Fast and Furious Feet

A twenty year old woman with a baseball cap, long blond, smooth hair to her shoulder blades, a blue t-shirt, pink short-shorts, running shoes, and a small, gray daypack on her back looked at him. She had a superior smirk on her face that made Boris feel like he was a gerbil that she was toying with. Her body shape looked athletic. She seemed to have been in shape from traveling around the continent. The smile in her eyes had an ease like she was very confident being independent.

"That's a genocide memorial that you are looking at. Did you notice all the flowers and candles on it?" she pointed out to Boris. When Boris looked back at the window in the ground, he found new interest in the "kitsch" that he had ignored before. Then it hit him that he was looking down at the tomb of hundreds of people that was made because probably their bodies couldn't be found. This wasn't some kind of analog version of an Instagram wall for him to be entertained. A very dark, morbid feeling overcame him. When the woman saw that look, she exclaimed, "Jesus, did you read anything about this country before you came here? About a million people were killed in one hundred days as ethnic cleansing."

An unbearable sickness overcame Boris' stomach. He simply had to sit down. There was no choice. A natural urge like bracing for impact before going unconscious made him sit down. The pokey pebbles in his butt felt good. There was something about the sharpness of the pricks that made him focus and gave him emotional clarity. Out of all these discombobulating emotions, a prick was concise. It was loud and clear. It didn't back questions to be asked. It had a clear, limited spatial place. He could place each prick precisely. That felt reassuring. He got lost feeling into his ass.

"That's simply my kind of luck. I find the first white barely bangable guy in three weeks, and I spook his brain out of his skull so that he can't speak a word!" protested the woman against herself. She grabbed Boris under his armpit to lift him up. Boris compliently let himself be lifted up. "Why don't we say, let's go for a walk and walk it off. Maybe, we'll find your brain somewhere along the way."

"I'm fine walking on my own," said Boris weakly.

"Suit yourself, cowboy," replied the woman. "I'm Janice. I've spent the last five months traveling around Africa."

"I'm Boris. I stepped off the airport earlier today. I got into a fight with my dad. I'm lost. I don't have any local money. I live here now. I guess I'm basically Rwandan. This is my first day being a Rwandan! Ha!" Boris half talked to himself to make sense of things.

"Why do I always get the stray ones? You seem like a wet cat - all terrified and out of it. Do you realize that?" muttered Janice.

"Do you feel like a burger and fries? That should make you feel like at home. There is an expat place a couple blocks down," offered Janice.

They walked a couple blocks through the idyllic and quiet residential neighborhood. The houses were spaced decently apart. The yards weren't anything spectacular, but they were kept in neat working order. Right at the corner of the side street a throughway was a little shack. The owner was a black American who had decided to go back to the roots, where his ancestors had come from.

Janice was easy going. She liked to laugh. She was punching Boris' shoulder with delight if he said even only mildly funny things. Some of her smacks were so hard that Boris thought them a lightly painful punches, but he smiled at them, which only encouraged her to punch harder next time. Boris was pretty sure that his cheeks started accumulating red marks from her check pinches and slaps. It was the undertone of their conversation. It was like she was probing him. She seemed ambivalent about what exactly she was probing him for. It seemed like a mix of seeing how much of a pussy he was but also giving him the tacit permission to touch her body back in friendly conversation. And when he dared, he smacked her on the side of her butt cheeks while saying that she was a naughty one. Immediately, her face snapped to a dead seriousness that told him that he was out of line. His heart did a giant beat, dropped a foot down, and stopped beating any further. Then she broke out loving real big for being able to scare him so easily. He exhaled relaxation at having avoided a perceived impending disaster.

Before traveling, she had worked in a clothing store for a chain in SoHo. The throngs of tourists were tiring. All day, they came storming in. Often store security had to form a line outside the store. So whenever some shoppers walked out with black and golden bags, the next batch walked right in. "Oh, how are you! So wonderful that you thought of us. Let me know how I can help you!" On bad days, when buses dropped of Asian tourists, she'd deal with people who couldn't speak English and wanted to touch her balayage hair. The store rent doubled and the chain ended up consolidating the two SoHo stores because it was an anachronism left behind from a company merger. She was let go with a three months severance package. Kulula Airlines had a flash sale for unlimited flights within 30 days. So she went for it.

