There is a man in town who is known to his close friends as Mr. Keys. When I was introduced to him by one of my friends, I sought to find out why they called him by that name. And my friend told me the story of Mr. Keys.

Mr. Keys is a wealthy sophisticated gentleman in his 50 now. My friend told me that Mr. Keys has very little formal education and when he first came to Nairobi from upcountry, he leant the trade of key cutting from one of his friends. That is the trade that sustained his existence in the big city for many years. Looking at the man and the clout that he commands within his circle of equally wealthy friends, it is impossible to imagine that such a polished guy could one day have sat on the streets with a tiny booth similar to the ones that the downtown key cutters occupy in Nairobi, hoping that a passerby might have the need for a duplicate key. I was curious about how his fortunes changed and when I asked my friend, he looked at me and said mysteriously, “One day, Mr. Keys made a key that enabled him to open the magic box into riches.”

Well, that is all that my friend said, and I had to walk away with that explanation. Taken literally, Mr. Keys’ is a story as fabulous as that of magic beans or a goose that lays a golden egg or finding a genie in an old lamp. It is the kind of story that we liked to indulge in and that fueled our young imagination as children, the kind that we call a miracle as adults. It is also the type that many people are ever in pursuit of – even though few will admit it. Anyway, may your goose lay golden eggs, may you find magic beans, and may you craft a key that opens the vault to fabulous riches! And may your story have a happy ending!