GAME OVER

In that room, you can hear hearts beating in a rhythmic manner all in anxiety and anticipation of what they believe or don’t want to believe will happen next. Every head is raised and steadied towards what seems to be their only point of connection with what also seems to be what their lives depend on. They talk about it every day and night everywhere. Perhaps they even dream about it every night. Nobody dares make a sound as if any form of vibration be it of a passing housefly or a running nose or even fart – will cast a bad spell on the stars of their lives. Eyes remain liquidated to smoothen the running of the eye ball from one edge to another. Not too liquidated to turn into a ceremony of shedding tears. There is a possibility it might turn into that however. This is where grown men cry.
Young woman you think you can make your man cry over or for you to the extents of tears? Well, I’m a man and I know we are misers with our tears. Unless you really baited  him well through his stomach since I hear you all say if you want to win a man, do it through that sack that lies below his heart. Call it another way of hitting it under the belt. But for this particular reason? Trust me, he can even pee on himself. We have heard of others who have even taken their own lives away eh? It sounds stupid yea. But a disappointment in this arena is like a teenage heartbreak. So painful. Slits the heart into two pieces of meat. Shrinks his manhood to the size of a ballpen lid. Oh I won’t talk about what happens to his balls. But so that you can feel him, his balls turn into cowpeas. That is how dehumanizing a heartbreak is.
And so is the pain of your favourite team losing a soccer match. The humiliation that comes from the rival team drains your esteem till you’d be no different from a match stick. A  confrontation from any rascal for some, is just enough to cause some friction and what do you know about match sticks and friction.
I dared myself over this world cup season to watch some of the games if not all. Mjangos I cross paths with don’t know me as a soccer fanatic or any sport for that matter. The truth is, I love the game but not to the level of being a fanatic. Fanatic is such a word. You’d die for something if you are a fanatic. I can’t do that. Never have I ever found myself doing that. I think it all started when I realised I couldn’t play outstandingly in the early ages of my life. Not that I have girlish feet mjango! In fact if you will be privileged enough to meet me in a pair of shorts someday, I won’t feel defiled if you stared at my feet. They are not like cleavages. Just don’t look at them as if I have hooves for feet. I’m sure you will take a very masculine report with you. If you are still hoping you will someday find me in shorts, good luck with that. So yes I’d play soccer and make a significant support for my team. But never too enough to be called a gifted player. That pricked me. It gets worse for other sport activities and games. Like rugby.
I tried playing rugby in my first year of high school. They said I had a well-built body.  I should have said, “Tell that to all the girls for me please.” I understand the game though the only problem is I love myself too much to see myself collide with fairly or more well-built mjangos in the name of a game. Or maybe more Luhya than I claim to be. I’m sorry rugby lovers if I don’t peacefully perceive your game. I hope you understand however that a delicate heart is a delicate body. Damn I have mentioned heart so many times today.
Since I know myself better than I did yesterday, I realised that I was into soccer because of the influence of other fanatics. Maybe it was a string through which we connected. Maybe I just wanted to fit in. Maybe I just needed something that seemed cool to do. And maybe because I thought it was fun to be a fan of sports. None of those reasons has my own will and motive in it.  Guess that is how people lose purpose in life. They lose those things that should have made them happy when they do them to things that strain them and suck the life out of them. They think that they don’t have a choice. Shall I remind you that we always have a choice? They lose the meaning of their lives when they engross themselves in things they feel an irritating itch about on their ball bags but do nothing about them.
That was not the case for me this time. I know I have missed a lot since I left the pitch for the bench. I know I have missed the fun, tears and laughter that comes with losing and winning. That is what makes the game a game aye? But I also think I know what I have really been missing. I have been missing what identifies me with the boys. Yes, football is not a boys’ thing only. That doesn’t say it is really a girls’ thing either anyway. And so why then should I not join the boys club not only by the right of having a manhood, but by the virtue of doing what boys love. This time round it’s not food, not cars and definitely not girls (Ouch! I know.) It’s the love of football just as a sport and not necessarily as a means of getting rich.
So that explains why I am seated in this room among tens and tens of other male comrades. Nobody cares if you took a shower or not. (That will only be until when someone shows up in there with a two weeks old stench.) Nobody cares if you can see what’s happening or not. Nobody cares if you put all your fees on a bet. Then only thing mjangos care about, is whether Lionel Messi, jersey number 10, the hope for Argentina – will score that penalty or not!
I could see people too scared to even breathe. Any breath could be the wind that will blow the ball to a miss shot. Not even a blink was encouraged. You’d blink and maybe by the time you open your eyes in the interval of those milliseconds, the ball would be at the back of the net and every fanatic on their feet with hands in the air and the TV room suffering from its own kind of an earthquake due to the thunderous voices of celebration.
We both know however, that that is not how it happened. Every fanatic and even those who don’t understand football knows that the great football legend failed to score a penalty. I guess that is the emotional part of soccer. It treats us to what human beings fear the most; loss!
Game over.
I mean, eventually like every other heartbreak, we get over the game. If our favourite teams cannot score and make us proud, we can as well score in other places with open goal posts with barely no goalkeepers. And oh, how proud that makes us feel as boys!