The Nest

Donnie wakes up to the unpleasant din of the air conditioning to find the bed empty and the bed sheets unfitted. The room is dark except for a crack of light streaming in from under the door. He slides his feet out of bed and into his sandals. He wonders if he should tuck in the bed sheets before leaving. Now that the alcohol has worn off, he’s feeling the urge to go home.

Ben and Bella, his clubbing mates, are downstairs having a midnight smoke. Donnie wonders if they’re probably too uncomfortable to go back to sleep with him around because they’re worried that he’s the kind of guest who steals. 

He thinks of how Bella eyed his shoes a little too closely when she first ran into him and said, “I thought you were a bartender.”

As he walks down the hallway, which smells a little bit like wax and toilet cakes, he runs his fingers on the wallpaper. Downstairs, muffled voices. Probably Ben and Bella having a laugh except it’s probably past midnight now.

Ben and Bella. BenBella. It rolls off the tongue and melts in his mouth easily.

He crouches down onto the toilet, making sure his penis is under the rim so he does not accidentally pee on the floor. An hour ago, Bella said that she thinks circumcised penises are shaped like crayons. Bella is an artist. She’s used to describing, relating and taking things apart thanks to years spent as a prodigy in the British school curriculum and later as an arts degree student in Australia. 

Unlike her, Ben—a banker and stock trader by profession—has more of a stoic, enigmatic and pastoral presence, one which Donnie is strongly drawn to. 

Ben and Bella live in Doonholm (or, as irony would have it, Donnie for short) in a gated community full of modern orange townhouses. He drives a Passo and she drives a Camry. 

Bella has installed a huge wooden nest on an avocado tree in their backyard. It’s a duplicate of her final project which sits in the courtyard in the arts department back in her alma mater. 

“My mother bought it off me but she’s yet to pick it up,” Bella said when she showed it to him. “What do you think?”

“It’s so bulky,” Donnie answered as he ran a hand over the surface.

“That was part of my problem with the initial design,” Bella said. She tugged at the edge of the nest. A huge piece came off and slid back in comfortably. “Voila.”

Donnie studies the couples’ medicine cabinet as he wipes off. So many pills, creams, ointments and jellies. His zipper latches onto his pubic hair as he puts his trousers back on, causing him to wince.

He finds Ben and Bella seated on the kitchen island with their legs entangled. They’re passing a vape between each other and then blowing rings of strawberry-flavored smoke in each other’s faces. 

“You want?” Ben asks, vape in hand.

Donnie waves off Ben’s offer and hoists himself up on the opposite seat.

“I think it might be time for something stronger,” Bella says to Ben. “Did the plug call back?”

Ben pulls out his phone from his shorts pocket. 

“He just texted five minutes ago,” he says. “He’s on his way over.”

“Ask him for one more joint,” Bella says, looking at Donnie. 

Donnie waves her off, and immediately worries that he’s coming off as too ungracious. 

Right now, Ben is telling Bella about how much he likes her belly button ring. His finger is slowly moving down her torso which is speckled with tiny hairs. Donnie gets the sense that they’re putting on a show for his benefit. 

A small silence ensues, occasionally punctuated by the sound of Donnie cracking his knuckles.

“I think I should leave,” Donnie says out of nowhere.

“Stop,” Bella says to Ben, and pushes his hand away from her abdomen. She turns to Donnie. “Stay.”

“I have an early day tomorrow. And my mother will be furious because I broke curfew.”

He wants to add that he doesn’t usually get enough hours of deep sleep according to his sleep app, but Bella moves on.

“Don’t worry about that,” she says. “Stay.”

Half an hour after the plug’s visit, the trio is sitting outside on the balcony, passing around a joint and a small jar of water among them. There’s a spinning fan on the floor next to a small bass speaker. The synthesizer and guitar chords cheer the mellow voice of Gregory Isaacs on as he laments about the pace of his newfound dance partner, telling her to slow down. 

Donnie’s shirt is hanging off his neck, leaving his chest exposed. Ben is mellowed out; he acknowledges the beat by gently rocking his fingers. Bella is holding the joint with a deft left claw. There’s a lid filled with ash sitting on her midriff.

“What if you moved out?” Bella exclaims. “You’re almost twenty five. You need your own place.”

Donnie’s eyes are fixed on the joint, which Bella carefully transfers to Ben. He takes note of the ashy webs of skin around Ben’s sausage fingers. They remind Donnie of his father’s rough hands wrapped around the sling of his bookbag, which he hurls on his back with a huff every morning as he leaves for work. 

“I’ve thought about that. I don’t make enough for rent anywhere close to campus. I’m also scared that I’ll forget to eat.” 

Donnie also has this irrational fear that his parents lack object permanence and that they will forget he exists. They hardly acknowledge him as it is. 

“That makes sense, I guess,” says Bella , with a lazy lilt in her deep rasp. “How’s school going?” 

Donnie is a resident at Pumwani Hospital, where the number of births he witnesses in a day is responsible for his poor appetite. He can’t wait to move on to his urology track fast enough. 

