A Stroke of Serendipity
Karino C. Emmanuel

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It begins when the matatu slows down to take the sting out of yet another speed bump, when he, yanked from the pit of his seat and its attendant laxity, tightens his grip around the bag, making himself realize, much to his chagrin, that to hold onto a lost thing is to remember, except that this time around he doesn’t scoot back to sink in his seat and taper himself off into oblivion, but instead leans further forward towards the windshield, so that the smooth stretch of the journey on its other side unfolds right before him, drawing his attention to what, shimmering at the far end, looks like a pool of water, in whose depths, if only to bridge time and space so he can get this over with once and for all, he sees himself reaching for the urn, then slowly, while quietly willing her into a phoenix, brings it to his trembling lips, on which he imagines hers so tightly pursed that when he withdraws to upend it, like a plunger suddenly pulled off a clogged drain, his bottled up emotions are at last relieved.

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Karino C. Emmanuel is a Kenyan writer. His work, sometimes under KC Manuel, has appeared or is forthcoming on The Kalahari Review, Kreative Diadem, Praxis Magazine, Terror House Magazine, Flip Screen, Cataloguing Poetry Magazine, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, and elsewhere.