Short story: Oh what a life!
One sunny Friday afternoon after lectures, I decided to go shopping in the mall to enable me have enough time to study for my exams which was due in a few days.
I headed straight for the bus stop where I got a taxi and soon I was at the city centre, where the mall was located.
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A few steps away from where I got down, I heard someone shouting and pleading with me to stop but I pretended not to have heard him.
As the shouting drew closer and closer, I turned and saw this man sporting bushy dreadlocks and wearing torn and dirty clothes. To be very honest, the word “smelling” was even inadequate to describe him.
I decided to ignore him and move faster than before, only to hear him call out my name. I was perplexed, but I thought maybe he was just shouting out names and accidentally mentioned mine, so I did not look back. But this time, he added my surname too and I froze immediately.
As he drew closer, people started telling me to move away and that he was a very dangerous mad man but I stood still till he got closer. It was there that I recognised him as Kaki, the rich and most notorious boy I had sat with during our secondary school days.
Although he came from a well to do background he was hard working. He was always quiet and topped the class regularly.
This happened till we got to the third term of Form two. That was when Kaki joined this group of boys called Bad Boys Club.
His performance in class began to drop. Some teachers talked to him about his performance but all their advice fell on deaf ears. Kaki had by that time started taking drugs and alcohol.
About a week to the end of our second term in Form Three, Kaki left school and no one heard of him till this day when I chanced on him at the mall. I was shocked by the encounter.
He asked me for some money to buy food. I gave him about half of the money I had, but I was a bit reluctant because I wasn’t sure if he was going to use it for food or drugs. But all the same I gave him.
He ran off as soon as I gave him the money without even saying goodbye. It seemed he was in a hurry to use the money for something. I pitied him because anything could happen to him on the street.
About a week after my encounter with Kaki, I decided to contact some of our schoolmates to help him but I was told that he had been knocked down by a car and died instantly. Oh, what a life!