Instead of sharing this with Bella, he mutters an inaudible pair of adjectives, great, wonderful. He’s wary of taking up too much of the conversation so he asks her about the nest, which she’s very eager to talk about. Blah blah motherhood…blah blah womb…blah blah I was thinking about brood parasitism at one point but the prof called it trite… 

Bella has a deep liquid voice. As she speaks, Donnie thinks of a big mug filling up with tea.

“Okay, it seems like you’re not listening to me,” Bella says, his mouth twisted in a small erect pout, like the bow end of a closed balloon.

“Sorry, I have ADHD.”

“Sure you do.”

Gregory Isaacs has been replaced by India Arie, who is singing about an intense spiritual experience.

Deepest of the deep of the great blue wide, it brought a tear to my eye…

“Sometimes I wonder if I believe in God like that,” Donnie says.

“I don’t really think about it,” Bella says, brushing her cornrows aside.

“What do you mean? How?”

“I don’t bother to think that I’m being judged for making the best out of the mess that is my life.”

Donnie’s mind filters through shreds of childhood memory as an only child in a cookie-cutter middle class Christian family. Unlike most staunch members, his parents let him skip church when he was thirteen when he started to grow unsure of his feelings about God. He does not remember the particular moment he lost his faith in religion. 

He watches Ben and Bella playfully shoving each other right before Bella ashes what is left of the blunt on the balcony floor, very close to Donnie’s thighs, and looks down at his exposed belly, which is swollen from all the water he’s been drinking. 

She’s in a yellow crop top which emphasizes her toned midriff. Her breasts push up against the top hem; she keeps lifting the fabric to keep them perched. Legs crossed, hair swaying in the breeze, sweat-glistened boobs bouncing. His tongue grows moist. He looks around the moonlit balcony, where the shadows stretch like elastic.

His eyes come to rest on the butterfly tattoo on her left thigh. 

“Would you like to touch it?” Bella offers. 

Something’s changed about the way she talks to him. Does he imagine it or is she more approving of him now? He squeezes the skin around the tattoo. 

“Let’s get inside,” Ben suggests, and he stands up and picks Bella––arms stretched out––from the ground.  

Donnie waits for them to cross the kitchen counter before getting up and closing the balcony door behind him. 

He follows along into the living room which has a couch, a wardrobe with two chests, a coffee table which hosts a tower of old fashion magazines, a TV with a cloth draped over it and a ticking clock which chips away at the silence.  

***

Donnie first encountered Ben and Bella during a tour of the Circle Arts Gallery. His friend, Atari, had suggested that they go and see the latest exhibition titled Naked Glow which he promised would be controversial according to the early reviews. 

It was there that he saw the couple mingling. He was drawn to Bella’s bohemian look; her colorful ethnic dress, medium brown cornrows and chunky gold jewelry. Keeping next to her was Ben, who was a good six feet with a masculine jaw and ethnically ambiguous skin. He was dressed plainly in a polo shirt and jeans.

He wanted to turn Atari’s attention over to them and whisper something sour like, “Look over there dude, the demands of compulsory heterosexuality,” in order to make fun of their closeness, but they disappeared before he could work up the nerve.

They resurfaced an hour later right next to a naked mold of a woman’s breasts, which Ben playfully cupped while Bella took a picture. 

Later in the evening, Donnie and his friend Atari made their way to The Alchemist nightclub, where they ran into Ben and Bella once again. This time, the couple was right ahead of them in line. The bouncer, who was a little bit far off, let them in without a word, only to pounce on Donnie and Atari immediately the couple was out of earshot.

“The club’s full,” he said.

“Nonsense,” Atari, who always kept a mouthpiece on him, said. “There’s barely any people on the dance floor.”

“If you have a problem, take it up with club management,” the bouncer responded gruffly.

“I’ve heard about these practices,” Atari said. “You kick us out but let the Wazungus and Wahindis in. In our own country. Shame!”

A flash of anger passed through the bouncer’s face and he motioned for his companion to come and help him out. All the while, Atari vehemently clapped his hands and shouted, “Who taught you to hate your skin, Black man?”

Unsure of what to do, Donnie stood by in terror as the rest of the patrons in line took out their phones and started recording the bouncers as they tried hauling Atari off.  

A few moments passed, and Donnie felt a cold tap on his shoulder. Ben and Bella had exited the club and were now standing behind him. Bella was nursing a Smirnoff Ice in both hands. She looked like she was about to cry. 

“Is your friend OK?” she asked, her voice breaking.

Whether it was due to her presence or the incident unfolding before them, Donnie was completely unable to speak; he only managed to shake his head. 

She turned to her husband and said, “Go talk to them Ben.”

Ben went over to the bouncers and managed to get them to let Atari go and focus their attention on the crowd of people who were filming the scene instead. Atari was unsure about whether he wanted to keep clubbing, but he urged Donnie to stay behind with Ben and Bella. 

