I went to school with a girl called Ella. I always thought she was funny looking,a tad half-baked,but I was the only one who thought so. Everyone else-including the guys-thought she was stunning. Probably the LSB syndrome,which will be discussed during a further post. Today is not a day for controversy and lynching.

Ella,for some reason,felt the need to be nice to me. It was probably my sparkling personality. 😀 (remember Die Another Day? :D) However,to the girls she was especially friendly to would tell me how she had so many issues,it was unbelievable,ranging from pathological liar to suicidal lunatic. I accepted this and held her at arms length.

Ella was really smart. She used to get straight As and still somehow manage to party hard. When we cleared,I didn’t see her again until maybe a year later. She looked normal,still a snazzy dresser,still half-baked. Still nice to me.

Then I saw her a year later and she looked…different. Her hair shone like it had just been burnt-sorry,done. Her heels were a millimeter away from Trampville,but she managed to rock them. Her dress clung to her significant curves,and this was only noon! She gleamed with the wealth of the well-kept. But her skin looked haggard and her eyes,empty.

Every time I saw her after that,she looked richer but emptier. A mutual friend told me she lives in a paid-for apartment in a leafy suburb in this our Nairobi. She drives,too. She never finished university.

I understand ambition. I get malcontent,feeling like there must be more you can get from life. I can identify with wanting to be a billionaire,so freaking bad. But quite possibly,there’s a thin line between ambition,the lunacy she may still possess and the prostitution that she may now practice. The lengths that we go to to get what we really,really want do not have to be proportional to the number of old white dudes we sleep with who suck the youth from Ella’s gaunt,excessively made-up face.

tSN