For decades, Mr Kigati the rubbish collector at our school, looked like he was close to the end of his long life but he never crossed the finish line. People who had long graduated from the school and were now middle-aged women with grandchildren expressed shock when they visited the school and found him still alive. Legend had it that his grandmother, who was a witch, had mumbled some words and then spat in his face right before her death. Nobody knew the correlation between Mr Kigati’s grandmother’s spiteful act and his longevity. We wanted to ask him for clarity. It didn’t even occur to us that it was incredibly impolite to him to explain his immortality. In fact, the only thing that stopped us was that Mr Kigati was now a scary man. Some features had engulfed his old body and made him look otherworldly. Long elaborate grey whiskers hang out of his nostrils and ears. The wind blew them east and west as he walked. From a distance, it seemed as though he was exuding smoke. His backbone shaped itself into a semi-circle. His sagging skin was grey and full of scales. His feet were flat and webbed. To us, he was a vivid example of the fact that human beings have an expiry date. Mr Kigati tried many times to attract death’s attention. First, he locked himself up in his house, hell-bent on starving to death. A few days later, a hungry snake found its way into his house and as soon as he saw it, he took to his heels. It was surprising behaviour for a man who wanted to die. But maybe he didn’t run out of fear. Maybe he was being considerate to the snake. Maybe he thought it unfair to feed the snake on his bony structure. Next, he tried to drown. He sought out the school’s fish pond and dipped himself in it. After a few gallops of the happy combination of water, mud and fish excrement, he remembered how to swim. Mr Kigati’s last suicide attempt involved electrocution. He stood in the rain with a metallic magnetic rod to attract lightning. Lightning struck him, but because death had rejected the man, he stayed alive. However, the lightning left him neurologically damaged. He now walked around involuntarily shaking his head. As if he disproved of all the ways of the earthlings. Eventually, Mr Kigati concluded that death was too stupid to understand the meaning of his gestures. That it (death), was like those girls that you take on dates, pay their bills, buy them expensive gadgets and then they turn around and call you a good friend. Of course, he didn’t explain the situation in those exact words on the day he stood before us and said that he had finally decided to embrace his immortality. From the day of his confession, he became a happy-go-lucky guy. You could count on him for a smile. All his front teeth were gone of course. His wide and toothless smile made you instinctively want to count your front teeth with your tongue. It haunted you for days.