"You can lose yourself," she said. It feels so wonderful to be in a place where nobody is like you. "I guess I must hate myself on some level to feel free of myself. There is something that feels good in the soul to enter a vast area with only people that are not me. I get anxious sometimes when I'm in a new country and I don't know the local attitudes. There are 54 countries in Africa. They each have their own attitudes.

Boris felt better with the weight of the food in his stomach giving him gravity to feel the ground. He tried to sound cool by having a traveler story and told Janice about the pizza buffet that had no pizza. Janice waved him like it was no big deal, "See shortages are everywhere here. People simply take it and are expected to pay anyway. Paul Kagame came to power in 2000. He is a general who stabilized the country. He did a lot of good things for the country, but he also tortured and killed the opposition away. It's a bit of a police state here. All that crack down on cleanliness is his idea. People don't complain for the most part. Once a month, everyone is required to pick up trash. That's why you see no litter despite a lack of trash cans."

After they finished the meal, they strolled down the streets. The feel for the place burned into Boris' memory: Light blue sky, fluffy clouds, distant horizons, boxy residences, light traffic, peaceful atmosphere, soothingly warm air on the skin, dresses with popping colors, everything clean and groomed, and the best part was Janice moving next to her. She had a bounce in her step. When something got exciting, she jumped in front of him to face him head-on. When there was a puddle she made cat-like leaps like she had boundless energy. Her company was so easy. When he ran out of things to say, she'd say something. And if she didn't say something, her body and face spoke volumes as she'd give him a look that taunted a response from him. She was never not talking, not communicating. There were constant, warm emotions oozing out from her. He could say his rough and uneven words. He could get lost in silence. Her warm presence was always at his side and never tainted by the heaviness that he felt inside of himself.

When she asked, "Where are we going?" It was natural to say, "I was just thinking the same thing." It felt congenial. It implied that they had a mind sync. Then it puzzled him. Where were they going? Then he reflected on something in her tone that didn't sound like a direction. It was more of a question of where is this heading. No, that wasn't it. It felt more like she was waiting for him to decide. But she was the one who knew the lay of the land. He literally only knew where they had been going.

So, he asked her, "Where could we be going?"

"I don't know?" she answered with a playful sound like there was a game to it.

"We couldn't be going to your hostel room?" he said with a tone that suggested that it was out of the question. The moment his mouth finished moving, he was in shock. He was in effect asking her to have sex, wasn't he?

"Noooo," she said with a tone that suggested a tabo no-no, but her face looked at him waiting, like she wanted to.

"I guess we could walk a little more here," he tried to get out of the awkward situation.

"And walking we do," she said with a snippy tone that made him sense that he had done the absolute wrong.

She told him about a remote waterfall that she had hiked to, how there was a little natural tub built into the rock right at the edge so that you could peer over the edge of the waterfall without falling in. The few had been dramatic. The feel of being alone with the hyenas and far from any person or support had gotten her soul to touch something pure, like the whole planet had been speaking to her.

The sun started turning to a hot, shimmering red. Janice turned to Boris and touched him on the shoulder, "I want to make myself a bit more comfortable. You seem like a very safe person." He assured her that he was absolutely safe and trustworthy. He would never do anything to hurt her or without permission. And if in doubt, he'd rather ask twice. She didn't seem to here all that much. She reached both hands behind her back and under her shirt.

He was a little surprised by the gymnastics and took a closer look to see what she was doing. Yet, when he saw her do the right-right-arm-tug-elbow-into-t-shirt-move, he realized where this was going and quickly turned around for her modesty. Her face seemed to have a slight drop of disappointment right as he could see with the corner of his eyes before he had her completely out of his vision. He could hear her working her gymnastics behind her.

