By ERIC WAMANJI
The phone blipped. It was announcing the time – 0715 hours. It’s the very minute I stepped out of the house to icy gusts of chilling wind, which ruthless slapped my face. It was a grey and grimy June morning. Over heavens, spread wispy, grey clouds that promised a terrible day ahead.
The black Honda perched at the parking bay also appeared frozen. It must have had a nightlong of suffering in the punitive chill. The seats were icy. Even starting the usual faithful black servant required some flogging. Temperatures Outside were 12 degrees, read the thermometer. Small wonder there were no souls in the compound as I pulled out to Mucai Drive then Ngong Road.
When I slipped into Ngong Road, that is where I encountered some semblance of life. Parishioners in their Sunday Best trudged to church, a cart pusher sweated with a load of bananas, tomatoes and other groceries, and rowdy matatu drivers who were overtaking dangerously, just like their drunk Nairobians who scurried from nightclubs, their passengers in drunken stupor.
It was in that room, on Ngong Road, filled with the aroma of freshly-ground coffee and muted ember lights that I dashed into. I shut the door behind me and with it the cold. Inside, it was cosy, what with the ruby-red velvety paint, a red carpet, and the gurgling sound of the coffee-maker gushing a hot stuff to battle the chill.
Coffee. Coffee my darling!
The first sip was heavenly. The liquid calmly rolled down my throat and the chemical dispatched spasms of electric sparks across my nervous system. I thought I had discovered the gates of heaven. That was paradisiacal in every sense of the word. It’s what makes a Sunday at the Rococo Offices such a wonderful experience. There, the heart, the mind and the soul converge in a beautiful symphony unmatched anywhere.
From morning, a cuppa led to another hot stuff. It was a guzzling spree as I downed barrels. Such was a Sunday of racing brain-works, tapping the keyboard, clicking the mouse, and holding brainstorming sessions. A day of rolling out strategies for clients, who, mostly likely, still enjoyed the fur-soft warmth of their duvets, a serenading sound of music or just the chatter and clutter of their tots.
All the same, there too, I was wrapped in the seductive charm of Rococo PR.