The D Student Is Feasting. The A Student Is Job Hunting.
The CV folder is starting to fold at the corners. Thirty copies inside, though you stopped counting after interview number twenty-three.
Today, it’s in your lap bag as you cut through Rubis Hurlingham, avoiding Ngong Road because people who know you might see you and judge you for not having matatu fare.
That’s when you see him.
He’s filling up a KDH TX Land Cruiser, the kind that looks diplomatic even when it’s not. It takes you a second to place him. Form Four. He got a D minus. You got a B plus. Back then, that meant everything.
He sees you first.
“Bro! Nice to see you bana, how are you?”
After results day, he disappeared. No university, no clear plan. Just gone.
You took the HELB loan, endured four years of lectures at JKUAT, graduated with honors and that leather folder. You thought you’d won.
“Niko tu,” you respond.
He’s gained weight, the good kind. The kind that comes from eating without checking your M-Pesa balance first.
“Unafanya nini siku hizi?” he asks, his Kikuyu accent heavier than you remember.
“Kujituma tu,” you manage, voice a little too high.
He nods like he understands, though you can tell he doesn’t remember being the one everyone pitied.
“Hapa Nairobi ni kukazana. Lakini itakuwa sawa.”
The attendant finishes. He pays in cash.
“Usinyamaze sana, nipigie.”
He won’t. You both know it.
You watch the Cruiser pull off. There’s a company logo on the door. His name.
That night in your bedsitter, you remember a song from secondary school, Taji. About a man who roared righteousness across Bungoma, led multitudes to God, then fell. The question it asked: Who will receive this trophy?
King David murdered a man to cover his affair. God still called him beloved.
The Pharisees followed every law and got called whitewashed tombs.
The last shall be first, the scripture promised. You memorized it for CRE.
You thought it was about heaven. Turns out, it’s about Thursday at a petrol station, watching someone who failed upward while you’re still trying to succeed the way they taught you.
Your phone buzzes. Another rejection.
He’s probably in his six-bedroom home by now. Probably doesn’t think about you at all.
The system was always going to reward him. He had no choice but to figure it out.
You had credentials, so you waited for them to matter.
You’re still waiting.
He stopped in 2015.
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