"All clear now," she said like a valedictorian on best behavior. Her white bra was still in her hand. He got to see the fabric. His eyes must have widened a little bit at taking in the fabric that had rested on her skin. As she moved her shoulders to get the backpack around, he noticed the free wiggle of her boobs. He looked at the motion like a dog drawn by a rapid movement. He noticed the pokers lifting up the shirt a bit. "Oh, my! Her boobs are free right under there!" he thought to himself and quickly festooned his eyes to her eyes to be polite. He tried to keep his eyes on the narrow band between the horizon and her eyes. They kept wanting to dip down, but he was steadfast in his honor especially after she had asked him. She shook her body in a wave from the top to the bottom: "It feels so free!"

In those little peripheral glimpses, he guessed at her body shape. Even though the sport shorts and t-shirt were very casual and obscured her body, he could tell from her movements that her body was trim and muscular underneath it. She probably had beautiful tracks running down her belly as abs. Her butt cheeks were probably the right kind of firm. And if he were to grab her upper arms in a restraint, he'd have some beautiful triceps to hold onto.

He was sweating a little too much. Being honest, he had to admit that the rest of the country turned to a blur. His focal point was on what he was not trying to look at. That's why he missed the two cops in blue jumpsuits coming up behind them. They were yelling, "Hagarara! Hagarara!" They grabbed Janice by the shoulder. The taller one was gesticulating to her thigh. He was tugging on her shorts and extending his pointed finger to her knee. It was like he was suggesting her to have a longer hemlines. They seemed a little more worked up than usual because they seemed to recognize that they were talking to tourists. They pulled on her backpack as if to suggest that she should put on pants.

When Janice shook her head, the taller one shrugged and took out black plastic handcuffs. The short one grabbed both of her hands and forced her to step forward so that her hands would be at her back. The tall one quickly put the zip ties in place and pulled them tight. All the while, Boris was standing right in front of her looking straight into her face. Her face was panicked. The eyes were wide open, showed so much black, showed so much white. Her mouth was dropped wide open helplessly out of her mind.

"Do something!" she called out to him. Those words echoed through his head. He repeated the echo with force in his head because he wanted to do anything for her. But nothing came to mind. So he repeated her "Do something!" in his head. They dragged her by her tied wrists away from him. She kept facing him. Her face was frozen in panic and with the biggest plead in her eyes. Her eyes were locked right on him, begging him to step up and rescue her. Her face begged her to make it all stop. He stood there, watching the police. His mind kept suggesting that it was the police and he couldn't do anything, but his heart knew that was wrong.

Then she disappeared in the white police car, a comfortable family sized Toyota. He couldn't see her anymore. He couldn't see the police car anymore. He couldn't see the sun anymore. He wouldn't be able to look at himself in a mirror anymore.

The sun had set. Darkness had appeared. The little reflectors in the streetscape lit up when a car passed. All there was left for him was to retrace his step. He roughly had to walk in the opposite direction. They hadn't circled too much but had headed in a straight line direction. The fallen darkness had injected the streets with a shot of people, who were presumably returning home from work. He studied their walks and energy. All felt safe and peaceful. There was something that felt set about their pace of life. They walked like everything was very predictable and familiar. There was little excitement, surprise, rushing, smiling, calling out, or making a smirky face.

When he found his way back to Heaven Hotel, he took a deep inhale when he knocked at the door to room 307. Mikhail opened the door with "So you needed to walk off your little hot head. That's fine. I got some coke. It's in the ice bucket." Mikhail sat back down to go over work papers and place his initials onto page after page of some kind of report. It was almost pleasant to avoid having to talk about what had happened at the pizza buffet. But Boris couldn't keep quiet.

"I met an American girl. She was arrested for wearing shorts. That's so crazy," Boris said out of breath.

Mikhail looked up. He seemed to think the situation over. "Do you know her full name?"

"No," Boris said, lighting up at the hint that his father was building an action plan.

"Well, then you can't find her. Did you want to bang her?" inquired Mikhail.

"No! Of course not!" insisted Boris.

