Lulu is no more.

The compound is very quiet.

He hasn’t noticed.

The guard and the nanny whisper about her,

motioning silence with a finger on their closed mouth

Hush.

He kicks the football about,

But does not notice the lack of barks.

Lulu was escorted to beyond some unknown gates

And what we have now is the memory

of her yapping at us when we first came to the compound…

We would speak Swahili to her. I would, anyway.

Him? He would babble off an imitation of what I would say

“Lulu, unapigia nani kelele?”

She would listen when we’d come up to the little fence gate

“Sit, Lulu” “Keti”

She would plop down and wait for me to pet her over the fence gate.

He would always stay a bit behind me…

Perhaps he sensed what the neighbors would confess months later

when the barks were becoming unpredictable and bites more common.

He only knew that she stopped barking and yapping at us after

a few months of us being in the compound.

He would kick his football about, chase the stray cats and birds

and call out for Lulu in his singsong voice.

Lulu is no more.

He hasn’t asked.

I haven’t said.