Last word
On The Walks Of Shame
Ochieng doesn’ t like to think about that disastrous outing even though it happened so long ago and should have been filed in the annals of mental archives and forgotten. The reality is however different and every time he thinks about it, the bitter taste of defeat lingers.
It was the high school year that his football team had had a magical run and they had thrashed all teams on their eastern zone division without losing a single match and what remained was to vanquish the western zone victors to qualify for the nationals.
During the term, their teacher and coach had had the foresight to arrange two friendly matches against the eventual winners of the western zone and in both occasions Ochieng’ s team had roundly drubbed the opposing team.
So, on learning that they were their opponents for the slot in the nationals Ochieng and his team were ecstatic and
But the last word in the walk of shame has to be the fact that the one man that the Mrima rallied against and vowed that he shall not take the seat of power while they breathed, Baba, is now deeply ensconced in the very government they tried to keep him from. they could almost taste victory. The team even began to plan and plot how they would be the national champions that year.
A careful analysis of the sixteen teams that would then produce the eight finalists in the national tournament indicated that Ochieng’ s school were best placed to be the eventual winners and their excitement was palpable.
The atmosphere in the school changed noticeably and everyone started to refer to the team as the champions and even during the school assembly the headmaster congratulated them in advance for their stellar performance and bringing glory to the school.
During the same assembly the school chaplain even diverted from his usual homily and called forward the team and offered a special prayer for them, likening them to Joshua’ s army that had brought down the walls of Jericho.
The training sessions were energized and
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