'Them Freckles'

Mr. Omondi, the interrogator on duty, otherwise known as Omosh by his fellow work mates, could feel the cold, hard dew drop on the table in that small windowless room, in that cold lifeless morning. He hadn’t anticipated such an early call to work that day, but the nature of the case on the spotlight made him rouse himself from slumber, quickly wear yesterday’s clothes and leave his house without so much as glancing towards the shower or at his toothbrush. It was still really early but with a job like his, it sometimes became difficult to distinguish the earliness and lateness that comes with a normal daytime job and fixed working hours. Mr. Omondi was juggling a coin in between his fingers, moving it quickly, as his fingers struggled to catch up. Meanwhile his gaze was intently at his hand, as if he had put himself into his own trance.

The observer to Mr. Omondi’s movements looked from the other side of the table with hand cuffs to his hands. The police had just brought him in. He was a man in his early thirties or late twenties, judging from his rugged-looking face with stained teeth and an unkempt beard. His strands of hair that hung from his scalp were filled with dust and some of them had fallen off leaving some patches of skin peeping from his head. His torn t-shirt exposed his tight and delicately split biceps that probably came out of several years of tangles and struggles with life in the darkness of the streets.

Before every interrogation, Mr. Omondi used to recall his memories of how he used to convince his sister to do something for him. His sister, Mimi who was a few years older than him and who occasionally brought him sweets and chocolate whenever she was sent to the shops. So, whenever his sister didn’t bring him anything, he would hide behind the seats in their little house, and wait for his sister to appear and get into his range. In his hand he would wield a rubber band and in his pockets, he had kept several pieces of twisted paper. He would wait and wait until she came close enough for him to hit her but not too close for his breathing to give him away. In this way, only one strike would be lethal. Like a bow and an arrow, he would place the piece of paper on the rubber band and aim it at her temple, where it would be the most painful. Omosh remembers the one time when it really got out of hand that her sister chased her, out of the house, and into the streets until Omosh disappeared out of view. He remembers clearly that that night, he hadn’t eaten supper because he couldn’t enter the house. If he dared to step in, he knew clearly that his sister would slap the guts out of him. So, he watched from the window as his sister ate the piece of chicken in enjoyment while she showed it to him. Omosh salivated outside, begging his sister for forgiveness because he madly wanted a taste of the delicious looking fried chicken. It was a funny memory now that he remembered it

“So Mr. Apolo, why did you attack the man?” Omosh asks asd Apolo looks down. As if he is trying to recall properly why he did what he did. Yesterday, as the darkness grew into the night, Apolo was with his neighbourhood gang, laughing off loudly… That’s all he remembered doing, before something overtook his will…