounds for the night. 
It looked like a modern version of the game of thrones with Rita, my girlfriend for three years, as the new queen of a city – who now specially receives her long awaited soon to be king. She looked like a goddess as she stared straight at me like saying, “Come meet me my love.” At the snap of her fingers someone would show up and ask to take my coat. At the clap of her hand another would show up and ask me what I would like to be served with. And at the flick of her hair, I would be asked to be shown the mistress’ room where she’d probably meet me behind closed doors and only a robe hanging on her slim but sexily curvy body. Her   
She descended down the stairs and we met at the centre of the room. We embraced or rather she embraced me like I was from light years away. We kissed and everyone applauded. She then whispered with a dam already formed in her eyes, “Happy Valentine’s Babe. You know how much I loved you.” I was too carried away by the PDA to realise the odds. Was I to realise that it should have meant something when she made the first move to kiss and saying that she loves me in past tense?
From then, the party seemed to have livened up now that the attendance list marked everyone present. It was probably the best night I had ever had with her.
***
“Mjango!” 
“Mjango!” 
I looked up. My head felt heavier than before perhaps because I had my restored memory loading my mind.
“What did you remember?” James asked. He was now seated on the bed. 
Don had his hands akimbo as if he was getting impatient. He asked, “Do you remember when you were shot?” 
I merely looked at him and the effort to remember kept on bringing the malicious replay of the gunshots. Twa! Twa!
***
Rita came up with an idea to go for a ride with the Range Rover around town. It was almost 2am if my memory is serving me fairly. She insisted on driving.
As she gunned the engine I asked, “You have never been confident about driving. What changed all of a sudden?”
“It’s the latest model of the range rover. Who could possibly to afraid of driving that?” 
I fell for the assumption that her tipsiness is what was beckoning her rare confidence on the wheel. She drove in circles around town and sometimes even over speeding. For a moment I was curious to know how was all these happening but being a dare devil too, I enjoyed every bit. 
About an hour later, her bodyguards assigned by her father caught up with us. She had to stop. There was quite an argument from “You’re not supposed to leave the compound without your security detail” to “I did not ask for any bloody bodyguards” to “You need to come with us now” to “I am safe with my boyfriend” And then flung over to me when I was told, “Kijana get out of the car.” Then followed by, “Rita get into the other car!” 
Being docile, I did so only for all of them to drive away and leave me in the middle of nowhere in Nakuru. She said, “Babe I am sorry. Please come back to the house as soon as you can,” through the window as they drove off. I was in absolute shock and disbelief.
***
“So they left you there just like that?” James asked.
After long silence, “Yes.” I said. 
“Was that where you were shot?” Don asked.
“I stood somewhere trying to get an uber or something.”
Silence. I was dying deep within.
“I don’t know.” Sigh. “I just had two gun shots like twenty minutes later.”
“From there you cannot remember anything else, right?”
I nodded mildly though. They looked at each other then looked away as if they had solved their case unceremoniously however. 
James stood up, walked across the room, opened the door then shut it. 
He finally asked, “Have you ever cheated on Rita?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Don chuckled and took a seat next to the bed. “We believe she framed you. From what it seems, you were set up. She wanted you dead for cheating on her. Our inside source managed to get a screenshot of a conversation she had with someone who knows you from your university in Western. She was being informed about how you used to cheat on her.”  
“It also seems like the local police were paid not to investigate your murder. After you were shot your body was dumped. I guess that’s why they believe you are dead. Having heard you’re still alive, our department secretly took up the case. But they know you’re dead. You’re lucky to be alive Mjango…”
Based on a true story…