Every morning begins with quite a predictability .Birds carve their way across the sky in confident forward arcs, wings slicing through the air as they travel toward whatever destination the day demands. The sun performs its familiar ritual, rising from the east with practiced precision, washing roofs, windows, and sleepy faces in its steady, golden climb. Cars hum along the road in an orderly procession, wheels spinning forward, engines pulling them toward workplaces, schools, and waiting obligations.Â
However,almost too subtly to notice at first, the rhythm stutters. A bird, mid-flight, pauses. Its wings do not flap; they simply fold backward as if an unseen hand is gently rewinding it through the air. Instead of soaring toward the horizon, it drifts in reverse, carving back the sky it had just traveled through.  The sun halts in the middle of its climb. Light trembles, bends, and then retreats. Shadows that had stretched obediently forward now shrink, gathering under the feet of trees and buildings as if hiding from something impossible. The sky brightens in reverse, colours jarring themselves until morning becomes a softer, stranger version of dawn. Cars do not screech or crash; they simply begin to glide backward, wheels spinning the wrong way, yet perfectly controlled. Drivers sit upright, hands steady on the steering wheel, eyes wide with a confusion mirrored on every passing face. Streets become rivers running backward to their source.
I, standing in the middle of all of it, felt my breath catch in my throat. It wasn’t fear, at least not the kind that sends you running. It was quiet, electric disbelief, the kind that makes your fingertips tingle and your thoughts slow down. It felt as though the world had inhaled sharply but refused to exhale. As though time itself had decided to unspool, pulling the thread of the day backward through my fingers.  I watched leaves drift up from the ground and reattach themselves to branches.I saw a puddle gather itself, rising in a graceful column before dissolving into the gray belly of a cloud.As each moment reversed,a strange clarity settled over me: I wasn’t witnessing chaos. I was witnessing a kind of order I had never known existed.
As the world continued sliding backward, moments untangling, I felt something deeper begin to reverse as well. Not the physical world around me, but the hidden world inside me, the part stitched together by memories, comments, reactions, and all the tiny choices I thought had gone unnoticed. It started softly almost like a whisper traveling against the wind.
I found myself standing at Eco Cafè, the one in the CBD where I had longed to go for a calm coffee date with my bestie (A pretty little nod to Winsum – the one who hears these thoughts long before they make it onto paper). The barista smiled as I handed over my money, a gentle, genuine smile that made my chest warm for a moment. Suddenly the day reversed and I wasn’t receiving the smile, I was giving it back.
This time, I saw everything I hadn’t , every rushed sigh I had thrown their way for a slightly burnt latte. Every time my face settled into that unbothered, cold expression because I didn’t want “games” or awkward moments. The world rewound them all, placing each reaction gently in my hands, as if to say, “Here, Remember this? Feel what it was like on the other side.”
And then came the classroom, A classmate’s voice echoed – a soft, uncertain attempt at answering the most basic pharmacology question. I had chuckled under my breath, shared a naughty glance with another friend and allowed embarrassment to bloom around him . On this reverse day, I watched the scene rewind until it placed me in their seat. I felt the hesitation, the fear of getting it wrong, the sting of being mocked for something so small that it shouldn’t have mattered in the first place.In reverse the laughter wasn’t mine. It came toward me, and I finally understood its weight.
Then the street scenes returned, crisp as a film played backwards.Along Ronald Ngala Street, right outside Best Lady, the salonist’s voice floated toward me: “Rembo salon?” It had been such a harmless invitation. A person trying to earn a living.But I’d responded with sharpness, mean words flung out because my hair was already done, and the curls of my boho braids were simply missing a touch of mousse.On the reverse day, I heard my own tone land on someone else’s shoulders. And it didn’t feel good. Not at all.
The same thing happened with a nail tech who had called out, “Sweetie nails,” a simple call to get my nails done from someone hustling through the day.
But because my boyfriend had praised my natural nails earlier that week, I rolled my eyes and shot back a careless gesture. The world reversed it now, placing his harmless tone beside my dismissive one, and it was painfully clear which one carried more kindness.
And then there was the Monday morning, the one dripping with microbiology stress as I squeezed my way through Afya Centre. A donda’s voice had called out, “Madam wanne ijae Eldoret,” and irritation had flared up before reason. In my tired eyes, he had mistaken me for Ismael Korir’s sister, and for some reason that had bothered me.
Not because I had anything against anyone, not even close, but because Mondays stretch patience thin.In reverse, I saw the moment from his side: a simple attempt to catch a customer, to make a sale, to start his day. Nothing more.
And through it all, as these scenes circled, spinning inward like a whirlwind made of memories and second chances, one truth settled softly into my heart:
I wasn’t validating my words.
I wasn’t excusing my gestures.
I wasn’t defending my carelessness.
I had simply forgotten the verse Matthew 7:12 ;So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Every person I had snapped at or brushed off was out there trying to make a living, trying to take care of themselves, trying to survive the day just like me.
As the day continued its slow, impossible rewind, something inside me loosened, like a knot I hadn’t realised I’d been carrying in my chest. Each reversed moment wasn’t just a memory replayed; it felt like the world was quietly laying out the pieces of who I had been, not to shame me, but to help me understand myself more honestly. .
There was a strange tenderness in watching my own carelessness return to me. It was like seeing my reflection in a mirror I’d avoided for too long, the kind that doesn’t flatter or distort, but simply shows what’s there. What I saw wasn’t a bad person or a good person. Just a human one. A human being who sometimes spoke too fast, reacted too sharply, or failed to soften when someone else needed gentleness.
And for the first time, I didn’t feel the instinct to defend myself.I didn’t want to say,“I was tired” or
“I was stressed” or ” I didn’t mean it” or “It was just one of those days.”Because maybe all of that was true but being human didn’t erase the fact that other humans had felt the impact.
Standing in the middle of this reversed world; birds un-flying, cars gliding backward, time pulling every moment back to its beginning, I realised that kindness isn’t measured in grand gestures. It’s measured in the tiny things: the tone of my voice, the way I look at someone, the patience I offer when I have every excuse not to.What struck me most was the gentleness of the lesson .The world, simply held up a mirror and waited for me to look. I felt a kind of softness spread through me; a quiet desire to do better, to pay more attention to the way my actions ripple outward. To remember that everyone I meet is fighting something I don’t see.To remember the Matthew 7:12 and why it mattered.
And as the world clicked back into motion (birds flying properly, shadows stretching the right way, clocks ticking forward) I felt something shift in me too. A promise formed quietly within, not loud or dramatic, but steady:
To live forward, but think backward.
To act with the awareness that every moment echoes.To remember that the world doesn’t need perfection, only intention.
The day resumed. Life continued. Nothing looked different.But I did!
~Joy N. ~