ALARIC
Kimani was unlike anyone I had ever known.
I had lunch with world leaders, investors, politicians who believed their words could bend economies. Yet, somehow, it was Kimani’s voice—fast, animated, full of sharp complaints about her department head—that lingered in my mind long after the restaurant had faded behind us.
She talked without restraint, her thoughts spilling out in every direction, and instead of grating on me, it… calmed me. The steady rhythm of her chatter filled a silence I hadn’t even realized I lived in.
When she raised her phone and snapped pictures of me—me, of all people—I should have felt irritated. I never allowed cameras close unless I controlled the narrative. But with her, it was different. She laughed, said she wanted to “prove I was human” and not some
