One of the most embarrassing things that can happen to you is to have someone point out that you have bedbugs. I remember vividly, like it was this morning, a couple of years ago when a friend picked a bedbug from my shirt and told me “uko na kunguni mtu yangu”. I was about to die of embarrassment and shame but changed my mind when I saw the way he crashed that horrible creature on the surface. The skillful manner with which he killed that thing told me that he was a guy with five years’ experience in dealing with bedbugs.
I was so relieved when he said “hizi vitu husumbua”. I immediately confessed and told him how those things had troubled me for a couple of months. After freely discussing our experience with bedbugs, he advised me to sell my bed to the second-hand dealers in my neighborhood. I followed his advice and transferred my problems to someone else.
The thing is, some of us have demons that keep haunting us. Our anxieties, fears, indiscretions and inferiorities that keep troubling our minds every now and then. We try all means to exorcise them. But like the stubborn bedbugs they won’t go away. We wonder what will happen if people really knew us. That we are not as good as we appear. That we are impostors. That we are only winging it. That we are as clueless and vulnerable. That we are flawed. That below our nice shirts, a bedbug is creeping, threatening to show up and mess up things.
The awareness that I had bedbugs in my ka-single room made me miss out on some precious opportunities. I remember once, a cute lady paid me a visit at my “magnificent dwelling” in Githurai. But the thought of her finding out about my bedbugs just killed the vibe. Who declares things in this country? Its time bedbugs were declared a national disaster.
We walk around with a chip on our shoulders. A cloud of doom. A perpetual war with our demons whose thirst cannot quenched. There is this impending catastrophe. That things will fall apart at some point. That the world will eventually see and judge us for who we truly are; misfits, outcasts and failures.
The other day, as we were having bedbug conversations, a friend confessed that he had a girlfriend who used to help him kill the bedbugs in his house. The girlfriend is his wife.
Life is life
Fabio