“The Diary of a Depressed Shrink” — from the short story collection Rocks Bleed Too (2021) by Jephtha Malelah.
I don’t like Mondays.
It’s like everyone postpones their troubles to this day, expecting and hoping that someone else will solve them. Thank goodness I only received one client today. Her name is Doris. I will not disclose her second name for confidentiality’s sake. I’m not even sure if my diary is secure enough.
The world isn’t a safe place anymore. Has it ever been, anyway? Stealing is now a norm. Killing has become a game. At least in the past, people were discreet about it. Just this week, my next-door neighbor was robbed at gunpoint. Njoro came home at 4 p.m., and as though they’d been trailing him, the gang pushed their way in as he was locking the door. Four men gagged him, beat him up, and wiped his living room clean.
I saw him today. Clearly, he is still shaken. He’s moving out. I understand him. It was his turn. In Nairobi, you’re safe until it’s your turn. When it comes, all you can do is pray they don’t kill you. As my old man always says: Cha muhimu ni uhai, mali tunaeza pata tena.
The police try their best, but it’s hard. They are far too few for a population of over forty million. I once read online that the ratio of police officers to civilians is one to twenty thousand. That’s insane. Not even T’Challa of Wakanda could handle a quarter of that with his vibranium suit. Maybe the Flash could—if he weren’t fictitious. And if he were real, he’d probably be in Central City, somewhere in the U.S.
I can’t blame our police force, though. Most of them are paid peanuts and expected to work watermelons. So instead of chasing criminals, they’d rather collect fifty- or hundred-shilling notes on the street—enough, collectively, to push them through hard economic times. Men and women must hustle. That’s my beautiful, wonderful, silicon savannah of a country for you. Tembea Kenya, Rafiki! Hakuna Matata?
Doris.
For the first time, I met someone who has been to the same part of hell I’ve been to. I call it the dark endless alley: an episode that repeats like a treadmill, perpetual and merciless. It’s a place where demons constantly attack you, and when you finally scream, the sound is sucked into oblivion.
Doris is beautiful—petite, with skin the color of clay. Her walk is slow and graceful. Her blue dress clings to her figure, running from her neck all the way to just above her knees. Her smile is as bright as her eyes. To anyone else, she’d pass for gorgeous.
But I saw it.
I saw the strain in her cheeks as she forced her smile to stay. I saw the darkness in her eyes, the small wrinkles, the puffiness beneath her eyelids. She had worked so hard to hide it with a face mask, but I could tell. There was something heavy inside her. She didn’t know it yet.
She sank into the swivel chair, and after the formal introductions and a few uneasy minutes, we began.
Doris was sixteen when her parents divorced. It was a difficult time, though not as painful as the two years leading up to it. Their love had dimmed—from the blazing sun to a flickering candle slowly burning out. It burned until it vanished completely.
Her father began staying out late. Sometimes he wouldn’t return for nights at a time. When he finally came back, her mother would yell, but he didn’t care. He said nothing, just kept disappearing. Her mother cried for hours. Doris wished she could help, but how could a cabin boy stop a shipwreck when the captain himself couldn’t?
Within months, her father was only home once a week. Her mother grew sad, withdrawn, and eventually depressed. She gave up on life. She stopped shopping, stopped seeing friends, even quit her job. Their home turned into a jungle. The lion came to the waterhole, and the other animals—monkeys, antelopes—kept their distance.
Family moments still happened, but they were empty. Sunday mornings at the dining table with hot tea and stale bread—silence swallowing everything. Some Friday evenings when her father stayed home were even worse. Doris preferred the silence of empty classrooms over the shouting of sadness at home. Whenever she could, she stayed at school longer.
By the time they sat in a courtroom one hot January afternoon, they had passed through all the phases—arguments, silence, fights, and finally, separation.
The judge ruled in favor of her father, calling him “more stable” mentally and financially. Tears streamed down Doris’s cheeks as she looked at her mother. Thin. Cheekbones protruding. Eye sockets hollowed as though her soul had sunk inside them. She couldn’t speak a word in her own defense. She only cried.
Doris went to live with her father. She hated him. She blamed him for everything—for starting the fights, for killing the silence, for breaking the family. She hated him even more because he blamed her mother.
She saw her mother once a month, but never saw her happy. For the first three months, her father tried everything—gifts, rides to school, cooking dinner, even being home more often. But nothing could replace what was lost: family.
People often think money, gifts, or favors can replace family. They can’t. Family needs love—divine, unshakable love. It needs people who care deeply, who stay through the good and the bad.
Her father tried until he couldn’t anymore. One evening, Doris was resting in the living room when he suddenly yelled at her. He shouted that he had done everything to love her but she didn’t appreciate it. Doris was terrified. He grabbed her and threw her to the floor. He was about to slap her but stopped when he saw her tears. Without another word, he walked away.
That night, at 11 p.m., he entered her room. The lights were out. She was half asleep. Before she could come to, he was in her bed. His strong arms pinned her down. His hot breath reeked of whiskey and spice.
That was the first time.
