The Man on the Rooftop

I know Nairobi traffic snarl-ups can be nerve-wracking to sit in. The blaring car horns deafening. The car fumes choking.  Walking through masses of people who seem to be in some unexplained hurry nauseating; whether in the sweltering tropical heat or whenever clouds laden with rain threatening to tear down. Looking up at the skyscrapers lining up the streets does not help you either, it’s dizzying. The raising dust in the streets hitting hard into your eyes. In between jostling for space with vehicular traffic on narrow roads (risking a limb) with gaping manholes flowing with not so clean water, O Pedestrian, you are looking for some escape. No sidewalk for you Pedestrian, no sidewalk. Blame it on the poor city road planners and builders.

In all this madness, filth and noise where do you retreat to? So sometimes you take refuge under some tall buildings and wipe off the dust and sweat from your brow and to cool off. Then walk up the reception past the security guards of a great office block and crawl into the elevator, to the heavens, you say. Some 26 floors up. The climate at the rooftop is all you crave for. The view from above is mesmerizing and refreshing. So you take gulps and gulps of fresh air. Then Lo! The smog and hue from below, from car fumes, garbage burning, the street dust and industrial soot. What an eyesore!

Then you picture the guy above who reigns high and created them all, God. As the urban smog cracks your throat you can actually hear His voice talking down to man covered in clouds of dark smoke and fumes.

“Stop! Stop it! Stop cutting trees!”

He cajoles man.

“Plant more trees. Recycle waste. Reuse. Reinvent,”

He beckons.

Man defiant as he can be, cannot hear divinity in clouds and can’t stop sending more poisonous ones up into the sky. The reason we have a sorry planet we call home. Man conserve your home.

The man on the rooftop of a skyscraper waves at the traffic below.