"The Weight of Grain"

Ngala watched the rooster in the dusty courtyard, its spurs slashing at the tied opponent with mechanical brutality.

"Animals are worse than humans," Owalo had once said. "When their enemies weaken, they finish them. But we—we show mercy."

Ngala spat. Mercy? What mercy existed in a city where men rolled up bus windows to avoid speaking to beggars? Where looters pried grain from overturned trucks while the dying gasped beneath sacks of maize?

He adjusted his collar against Nairobi’s acidic smog and waited at KenCom, observing the human swarm. KBS buses belched exhaust as commuters elbowed for space—sixty percent of the nation’s wealth, crammed into ten percent of its land. A woman recoiled near Bus 17; some bastard had shut the window in her face mid-sentence. Ngala’s fingers twitched. We’ve perfected cruelty animals can’t fathom.

Obonyo arrived like a relic from a kinder past—same easy grin, now framed by a corporate beard. They embraced, the kind of hug that momentarily shields men from the city’s teeth.

Cafedeli’s air smelled of imported coffee and disinfectant. Obonyo ordered like a man who’d memorized the menu: strawberry milkshake, white coffee, beef samosas.

"You’re eating your education," Ngala remarked. The porcelain cup gleamed—real coffee, not the burnt silt most Kenyans drank.

Obonyo laughed, but it died when Ngala mentioned his mother.

"The flyover at Nyamasaria," Obonyo said, tracing the table’s wood grain. "The truck tipped. They… they went for the maize. Left her there. Even stole her purse after."

Ngala’s samosa turned to ash in his mouth. Capitalism’s logic laid bare: grain had market value; a dying woman did not.

"Poverty?" Ngala muttered.

"Greed," Obonyo corrected. The word hung between them like a noose.

Ngala quoted census data later, sterile numbers to mask the rot: "Fertility rate—3.8. Replacement level in decades."

"Meaning?" Obonyo stirred his milkshake.

"Meaning Kenyans are too broke to fuck." A bitter joke. "You’re thirty. No wife. No time. Just… projects."

Obonyo checked his watch—a reflex. "Client deadline." He tossed cash on the table, the paper whispering its judgment: This is what matters now.

They parted without promises. Ngala watched him dissolve into the crowd, another well-fed ghost in the machine.

At the bus stage, the rooster still attacked its bound rival. Ngala understood now—Darwin got it backward.

Animals kill to survive.

Humans destroy just to prove we can.