FICTION : Polygonal Revealed

Walking down the isle, Kamindo and Juliana walked majestically hand in hand to the dais where they were to make their marriage vows. The gown Juliana wore was outstanding. Kamindo had his suit imported from France specifically for this special day. There was pomp and colour and the air was full of excitement. Women and children were clamouring at top of their voices with unprecedented ecstasy. Decorations of all sorts were made on literally everything to mark the big day. The vicar led the two young couples in making the marriage vows and as it is the tradition, they both said “yes I do”. After the vow, their mouth to mouth kiss brought the whole hall into exhilaration which could be heard miles away from the venue of the ceremony. At the end of the day, the entire hullabaloo over, the ceremony ended and the just married couple flew to Zanzibar for honeymoon. They came back to Kigali after two weeks and life returned to business as usual. The first year was a bed of roses and indeed to crown it all they got a bouncing baby boy. Kamindo was a businessman and he used to travel a lot. He was an engineer at a bulk oil pipeline company and his work entailed monitoring the pipe network across the country. His frequent travelling did not bother the two. His nature of work demanded that he be out most of the time. They were as it is said happily married if at all there is anything like that in the world! Kamindo being out of home most of the time and spending nights in motels, he used to amalgamate with people of all walks of life. He met with academicians, philosophers, doctors, tourists and people of different calibres with diversity of beliefs. Most of his pals had mistresses out there but being a good Christian as he was, Kamindo didn’t see the need of being like them. One afternoon after a hard day’s work, Kamindo went to his motel, removed his oily apron, had a cold shower and relaxed on his couch. He picked a novel titled ‘Veronica decides to die’ written by Paulo Coelho. It had been given to him the previous day by his room attendant. He flipped some pages to get where he had left reading the night before when his cell phone rang. “Come and get a cold beer on me. There is something interesting I want to share with you.” His buddy called him to a nearby tavern. He felt weary and wanted to relax but he was unable to resist the temptation of having a free cold beer from his friend. Besides there was some interesting information his buddy had to share with him. He gathered his weary body from the couch and trekked to the pub. He entered the pub and what he saw struck him with awe. “Kamindo, please, come right over here. I need to do some introduction.” Mr. Matilu gestured him to where he was seated with a young beautiful lass not far from the entrance. Kamindo was surprised because he had never seen his friend Matilu with another woman while on field work. “Meet my mistress madam Nicole.” Kamindo was mesmerized by the turn of events. He sat down and Matilu made good of his promise by ordering for him a cold one. “There is no need to pretend to you my long good friend and that is exactly why I decided to let you know some of my little secrets,” Matilu said. Kamindo had for all this time remained silent not knowing what to say. “Our fathers married several wives and it was common. In the holy books it was a common practice to have numerous wives. Now, tell me, what makes this un-common in today’s world? Besides, women outnumber men by far. If one is to one then, where will the rest go?” Matilu quipped. They continued chatting with Matilu dominating in the conversation. That night Kamindo had a thoughtful night. The conversation he had with his friend Matilu was mind boggling, in addition, the novel he was reading was mind provocative. “Bill Clinton, Jacob Zuma, King Solomon and many others all fall under this category,” Kamindo thought to himself. In all the different stations he had been, he would have the urge of having intimate relationships with women folk he interacted with but he used to suppress the temptation. Kamindo after some serious and thorough contemplation, resolved to be free like his friend Matilu. The first contact he made was with that room attendant by the name Nicole who had given him that wonderful novel. She became his first concubine. The trend continued and in the end Kamindo ended up having three different concubines in three different locations. None of the concubines knew each other but each had the information that their man was married. And to his surprise, they were all contented with that. While in the cause of duty, Kamindo had a terrible accident and kicked the bucket. It is at the burial where his secret livelihood was exposed. The family members were astonished to see different ladies crying their hearts out for the demise of their departed ‘husband’. It was an ugly scene which left the people wondering. Why not legalize polygamy. Why hide what will later reveal itself? “Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.” -Albert Einstein skangongoi@yahoo.com