See it from my perspectivE

The matatu smells like everyone's afternoon. Sweat and cheap perfume and someone's fries from a paper bag three seats ahead. You're wedged into the window seat, bag on your lap, earphones in but no music playing — the universal sign for Ngong Road is a car park. Has been for forty minutes. You've been here before. Not just this road, not just this traffic — but here . This particular stillness dressed up as delay. This feeling of waiting for something to move that isn't really the cars, incase we sio sharp, your life. Outside, a hawker is selling phone chargers and novelty socks and a single throw pillow with Kasongo's face on it. You watch him weave between bumpers with the ease of a man who stopped fighting a long time ago and found, on the other side of that fight, something that looks almost like peace. The conductor leans out, shouts at a PSV that cut in, then turns back and collects fare as if nothing happened. Everyone here has made a private deal with...