CELINE TASTES HER OWN MEDICINE

After a long while of absence, Rose and Celine again reappeared within the vicinity of Ngong' hostel, and were advancing, somewhat ungainly, towards its entrance. Even from afar, they obviously expended not a care in their manner of walking as was regular with their habits. 

Panting and sweating, their sweat-sodden tops sticking stubbornly to the straight of their youthful backs, the pair lackadaisically crossed the slabbed compound and onto the threshold. Underneath their clothing, Celine and Rose,--especially Celine who always engaged so much activity in her walk--, were awash in dribbles of sticky perspirations. 

Mounting the last stair onto the second floor, they had now only to turn left and pass by a couple doors to reach their room, room 247. Once inside, they halted at last and effected such an exchange of consensual glances which told it all: So much for a pedestrian spree!  

Walking in the sun for the whole mileage, to and from Githurai back to the campus, had affected them differently. Celine, being in possession of the most sensitive of natures and having the most vigorous of walking attitude, felt the effect more acutely. She squirmed and made such long faces as if in so doing she lessened the feverish sensations which prevailed all over her body, and especially on her brow. 

"I'd better go run some cold water on my face, it's burning," Celine adjourned wisely, not applying much effort to her utterance as if the activity would have given her away or that she little trusted herself to keep her inner euphoria bottled up. The prank had to be kept as unpredictable as her face was readable, after all. "By-the-by, do release my handbag of its contents, it's too full, I'm afraid," She added from the corridor, chuckling amusedly. And wth that simple request Celine set the wheel of her masterpiece in motion. 

Perplexed at Celine's amused attitude, Rose dropped onto her bed with a face which expressed a confusion of amusement and exhaustion. She stretched out on the bed with her dusty feet dangling off the edge and shut her eyes for a moment. She drew one heavy breath after another, and willed herself into relaxation. 

Now that was a shopping spree! She smiled at the thought, more so at their daring attitude to even consider venturing out with only a couple hundred shillings in their pockets. She smirked broadly; of how the handbags came to be full she possessed no conscious recollection. 

After a moment, she heard Celine's steps again in the corridor and just then recalled of her earlier request to relieve the bags. Rose then drew the bags to her, unzipped them and spewed their contents in no particular manner, one after the other, on the flat of the bed. Articles of all sorts fell out altogether and lay strewn all over: some on their sides, others on their backs and, yet still, a few on their tops. 

At that instant, Celine opened the door and joined her roommate, by the bed, in contemplating the messy heap. They surveyed their money's worth on the bed, sighed with satisfaction and set about arranging the articles. 

Celine was now almost holding her breath in raw anticipation as her eyes went slightly out of focus in attentive delight. She couldn't risk discovery, however, and so she tugged down the corners of her mouth as best as she could in feigned disinterest.

"I didn't see you buy this,"Rose chimed with a sly almost bemused look, holding up a box of saliva based pregnancy test kit. 

"Oh that! Fanciful, isn't it?"

"Ha-ha, okay, I give you that. But it must have been quite costly, no?"

"Sure it was, but, as you can imagine, I drove a hard bargain. Besides, at least now we don't have go to the loo any longer, if you know my meaning."

"Oh that! sure thing. As to your habits, well, of those I'm well acquainted," Rose flashed her friend a toothy smile," and, anyway, it's not like I'm a fan of loos either. Things get real clumsy there; perhaps I should try this, what do you think?" 

That said, (and smirking at Celine whose eyes, now goggling, rolled over ever so knowingly) Rose wasted no time in waiting some wise rejoinder from her friend. She proceeded to open the blue coloured box and selected a test kit.

This was too much. Celine was practically bubbling with detained laughter. The anticipation of it was killing her.

"Oh don't worry, dear; I'm pregnant alright." Rose beamed jokingly, misjudging the cause of Celine's jovial agitations, and then dipped the kit's tip into her mouth while holding its end between the thumb and index of her right hand.

Still jesting, she removed the strip from her mouth with such accurate dramatization of enigma that Celine mistook it for her long-awaited cue of triumph. She burst out laughing.

However, one more look at the kit--at its colour change-- and Rose's countenance suddenly turned sour. The light-heartedness dried away and she halted in mid-action, halfway in the production of yet another comical puppetry with her body as the object. Whatever jocose occupation that had held her attentions was now totally neglected as her disposition was thrown into confusion. For a moment she possessed the stillness and outward calm of a statue, and the only moving facility were her disbelieving eyes.

Rose was at this instant oblivious to Celine's presence, let alone her bursts of laughter.

However, before a minute more was over her head, it dawned on Celine that she was losing control of the events: Rose's reactions were of a sort she never foresaw. Nonetheless she still managed to relax a little, after all there was nothing to worry about, or so she thought.

