The Compiler has been sure good to us, been a good life so I say thanks. Things I can’t forget.

I grew up well, early years real poor, but time goes and bad shit happens all the time. We grew up eating two types of meals on a daily basis for many years. On a bad day, we ate githeri. On a good day we ate ugali and the chaser was well sukumawiki or cabbages. Every single fucking day. So understand me, where I come from, when I struggle to get paid, and someone comes between me and mine, I’m doing the time, cause its going to be a crime.

A play date for us involved herding cows and the height of the year was when my grandfather took us to the cattle dip to watch the cattle get treated. That was the only time we ever got to see so much water in one place outside of a bucket. Then we got another car, we got tires, minus the rim and add water and sticks, and you were the shit right there. Grandpa shed the wisdom underneath the sun, and like the raindrops, it got soaked into us like the torn shorts sponged up the storm. I became him, not just in name.

We ate chapos once a year, for Easter, cause my cucu made them and everyone got first half a chapo and later, one chapo, so understand this, till today, I got a weakness for them things. Then ‘84 drought passed and we ate chapos twice a year, Easter and Christmas, then it became one of those where we dished them on holidays. We lived it then. We live it now. Just see chapos a whole lot more often.

We couldn’t afford to have pets cause we couldn’t afford to feed them. And honestly, which normal dog do you think would be happy eating githeri leftovers everyday? And we ate everything, so the dog might live on licking the sufuria? Later we got cats, then my dad made them “go away permanently” when they stopped appreciating githeri every day and instead started appreciating making kittens more. RIP kitties, but dad was taking care of the home team first. Now Winter is choosy about what shit he eats, does not eat boiled meat. WTF?

Then we moved, moved on, grew up, started carrying bread for break to school, dad made us go to a school in Nairobi, we were the shit then, then we got the 505 with the sunroof, and u know right there shit was tight, everyone in ocha wanted to see this, we went to Mombasa by plane on our first holiday, saw our first white people, came back and shit was on. I am still amazed by the sea and would like to live next to it someday. I’m working real hard on that master plan.

School introduced me to my first computer, which had 8 keys, then Unix, then Windows 1 and then dad brought up the first PC, an IBM 486 DX2 100 and I wrote my first program, a boot sector virus in Basic and next thing you know, I’m fucking with Cobol and Fortran, then DBASE and Pascal and I was the big shit right there. Back then computers wasn’t nothing, there was no money in them, now, we are trying to make a billion off the keys.

Then we chased skirt, fell in love, told wonderful lies of how we would always be together, wish I knew how fast ass moves along, and the first new ass became the last bad ass, we were writing silly letters and fake ass poems about how the next time would be the best time, and how babies would never come, so they lay with us, and we pretended to pull it out, thank God they invented rubbers, cause a nigger came short of having a million baby mothers, or a million other worse things that could happen. Like the vision of the future, the two princess are a minute away and I know for a second that……..

The rest is a story I tell when I get high or drunk.

Dear Compiler, you have seen me through a lot this year, a couple of forced vacations, uncertain futures, I lost her, got girls, lost them, made new friends, lost old ones, got a whole shit load of enemies, and I fucking dare them to come up against me, a lot of things You give me I waste, or take for granted, and forget to say thank you, but here we are, and I say for this one, thanks. I promise to appreciate more, swear less, and find her and make her wifey cause I know your inbox must be full of mum’s prayers. Thank you for everything. Thank you for giving us this day. Keep us from straying. Thank you for sending your Son to come take the load we created and still create, we should know better. Thank you.