Every evening at the last stage
Her final exams at university, his tiny daily Drops at her matatu stage, and a conductor who became extremely invested.
A story2 min read
For one whole month of finals, Mish’s life was exams, revision and a forty-minute matatu ride home from campus. Kevo couldn’t see her, because her mother had declared a state of emergency, and because he was, in her mother’s words, “a distraction with a haircut”.
So he left something at her stage every evening. Only for her, opening only there.
- Monday: a voice note of him doing her accounting formulas as a very bad rap.
- Tuesday: a photo of a goat that looked exactly like her statistics lecturer.
- Wednesday: “Ukimaliza tunaenda kula pizza. Promise.”
- Thursday: nothing, because he forgot, which he still hears about.
- Friday: an apology for Thursday, in the form of three more goat photos.
The conductor
By the second week, the conductor had noticed that the girl who got off at the last stage always stopped, looked at her phone and laughed. By the third week, he was slowing down before the stage “ili asikose”. By the fourth, he asked her directly: “Leo ni nini? Mbuzi tena?”
On the day of her last paper, the Drop at the stage was a video of Kevo holding a giant cardboard sign that said “UMEMALIZA!”. The whole matatu watched it over her shoulder. The conductor hooted twice, which on that route counts as a standing ovation.
They did go for pizza. Her mother came too. It was fine.
Made you want to go somewhere?
