Alone in Nairobi, Finding Freedom
She had always been the kind of woman who turned heads—not just because of her striking beauty, but because of the way she carried herself, like she knew something no one else did. Her name was Nyambura, though in Nakuru, they called her “Nuru” for the light she seemed to bring into every room. But light, she had learned, could be suffocating when it was all people ever expected from you.
So she left.
Not in the dramatic, tearful way people expected, but quietly, decisively. One day, she was a high-flying corporate executive in Nakuru, the pride of her family, the envy of her friends. The next, she was handing in her resignation, packing a single suitcase, and boarding a matatu to Nairobi. The city had always called to her—not with the promise of money (she already had that), but with the whisper of anonymity, of reinvention.
The Apartment
Her new home was a small, one-bedroom apartment in Kilimani, sandwiched between a noisy club and a 24-hour supermarket. The walls were thin, and at night, she could hear the bass from the club thumping like a distant heartbeat. The bathroom light flickered, and the kitchen sink leaked, but she didn’t care. It was hers.
She had chosen it precisely because it was nothing like the spacious, sunlit house she had left behind. That house had been filled with expectations—her mother’s hopeful glances, her friends’ unspoken comparisons, the weight of a life that felt more like a performance than living. Here, in this dimly lit space, she could breathe.
The City’s Embrace
Nairobi was not kind to the unprepared. It chewed up dreamers and spat them out onto crowded pavements, their illusions shattered. But Nyambura was different. She wasn’t here to chase anything. She was here to disappear.
She wandered the streets at odd hours, slipping into bars where no one knew her name. She drank alone, savoring the bitterness of Tusker lager, watching the way the neon signs reflected in puddles after the rain. The city was alive in a way Nakuru never was—not with warmth, but with a relentless, electric pulse.
One night, she found herself in a dimly lit jazz club, the kind where the air was thick with smoke and the music felt like a secret being passed between strangers. A man with tired eyes and a guitar sang about lost love, and for the first time in months, she felt something stir inside her. Not longing, not regret—just the quiet recognition that she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
The Exit Signs
Her apartment building had a faulty fire alarm. Every few weeks, it would blare in the middle of the night, sending panicked tenants stumbling into the hallway. Nyambura never rushed. She would stand in her doorway, watching the red glow of the exit signs flicker against the walls, listening to the muffled curses of her neighbors.
There was something comforting about those signs. They were always there, a silent promise that there was a way out if things went wrong. But what fascinated her was how few people ever looked up to see them until it was too late.
She wondered if that was why she had left Nakuru. Not because she was running from something, but because she needed to prove to herself that she could still see the exits—that she hadn’t become one of those people who stayed in one place so long they forgot they had a choice.
Twilight Adventures
She didn’t have a plan. That was the most exhilarating part. Some days, she took matatus to neighborhoods she’d never heard of, getting off at random stops just to see what was there. Other days, she stayed in bed until noon, listening to the hum of the city outside her window.
Once, on a whim, she took a night bus to Mombasa. She didn’t tell anyone. She just went. For three days, she walked along the beach, letting the salt air tangle in her hair, sleeping in a cheap hostel where no one asked her questions. When she returned to Nairobi, she half-expected someone to have noticed her absence. But the city hadn’t blinked.
That was the beauty of it.
The Freedom of Being Unknown
In Nakuru, she had been Nuru—the golden girl, the one who had it all. Here, she was just another face in the crowd. No one knew her salary, her family, her past. No one cared.
And for the first time in her life, she felt free.
Not the kind of freedom people post about on social media, with sunset captions and hashtags. The real kind. The kind that comes from sitting alone in a dimly lit bar, with no one waiting for you, no one expecting anything from you. The kind that comes from knowing you could vanish tomorrow, and the world would keep turning.
She sipped her drink, watching the exit signs glow red in the dark.
And she smiled.