Theories of the Cracked Lip

So my lips have finally healed. You might be wondering how that affects you. Well it doesn’t. Maybe it does. But you just have to be in my shoes to understand that a swollen lip generates more attention than a terror alert. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little bit. The lips is among the most conspicuous places to have a defect albeit temporarily. Everybody notices and seeks to ask you what happened, how you feel, if it is painful etc. Of course it is painful! Just for the record I have no problem against people showing concern when a tragedy befalls a comrade, but it gets cliché to explain to every acquaintance, friends, random people on the streets what circumstances led to a sagging lip. How long it will take to heal, whether I can still kiss or eat comfortably.

Everybody has some wild theory that they think would suffice. The ex girlfriends would for obvious reasons want to believe that I was bitten by an overzealous inexperienced new lover who thinks kissing is a battle of teeth. With a feigned concern they then will inwardly say, ‘serves him right’.

The religious friends would want to believe that I ingested too much of the COOH group and in my stupor rushed forward to head butt the ground with a little help from gravity. Their theory is of course supported by the fact that my fingers and leg are covered with bruises and sores and my skin cover is as smooth as of a person with scabies. Maybe they will use ‘my story’ as an anecdote before they start their next summons condemning the ways of the youth and just how alcohol and drugs are vanity. You know how it is with preachers, they are divine gossips. For the record, I have no problem when my story is used to motivate and uplift others. It’s just that I have a reputation to protect. 

Johende would of course propel the story that I got in a fist fight while fighting over a lass and somebody finally showed me my place. It’s Johende good people, she is allowed to say anything. Now Johende is a friend of mine who sells, shirts, vests, handa etc. Handa is just a polite word in my language that refers to boxers, pants, G strings and things like that. Johende is thus a person who deals with issues hende. Well apart from her part time jobs of studying public health and selling inner wears, her main job is stirring controversies and arguments. She’s the kind of person who doesn’t have an opinion until she hears yours and immediately realizes it’s fatally flawed. She has a strong gift of garb and strong business acumen. She’s the kind of person who can sweet talk you into buying a necklace labeled Fauzia for future use if/when you get a girl called so. It doesn’t matter that the kind of Kiswahili you know is just sufficient to say I’m thirsty or it’s hot and not sufficient to mount a serious suit. She isn’t the kind of person to just leave a nigga hanging. As part of her after sales services she would give you some pointers and Swahili pickup lines….

Buibui lako la meremeta kama parapanda za Zayuni

That’s Johende for you. I hope she isn’t reading this. I wouldn’t want to get a fresh lip injury just a few days after sneaking food in lest the sores in the lips feel the taste and scream.

Sorry I got off topic, I just wouldn’t want you to continue living without knowing people.

Forget about all those theories that are being peddled by people who want to bring me down politically. The truth is that I was hit by a cork. Okay, stop squirming in your seat. Not that cork, that’s for the Binyavanga’s, I mean a hockey cork. It’s what in football you people call ball. I don’t understand why all this sports equipment and paraphernalia have to have names with a sexual overtones….balls, shoot, D, score, corks, sticks etc. Maybe the ideas for this games were conceived when people were doing you know what. Maybe I’m just a pervert. 

And why you would one still play hockey when it is that obvious it is that a dangerous sport. You see hockey is not dangerous; it can just be harmful at times. I swear that sounded better in my head. You may just lose your entire dental formula, an eye or both, or even your treasured balls. That’s why if you can’t store your seeds in some laboratory it is probably a wise investment to join the Fathers Union of Kenyatta University now lest your lineage die with you. 

There can never be another explanation for continued engagement with the sport apart from consuming passion. It is like those KDF soldiers who put their lives on the line each day in the warfronts of Mogadishu to defend our territorial sovereignty. Once again that’s another inappropriate comparison, but you get it.

I have a strong feeling this could be my sports year. With four rounds of matches to go and sitting at the helm of the Kenya national Hockey league, I can almost see the Vultures lifting the cup and going doing the annals of history .I know anything can happen in the world of sports but even while taking caution not to jinx the moment; that would be the perfect way to crown my university sports career. So for just this two months, I will bear your theories of broken lips and bruised skins, I will give my all for my team and for myself. For just these two months I will marry my hockey and hope it gets pregnant with medals.

Sometimes you forget how it is like to be whole, not to have a single scar on your body, not to have a cut. Sometimes you don’t remember the last time you could comfortably deep your fingers in a bowl of hot soup and not feel the biting sting of salt on a bruise. But yet every weekend, every match day you still line up to defend your pride, your ego, your team, your basic desire for winnings.

That’s sports for you. That’s passion for you. That’s adrenaline. That’s hunger. That’s desire.