An old friend follows me on the escalator. Just having hit my brother on the head with an umbrella, I say, 'Oh, hi!' He's doing a graduate degree here. I knew he was in the city, nice of him to share an escalator with me.
By this point of the day, the coincidence does not strike me that heavily. I mean I knew he was in the city, at the same university as my friends.
Earlier that day, at the AIDS Walk, with one of my friends from England, standing in the rain waiting for my brother. A girl walks past me, slows, stares at me. I stare back, I know her face. I know her eyes, her expression. We both give up and just stammer, 'Um, I think I know you. I think I met you...in, in Kenya! At the Ethiopian restaurant, yes!'
That is who walked past me today in Freedom Plaza-- the sister of a friend I met in Mathare, a slum in Nairobi. We met one evening as we celebrated my friend's time in Kenya. They were both leaving that next day.
Even this however does not floor me. Yes, I did lose my ability to find words, asking if she was Sarah's brother...I mean sister. But it all seemed to flow.
The reason this all flows is that I have to let it because there has just been so much of it; my average up to this year was so far below what is going on this year. I don't know what flipped the switch.
The climax I think has to be that completely randomly, I chose the same house as an old family friend from my time as a little kid in Lagos. We signed the lease within days of each other and even spoke on the phone without realising who the other was. It was not until the next day that he called me at work and said, "Hi. Um, I, well--"
"Yeah, we know each other, don't we."
"Yep. Good, I was hoping I was not the only one who thought this was weird."
"No, I am definitely with you on that one."
So. There we go. This year continues to bombard me with connections. They come right round the street corner and smack me straight in the face.
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