29/03/2025
Maurice had become part of the furniture at Mama Pima’s drinking joint. For ten years, he had scrubbed floors, split firewood, and run errands in exchange for cups of chang’aa and mugs of busaa. His home was a rickety wooden bench in the corner, and his closest friends were fellow drunks who shared in his misery and laughter.
On this particular evening, the joint was alive with the usual chaos—raucous laughter, the clinking of calabashes, and the occasional drunken argument. Maurice, shirtless and staggering, was in the middle of a heated fight with Kizito, another regular. The cause? A half-finished gourd of busaa that both claimed as theirs.
"You think you can drink for free every day, Maurice?" Kizito barked, grabbing the gourd.
"And who are you to lecture me?" Maurice slurred, trying to sn**ch it back.
A few slaps were exchanged, a stool overturned, and a cheering crowd formed around them, some egging them on, others too drunk to care.
Then, a sudden silence.
A black SUV had pulled up outside the drinking den, an unusual sight in the area. Three men in crisp suits stepped out, followed by a well-dressed woman and a younger man in an official-looking badge clipped to his coat pocket.
"Excuse me," the young man said, his voice full of restrained emotion. "We are looking for Maurice... Maurice Ochieng."
Mama Pima pointed with her lips toward the brawling pair. "That one, fighting over busaa."
The young man stared in disbelief. "Baba?"
Maurice, momentarily forgetting his fight, turned to face the group. He squinted, trying to focus through his drunken haze. His son's face had changed over the years, but the resemblance was unmistakable.
"Kevin?" he whispered.
Kevin, now a senior county employee, had spent years searching for his father. After he had abandoned them, his family had suffered, but they had risen above it. His mother had worked tirelessly, and he had studied hard, eventually securing a prestigious job. Now, after a decade, they had finally tracked him down.
Maurice’s wife, standing beside Kevin, covered her mouth in shock. His other children, now grown, stared at the disheveled man before them—the father they had once loved, now a shadow of himself.
Maurice staggered back, suddenly aware of his tattered clothes, his unkempt hair, and the smell of chang’aa clinging to him. He tried to speak, but shame strangled his words.
Kevin took a deep breath. "Baba, it's time to come home."
The drinking joint was dead silent. Even Kizito, still clutching the busaa, watched with wide eyes.
Maurice looked at the faces of his family. He saw pain, disappointment… but also something else. A glimmer of hope.
He looked back at the drunken crowd, at the life he had lived for ten years, and then back at the son who had become a man without him.
Tears welled in his eyes. He had left his family to drown in alcohol. Would they really forgive him?
He took a deep breath. And for the first time in a decade, he uttered the words that mattered most.
"I'm ready".