Sixty years, six stops
Three siblings made their dad a Trail through his own life. He cried at stop two. He will deny this.
A story2 min read
Mzee does not like fuss. For his sixtieth, he asked for “nothing, just come for lunch”. His three children took this as a challenge.
They made him a Trail. Six stops across the city, each one a place from his life, each one opening only when he got there, and each one leading to the next.
The stops
- The bus stage where he caught the matatu to his first job in 1988. A photo of him at 22, in a suit that was mostly shoulder pads.
- The stadium, where he took all three kids to their first football match. A voice note from each of them. (This is where he cried. He says it was the wind.)
- The café where he met their mother. She recorded something. They didn’t listen to it first. It’s none of their business.
- The hardware shop he has visited every Saturday for thirty years, for reasons nobody understands. The owner had agreed to hand him a small wrapped screwdriver.
- The field where he taught all three of them to ride a bicycle, badly, one Easter.
- Lunch at his favourite nyama choma place, where everyone was waiting.
At stop four, the shop owner handed over the screwdriver with great ceremony. Mzee turned it over, said “This is a good screwdriver,” and put it in his pocket. It was the most emotional anyone had ever seen him.
At lunch, he stood up to make a speech. It was nine words long: “Thank you. I’m fine. Who took the photo with the shoulder pads?”
Made you want to go somewhere?
