Patrick Kinene Gichuki

Kenya Ruiru campus

Living for the future

Life works in mysterious ways. Ways we cannot explain.

Life has its teeth, but if it’s not your turn to get bit, you’ll just have to continue living. Life was placing me in a corner. As a young lad trying to question my existence and even testing it with my own life through walking in the middle of the road with my eyes closed, I guess it wasn’t my time yet. “Keep on!,” said my mind. And so I did.

The next evening, while cooking my Githeri karanga, I could smell some smoke. To be sure that horrible smell wasn’t from my cooking, I turned off my gas, but the choking smell kept inviting itself in. Must be my neighbor cooking with his Jiko. I thought to myself as I went to his door to ask him. Reaching there, I found his house filled with smoke. Who knew the smoke was calling me to the rescue. The guy inside must’ve slept while cooking. We had to break the door to get him out. By God’s grace, he was alive. That’s when I learned that one’s life affects another’s.

If I had died the other day, he would have the next day.