"Well, then let it go," said Mikhail. "I had a little run-in with the police as well. You know how I keep a lot of things in my pants. I had a crumpled up plastic bag in there. It was pushing on my hip. So I took it out. It didn't even have a hole. I uncrumpled it to check. This blue jumpsuit guy ran up to me. He blathered 'polisi! Polisi!' like a little girl. It told him, 'mvaho!' In fact I told him twice. Then I gave him a little head butt. When he looked at the blood on his fingers, he suddenly remembered that 'mvaho' means 'leave me alone.' And he ran off. It's here like in the good old Soviet Union. The girl and the police will make a little deal, and she'll be out by tomorrow morning. No problem."

That night, he had a dream. He was walking through a forest, but the leaves were too large for any forest that he had been to. They were the size of a small pizza, and their shape was like big sausage fingers. The ground sagged under his feet. Each step actually went into the ground a bit. Suddenly, it dawned on him that the ground felt soft and fuzzy like a plush toy because his shoes had disappeared. He dragged his feet a bit to feel for pebbles or rocks on the ground, but it only had that rich soft feeling - strange.

Looking ahead, he saw the ground bulge up. It was like a plant was trying to come out of the ground, but when the bulging ground should have split open, it kept lifting up and bunching into a round shape. Boris tried to look closer and looked into big black eyes. He stepped back and saw the whole shape had the hump of a gorilla! He started running from it. The gorilla started running with him, but not behind him. Right along the side was the gorilla running and the ground shook with each pounce of the mighty, knuckle dragging animal. The gorilla didn't feel like a threat but more like a guardian or even a guide.

Running gave him warmth and a good feeling. That good feeling was like he was eating a delicious meal. It spread through his whole body. Then it became obvious that the gorilla had been guiding him on a path through the forest. As the forest turned into savanna, light green grass and skinny, flat-topped trees spread out, the gorilla stayed behind, but a new guide had appeared. He couldn't see her, but he could sense where she was. Her face was shrouded in a steam cloud. He could only see her black breast clearly. They were a large handful, a beautiful teardrop, not saggy in the least, but so well sculpted. The nipples didn't have any pointers. The areolas were large and cone shaped.

"Ngwino! Ngwino!" she was calling out to him. He knew that she was beyond the hills. The sun turned the heat up. Sweat was running down his whole body. He was lathered in it. He didn't understand because he had never been running seriously before. Yet there he felt one with the land by running its curves up and down hills and along windy paths. He could sense her joy at him coming closer. The steam shroud around her face lifted just a little bit to reveal her brilliant white teeth smiling with such ease and playfulness that it elated his soul to be in her presence.

"Ndaje, rukundo!" he called back to her - not out of breath at all despite the fast running pace. Moving his lips startled him to wake up, and when he woke up, he was startled to have spoken Kinyarwanda even though he hadn't learned it. The dream made him feel strange all over his body, like he was transformed. He tried to tell himself that it was only the sweat from sleeping in the warm Rwandan night that felt unfamiliar. But somewhere in his heart, he had a sense like it had moved a quarter inch to a different place in his chest.

"Good that you are up," said Mikhail, while looking up from his suitcase, which he was kneeling like it was the neck of a protestor to let him zip it closed. "Change of plans. We are leaving before breakfast. And we are staying at a different place on the very periphery to Kingali."

Boris sat up in his bed, looked out of the window to take in the sun that painted the world outside in more pastel colors than the sun back home. He realized the raging morning boner and decided to keep the blanket in place until it eased away.

"It turns out that Rwanda is not like the Soviet Union," admitted Mikhail. "The cop from yesterday is very pissed. His nose broke a bit. It's only a hairline fracture. It's nothing. He doesn't even need screws to put it back in place - not a single one. But my colleagues messaged me and told me not to show my face around the city for a while. It's my fault. I'm a bit rusty. My headbutts aren't calibrated for the local populace. People here have skinny bones. They are not Russian built quality. They're like little flimsy Kias. You have to be more gentle when you close the car door, only use your finger tips, or the whole car falls into pieces. So we'll stay in the countryside, but close enough for me to get to the airport for work."

"I promised them not to bring plastic bags into the country again in the future. It's more hassle than it's worth it if you have to headbutt a cop each time you want to use one," he said trying to crack a joke, but it sounded more like he was still sour about not having his way or having to hide instead of fighting his way out.