Meditations of Pilipo the Existentialist

ANGST

MEDITATIONS OF PILIPO—THE EXISTENTIALIST MAN

A novella by

Godiah Rocky Imbukuleh

Chapter One

You have your truths, I have my truths—as for the only or absolute truth; it doesn't exist. (Nietzsche)

It was on a Thursday afternoon when I began to realise just how fuzzy my knowledge of him was. I was on a two weeks' leave from work and had just finished preparing my lunch. I was about to sit down to watch a movie on the laptop when my phone rang. I switched on the laptop, placed a plate of fried githeri on the table and then picked the call. It was Wakachala calling. It had been about seven months since the incident and we had not met since that time. I was living in Bungoma now and Wakachala was working and living with his family in Nairobi.

"Hey man," he had begun.

"Hey; how is the going?"

"I am great and so is Ruth. She has recovered from what happened." I remembered Ruth and smiled. She must be a tough woman to live with what happened, I thought but did not tell him.

"Listen man; have you talked to Pilipo recently?"

"No."

"When was the last time?" Wakachala asked. I could not remember. I had tried to call him a few times after the incident but he was out of reach.

"No. I guess since the incident. Have you?" I asked curious to know. I missed Pilipo somehow; he was arguably the most interesting man I had ever met.

"No." Wakachala said. There was prolonged silence on the line then he said:

"Have you watched news recently?" I had not for almost a week.

"No."

"Man; Pilipo is a terrorist; maybe not the Pilipo we know or knew but some guy with a similar name. He is on the FBI most wanted list. Check it out on YouTube or internet news channels."

"What!" I was really surprised.

"I got to go," he muttered, "Be careful and talk later."

I quickly connected my laptop to the Safaricom network and launched the Mozilla browser. I flipped through Kenyan News channels on You Tube and found the story on KTN then on Citizen and all other channels. I went to Google search and the story was on Al-jazeera, MSNBC, Sky News and even Fox news. There was no picture of him but intelligence reports had captured the name and that he was the brains behind the recent explosions in Nairobi. The target had been the parliament but no one had died. It seemed the timing had been wrong and someone had alerted the people working there in time to escape to safety including the sixty members of the Kenyan parliament. That had been in February—three months before.

The following day I went to Lugulu Girls where we knew he worked to trace his whereabouts. The school lay on the Webuye—Kitale highway and I had little trouble locating it. I was ushered into the deputy principal's office by the gateman and settled on a rather cosy chair in front of her desk.

"How can I help you?" A good looking middle-aged woman asked me politely.

"I need any information on the whereabouts of a teacher who supposedly teaches here," I muttered. She sat up straight and eyed me for a while.

"Which teacher?"

"I only knew him by one name—Pilipo," I said.

"Who?"

"Pilipo."

"Philipo! Like Philip?"

"Yeah; a brawny, tall, dark and jovial man?" I could sense already that she had no idea.