“I promise to take good care of him,” Bella said. 

***

It’s now three in the morning, and all of Doonholm is calm, save for the occasional bark from the neighborhood dogs. 

Donnie is sitting on the couch thinking about the exhibition, Naked Glow, specifically the moment right when he saw Ben and Bella and immediately thought about the idea of compulsory heterosexuality. Their closeness––which he’s been subjected to all evening–––is something he finds himself envying. The intimate ways they move around one another, especially while on the dancefloor. 

He can hear their moans coming in from the bedroom, heavy and raspy, a song filled with lots of craving. It feels just right that he hears them have sex, like some form of absolution for his pent-up desires. 

His phone pings loudly, and the light from the screen dashes across the room with lightning speed. Atari has sent a few pictures from the exhibition along with an instagram post from Joanne Kito, a famous Instagram make-up artist who was present at the same event.

Bish can u spot my forehead in the back?! Atari exclaims over text.

He wants to send a snarky retort, something like it’s the only thing i can see bish, but something holds him back. A strange feeling of warmth for his friend who was tossed out of the club earlier in the day. He still can’t believe any of it had happened. Part of him wonders whether it was OK that he’d stood there and let it happen instead of jumping in to defend Atari. He shouldn’t have gone in there afterwards either, out of respect. 

In the midst of his thoughts, he decides to take a slow walk to the nest. He can feel the earth pulsing under his sandaled feet. His eyes keep darting back and forth like a man on high alert. 

The backyard is a small grassy plain, each blade trembling timidly under the moon’s kindly stare. Under the combined effect of the elements and shadows, Damien feels brave, like a Samurai with an outstretched blade, holding out for something supernatural to dare and sweep him up. It’s almost as if the paralysis that had overtaken him at The Alchemist had been in his head all along.   

Eventually, his arms get fatigued from play. He gently climbs into the nest and passes out.

*** 

Donnie wakes up to the feeling of the sunshine on his cheek, almost like a hot hand. 

It’s 10am on a Sunday. The birds have already sung their morning chorus. He can hear sounds of children playing beyond the fence. Unlike his neighborhood, which would be flooded by microphone sounds from the nearby evangelical churches, this one is strangely tranquil. 

To his surprise, Ben and Bella are right behind him with mugs of tea, sunning in their folding chairs. 

“I’d like to go home now,” says Donnie, bringing his legs to his chest like a child. 

“We’ve got ginger tea on the stove. You should take some before heading out,” Bella offers. Her voice is sore; she must’ve gotten a cold sometime in the night.

“No thanks,” Donnie says. He immediately thinks about taking it back but he’s too late to stop Bella’s face from falling. 

Ben puts down his mug and comes to Donnie’s side. He gently scoops Donnie out from the nest and drops him right by the backdoor.

As promised, there’s a huge steaming metal kettle of tea on the stove, probably made by a jua kali artisan. Donnie thinks it looks out of place from the rest of the kitchen which has a lot of modern cookware. He studies the steam as it rises from the spout and does a little dance before spreading out into thin air. At the last minute, he decides he wants the tea. With a sigh, he absentmindedly reaches for the handle, which turns out to be extremely hot. 

“Ouch fuck!” He winces before immediately setting it down. Thankfully, the kettle makes a small thud, too small to alert his hosts.

With utmost stealth, he fixes tea for himself and sets off for the front door, a chipped ceramic mug in hand. He figures that Ben and Bella are unlikely to miss it.

Right by the matatu stop is a man selling chapatis. He briefly gives Donnie one of those you must be crazy looks before his business mind takes over. 

“Chapati 30 bob mista,” he announces.

***

The road home is through a criss-cross of flyovers and carriageways. There’s a ton of cars sweeping past in the opposite direction, probably families hurrying to the airport before rush hour catches up with them. 

The banks of Outer Ring Road are teeming with people. There’s mountains of growing litter under the armpits of the flyovers. Pedestrian bridges fenced-in using barbed wire. A landscape of tin houses stretching as far as the eye can see. 

The smell of sewer mixed in with exhaust fumes fills the back row as soon as Donnie opens a window.

“Eish, close that window,” the passenger right in front of Donnie scolds.

He looks down at his now empty cup. The insignia reads Queensland University Australia, where Bella met Ben and they became BenBella. Before that, she was just Bella and he was just Ben. Plain names, when they’re sitting apart from one another. One might even say tragic.

Donnie’s plans for grad school are anything but modest. He’s been eyeing schools in the UK and Australia, but his Pan Africanist uncle, an engineer by training, is more convinced that he should consider a country within the continent, perhaps Egypt or South Africa. 

It’s good that you are planning to become highly specialized. You know I read from Wikipedia that Ethiopia has had very good progress with training urologists, he wrote over text.  

Donnie checks his phone for messages from his parents, of which there are none. Right above his uncle’s chat, however, is his cousin’s goading text which reads: Remember when you were a child and you used to wet the bed? Is that the reason why you want to become a urologist?