The end of money

I became conscious I was turning. But, where was I? I could hardly figure myself, let alone my surroundings. Consciousness, a phenomenon that, once rekindled, flows from an unknown point within oneself to fire up the rest of the body, was returning to its ceaseless marvel. Mine had just turned on, making me quickly aware of my body and that I was turning on my back.

My first instinctive action was to open my eyes, only to be met by pitch darkness. The scenario felt like the beginning of time - a blank mind, and in surroundings, I could not fathom. I shook my head, trying to jumpstart my mind, and continued turning. On facing the opposite side, I sensed an odd streak of light, which might as well have been from a distant heavenly body also coming into being. This Biblical moment of - let there be light - made me aware I was alive and functioning.

After that, my senses recollected quickly, and I became alert that I was in my bed. The odd streak was from security lighting, piercing through a chink between the curtain sheers. I was shaking and sweating profusely, my chest throbbing and my mind rife with scary scenes. I was waking up from a terrible nightmare that kept me disturbed for a long time.

The events in the dream had been vivid. They started with a group of strange people showing up at my house, which - only the dream knew why - was in Buru-Buru Estate in Nairobi. Six of them, all men, stood outside my door in an offensive formation. One in front and the other five in a curve around him. Beyond this group were a man and a woman holding a baby and a three-to-four-year-old child clinging onto her.

All these people appeared to be locals but very unusual beings. From the wizening on the face, I could tell the one in front was in the late sixties. He was slightly shorter than me, so I gathered he was about five feet and ten inches tall. He wore a tweed jacket, grey shirt and stencil trousers. The faded jacket and its weathered brow portrayed it had seen better days. But his attire left no doubt that he had once lived an expensive and tasteful life. 

The other five were filthy, their clothes in patches, making me conclude they had been sleeping rough. All wore oversized jackets stuffed with something that was nicely concealed. Three of them donned baseball caps whose brims faced backwards, while two had dreadlocks. The five stood motionless and in total silence, eyes brink-less, looking distant as though not connected to the present situation.

One of the two in dreads, the tallest of them all, stood slowly chewing in the middle of the formation. The green foam on the side of the mouth betrayed that it was miraa (khat) inside. The right hand was holding a Ndotono - a made-in Kikuyu-land wooden bludgeon whose head is so large that it matches the size of the head of a five-year-old. That was the man who kept sending chills down my spine.

Had I woken up from the dream at this point, I would have been left only with flashes of fear. But what was to come compounded to terror. That was because when he started speaking, the one in front, undoubtedly the group's leader, made it known we were in the middle of something big, a revolution of sorts. “My name is Habel Nduguya.” He introduced himself calmly without raising his voice. Then explained he was the head of the neighbourhood team, appointed to allocate properties to their rightful owners.

I started toying with the idea that they were doing public consultations by carrying out a census for the future allocation of new housing developments. But the way they looked and posed made that thought far-fetched. Then he dropped the bombshell: "I hope you've read that the use money has been proscribed and any present or past ownership based on purchase with money invalidated." "Communism!" I retorted, "that nonsense died a long time ago."

He just stood there unmoved without any reaction, which meant he was a very seasoned operator. I had been trying to figure out his background to size the danger before me all along, and the first clue came from how he spoke English: impeccably, pure British English with a mastery use of all the vowels in the Oxford language dictionary. It was unlike present-day Kenya, where English is spoken by stretching the five Kiswahili vowels. The Kenyan English dialect, as has turned out.

His speech unveiled a man who was well educated, an "A" student in his days, taught by British or British-educated teachers. He appeared to have retired ten-to-fifty years earlier from a just-above-middle-level civil service or company executive job. The type who did all the thinking, providing briefs to his politically-correct seniors to wallow in their glory. He could have acquired the tasteful attire while accompanying his seniors on numerous missions abroad.

The per-diems and the DSAs – Daily Subsistence Allowances - enabled him to shop at the Harrold's of London, the NKs of Stockholm and the Lafayette's of Paris. Such times must have provided a temporary high, making him feel he still played at the top. But with retirement, the occasional windfalls dried. With only a meagre pension, diluted over the years by inflation, he had now fallen to the bottom of the ladder, finding himself in the worst company. It looked like he now was leveraging on a new dispensation to bounce back from oblivion.

In my assessment, I thought he was one I could reason with to talk him out of any misconceptions I figured could have been brought about by the let-down in his life. I said to him in a lowered voice: "my brother, I understand your position; therefore, please understand mine too. I have worked very hard to earn the money I used to buy this house; therefore, I think the best way would be for people to sit down and determine an acceptable way to compensate everyone."

On hearing this, he turned and beckoned the man who stood with his family at the back to step forward. Then he said: "See this man. He spent two years labouring on this site when this house was built. Look at his blistered hands. Don't they bear enough witness to his claim of this house?" Then proceeded that that was the evidence now needed to declare ownership, for merely having used money was no longer valid. "What did you do to make us accept your claim?"

For a moment, I remained silent, conflicted between conjuring up an assertion and accepting the legitimacy of their authority. The pain of losing my house, which had taken twenty years to acquire, became overwhelming, and I busted out, "Get out of my premises, you bastards!" Then rushed to strike their leader.

In an almost synchronised motion, four team members swiftly drew knives, which they had concealed under their jackets. The tall dreadlocked man aimed the Ndotono at me and swung to strike, and I jerked to dodge the hit. The twitching woke me from the dream to find myself turning and sweating in my bed.