Rain On Tin Roofs

The rain came down in sheets, hammering the corrugated iron roof like impatient fingers demanding entry. Kamau stared at the ceiling from the narrow bed, watching water seep through rust spots and drip into an old sufuria he'd placed on the floor. Each plink was a reminder that he'd traded Nairobi's glass towers for this leaking cottage in a forgotten village nestled between the green folds of the Cherangani Hills.

He had come here to finish the designs for a luxury eco-lodge, and this was his last project before he could disappear into the silence he craved. Six months ago, his fiancée Amina had died in a matatu accident on Thika Road. The grief had hollowed him out until work was the only thing that still made sense. But even blueprints couldn't fill the quiet spaces she used to light up.

The...