There’s this lady at the library. She has a fair complexion and is wearing a white oversize blouse. She also has this cornrow hairstyle designed perfectly to carry a 20 liter jerrycan or a basket of maize on the head.

I’m furiously trying to clock in 15 pages in one hour but the last three hours have not been a success. My phone is on mute but I keep on lifting it to see if there’s any calls or emails and if I find a missed call i step out to return it. So it’s not a surprise that I’ve been doing an average of 8 pages an hour. But now I have decided to throw my phone in my laptop bag and get my focus on.

I pick up my pace and I am happy with my speed. Finally, I may just wind up reading Equities today. But something terrible happens. Suddenly, I hear some humming coming from my right side and immediately turn to look. It stops as fast as it started. I must have imagined it. Back to my books and barely a minute later, the humming is back. I am cocksure it’s coming from my right, a few meters from where I seat. I turn again to try to identify the source but the humming stops.

This cannot be real. If someone woke up with the intention of playing pranks in the library, they chose the wrong day. I am going through a melange of emotions and would gladly take them out on anyone who crosses my path.

Two desks away is a slender lady in black whose concentration level i need to borrow as she is totally engrossed in her reading, clearly oblivious to the humming. But two desks from her is the lady who probably carried a jerrycan of water to the library on her head. She has white earphones stuck in her ears and she’s scrolling through her phone. She definitely is the culprit. I have had enough of her games, so I hold my gaze at her direction. As you would imagine, the humming does not resurface.

I give up and turn back to my laptop and immediately she’s back at it, humming away. This time even louder. I turn my head so fast and catch her in the act. She’s staring at her screen and nodding her head while humming. I can’t get her attention as she’s four stations away and lady in black who is nearer to both of us is so consumed in her reading she may as well get married to her books.

Consumed with unimaginable rage, I throw my Bic sharp-pointed pen towards her and it lands square on her head, like darts on a board. She pretends to be startled, pulls off her ear phones and with an irate expression, looks at me like I have lost my mind then proceeds to ask ” What is the matter with you?”

To which I respond “Did you really have to come to the library to sing? Couldn’t you just have kept it at the shower or was the water not enough to last through your entire recording session?!”

Ok, I have lied. That’s what I wanted to tell her but I held back and told her that we could all hear her humming and it was distracting us. At this point other library users have also had it (except lady in black) and they also interject, one of them saying “yeah, your singing is distracting us”. They had to wait for an activist  (yours truly) to lead the way then they join in. Kenyans need to learn to fight for their rights.

The aspiring musician apologizes profusely, picks up my pen from the floor where it landed and brings it to my desk. I say nothing to her because obviously her apology is so crocodilan. Did she really not realize she was singing loudly? In a library?

I get back to my books, but not before writing about that whole fiasco! 15 pages an hour is still a rumor!