@696chronicles

Personal writing page. Essays, stories and notes on ordinary life. Some pieces are fiction.

 Nairobi
Joined March 2017
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We inherit more than things. We inherit habits, fears, beliefs and ways of loving. The real work is knowing what to carry with you and what needs to stop with you.

The Inheritance Nobody Leaves in a Will

When people hear the word inheritance, they usually think of things that can be put on paper. A house, a piece of land, money, a business, perhaps an old piece of jewellery that has moved through seve…

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The Person Everyone Calls

There is usually someone people know they can call. When the rent needs figuring out, when a younger sibling gets into trouble, when a friend doesn't know what to do next, when something has gone wron…

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The Person They Think You Are

It is a strange feeling when someone has already decided who you are, and you know the person they are describing isn't quite you. You hear their explanation of why you did something, what you meant, …

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The Days We Didn't Know We'd Miss

There is an afternoon from years ago that I still remember for no obvious reason. Nothing important happened. I wasn't celebrating anything. I wasn't having a particularly good or bad day. I don't eve…

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The Future That Never Happened

There are times when life doesn't go wrong in one dramatic moment. Nothing breaks. Nobody dies. There isn't always a final conversation. Things just begin moving in a direction you didn't expect, and …

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The Man Who Became a Rumour

I almost believed the story myself. That was what made me check it.

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The Story That Became History

Sometimes the first thing you have to do with a strange historical story is stop and ask whether the story itself is true.

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The Mathematics of Absence

There is a strange kind of mathematics that shows up in ordinary life. You don't learn it in school, and there is no formula for it, but most of us eventually recognize it. We often understand the val…

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The Brain Doesn't Remember the Past. It Rehearses the Future.

There are conversations that ended years ago and yet continue long after the other person has left.

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The Language of Reassurance

There is a quiet kind of loneliness that can exist even inside love.

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The Quiet Order of Things

Some truths arrive long before language.

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The Measure of Staying

Love is rarely tested when life is easy.

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