Meanwhile, regaining the use of her limbs, Rose bolted upright to the fullest of her height. The bleak lighting in their room indeed left much to be desired. She craved clarity and struggled confusedly with indecision for the manner in which to quickly gain a handle on her present circumstance.

Acting on impulse, she made a slight turn on the balls of her feet in consequence of which she found herself by the window. She threw the velvety curtains aside, and (there, at this place of vantage) exposed the test kit to the sunlight. 

Outside, it was already evening, and the sun, midway through the last quarter of its daily course, fast declining over the western horizon, shed exceedingly waning rays by the hour. Nevertheless, all the while, in the immense curve of the campus sky, dark clouds were slowly gathering, driven thus by the westward winds which prevailed such sweet rain odours.  

Rose however attended none of these happenings; her attentions were altogether occupied in the effort to make sense of the colour change at which she squinted ceaselessly in disbelief. And at any rate, so disposed, the gentle touch of the evening rays, pouring in through the window, set alight her outward appearance in a golden glow; as the breeze which sifted through the shutters floated the thin of her hair in wavy motions about her head. 

"Am I with child, or merely attending some illusion which would soon prove itself no more than just that? Or was the kit, after all, faulty from the start by some sly design?" In such and so on a manner, in loud expressions of her thoughts, Rose interrogated herself.

And so, seeking of proof to support her belief, she gazed on at the colour change in the vain anticipation that it would soon prevail negative, as she knew it ought be. All the while, in her mind, she grappled with the possibility of her situation being an impression of reality. But that was absurd. She couldn't be with child. It was not possible.

Rose was undoubtedly in shock as, under her, her feet buckled and almost gave way. Standing was now proving to be beyond her powers. And she struggled to attain it; and more so to maintain her balance. However, incomprehensibly, this effort only made things worse. It was as if she no longer possessed the fortitude to subscribe to simultaneous mental tasks. One invariably took off from the other. So she couldn't stand still and think at the same time for in this manner of continuance lay an inevitable breakdown. 

She therefore took a few clumsy backward steps, as if to make an escape, only to be stopped in her tracks by the edge of a bed which connected so fiercely with the back of her knees that she yielded and woodenly dropped backwards onto the bed with her hands splayed all about her.

She then arranged herself into the pose of a foetus: she hugged her knees in a tight contortion of the back as her hands hang loose at her sides in a semblance of oars as if to aid her in sailing the storm which presently enveloped her. While this pose profited her with some repose it occasioned no further detention of her tears. And she sobbed freely.

And suddenly, on account of her veil of tears, the room was too narrow for her. Her bearing, too, accordingly shifted into overlapping exhibitions of hallucinations and reality. The wall at the farthest end of the room advanced upon her figure. And in consequence, she cringed even more forcefully into her foetal attitude as if to reach out for some misplaced solace deep within her person. She couldn't take it any longer.

With a suddenness which staggered Celine into momentary surprise from which she struggled to again sufficiently recollect her wits about her, Rose stormed out of the room. 

Celine had, all the while, wisely stayed out of Rose's way and waited impatiently for her to calm down a little to permit the hearing of her confession. However, Rose's storming out of the room put all that on hold as she scampered after her friend in fearful concern and in more worry than Rose presently reserved for herself.

Only then did Celine recall of the winding staircase as if the knowledge had all this while kept out of her consciousness till this moment by design and just to add to her tortures. And with the recollection of the stairs came a dozen horrors of imaginations as she attended, in her mind's eye, the body of Rose tumbling and bouncing off the abyss of stairs into such obscene fatal disfigurement! Close to tears, she fought off these premonitions in vain. Again and again they came at her and with so much vehemence.

In her view, the only viable atonement was more than mere confession. But first she had to catch up with Rose and prevent her before she reached the staircase.

Consequently, Celine charged full speed after Rose, but only ended up going as far as the top stair and not an inch farther. Rose had beaten her to it and was bounding downward with no sense whatsoever of the layout!

Celine looked on, helpless, long before it became clear to her that closing the eyes was also an open option to her. And, in as much as she tried to shut her eyes, she arrived short every time at effecting it. So she remained, goggle-eyed, as the balls of her surprised eyes rolled over again and again, uncomprehending, in the free space of their sockets. 

The scene floated before her in a sickening slow motion as it loomed in and out of focus, in flashes of misshapen contortions of reality. Just then a mournful rumble (No-o-o!) escaped Celine's worked up mouth; and with that effortful expression she keeled over onto her knees. 

What more could she do but look on resignedly. She watched with becoming dread as Rose bounded over the stairs in a downward lurch, taking two at a go in her frantic strides. And then, on a sudden as if in a dream, somewhere in the middle, Rose's figure seemed to halt! It even turned around! This couldn't be! She watched, still helpless and on her knees, as Rose remounted the stairs, grinning broadly: "Feels nice to prank the prankster,(mmh it feels real nice!)"