Dear Diary,

So, what is a non-believing bachelor like me doing in the office of a pastor who looks mad enough to swallow me whole? Well, allow me to compose myself enough to explain it.

With politics and wars and the impending doom soon to be orchestrated by super intelligent computers, there’s so much going on in the world to occupy one’s mind. But in the cosmic state of things, I’m only a simple man who endeavours to treat sick people during the day and impress beautiful women during my off hours. You might say I always aim to please.

Fact is, I’ll never be able to explain what existed before the Big Bang (Scientifically speaking, that is. There’s another kind of big bang I can talk about to my wit’s end, but we’re still at a pastor’s office, mind you).

 Yet I can say I’ve solved a few conundrums in my days. Like the older gentleman who came to my office with inflammation in a tendon and very sure he had cancer or something worse. When I asked about his physical activities in the last few days, I delivered my diagnosis with a straight face.

“Mr Mwangi, you are indeed suffering from something,” I said. “It’s called Boomeritis.”

The man nearly dropped to the floor. “Oh, no, doctor,” he cried. “Please tell me. Is it as bad as it sounds?”

“No, sir,” said I. “It’s caused by weekend warriors over 50 like you suddenly trying to act like they are 20 on a golf course. Apply this salve two times a day and take it easy on the back nine. Okay?”

Not the answer to the true nature of man, but we all do our small parts, right?

Next to me at the pastor’s office, Jenny digs my ribs with an elbow. “Tom, do something!”

“I was doing something,” I blurt out before I know it.

What I’m doing is thinking of an old patient to deflect my brain from the immediate circumstance.

You see, I am faced with a dilemma I’m not fit to crack. If you haven’t been following this poor excuse for a bachelor’s journey, I happened to have played host to Jenny, a colleague whose house was ruined by heavy rains. A very religious colleague, who is also very pregnant right now, and not by me. By her pastor. By this very man who now stands behind his desk, gesticulating like a mad man. A married pastor who heads four churches and almost 3,000 souls.

“How can you sit there and accuse me of something like that, Jenny?” shouts the man of the cloth. “I’m a man of God. I’m supposed to walk the chaste path.”

I know what you’re thinking. What’s all this got to do with a bachelor who hasn’t seen the inside of a church since they sprinkled holy water on his toddler forehead? And now you know why I’m daydreaming to escape the nightmare unfolding before me.

“And why would you bring this… this heathen into a holy place?” the pastor continues.

“Well, Pastor Pontius,” she says. “I happen to trust him more than I do my fellow congregants. Or you. When it comes to not judging me, at least.”

The pastor calms down some. “I see what’s happening here and I have the perfect solution. We’ll have to perform an exorcism.”

Jenny shoots to her feet. “Are you insinuating that I’m possessed by the devil?”

He smiles. “That’s the only explanation your fellow congregants will buy. It’s easier than telling them that we have our first case of immaculate conception, no?”