Who I Am

I am complicated. I come with all these quirks and faults that would take at least five rocket scientists to figure out. I am not a thing that can best be described in three, five or even ten words. I am not an idea that has to be consistent within itself to be credible.

Instead, I am a bundle of contradictions. You could use the entire dictionary to describe me and it still wouldn’t be adequate enough an explanation. You could call me hot and cold within the same breath; and still be accurate. You could term me as cowardly and brave in the context of one scenario and yet be perfectly spot-on. I am both saint and sinner; demon and angel; man and beast; all rolled into one.

I do not claim to be easy to understand or easy to know or easy to live with. Yet people have this innate need to fit everyone and everything into a neat little labeled box for future reference. It’s the human need for certainty. Yes, we may crave adventure and new experiences since we are attracted to the unknown like moths to a flame of light. However, deep down, we are slaves to predictability and stability. And so we form impressions of other people within minutes or weeks or months of knowing them; thinking we have them all figured out yet failing to see that we have barely scratched the surface.

I find it amusing when people make assumptions about my character; when they claim to “know” me or to be privy to my state of mind at any given time. No one really knows me and vice versa; I don’t really know anyone. We barely know ourselves as well as we think we may do. That is why at times, we fail to fathom the emotions that bubble up inside us and get us excited, depressed or just plain indifferent. How is it then, that another person, only familiar with the artificial facades that each of us don in public, can claim to know us better than we know ourselves?

Like every other human being, I am not a simple creature with minimum to basic instruction manuals on how to operate. I am not easy to take on. I am a work in progress and I have no apologies whatsoever for that. I am unique. And different. And contradictory. I am neither weird nor strange. I am simply… me.

Goodbye Sheila

I am going to die today.

Those were the words that rung in his head when he opened his eyes that morning. He had been roused from another one of his nightmares by the shrill blare of the digital clock at his bedside. It continued to ring persistently but he did not move to silent it. The sound only registered in a dull part of his conscious which he reckoned had died a while ago. The cold permeated his bones but he made no attempt to wrap himself in the sweaty blankets that had been thrown off in the middle of the night.

Purely out of habit, he glanced at the side of the bed, knowing that he would find no-one. This was not even his bed. Well, technically speaking, it was; considering that it was in the guest room of his house, but in all other senses of possession, it was not his. It was a cold bed, inhabited by whatever friend or relation that had spent the night at their house; his and Sheila’s. Sheila.  He winced as his subconscious dredged up an image of her; crying. He had tried to drown out that image. It was an awful image; of her looking pitifully wounded. She had always had a child-like round face and when it scrounged up at the horror of her discovery last night, it was enough to make a grown man weep. Weep, he had. All through the night. Both in the nightmare of his realities and the guilt of his troubled dreams.

He slowly woke up and dressed; paying no attention to the fact that he had worn those clothes last night. If his senses were alive, he would have felt grubby, but as it was, he barely had the strength to exist, leave alone, notice comforts or the lack thereof. As he finished dressing and began walking out to the living room, a cold sense of dread enveloped his gut. He did not want to face Sheila. Not after last night. The look in her eyes had emasculated him; made him feel worthless. And why shouldn’t he? He had destroyed the very thing he had vowed to protect and cherish. He had betrayed her; betrayed the sanctity of their love.

The house was eerily silent and all at once, the knots of dread in his stomach unfurled and then quickly twisted into grief. She had packed his suitcases and left them at the door. Kind Sheila. Thoughtful Sheila. My Sheila. There was no note next to the bags. Wounded Sheila. Hurt Sheila.

He took a writing pad from the bureau and started writing a note. He felt inadequate; how could you begin apologizing for defiling something so precious? After a few agonizing seconds of pen poised over paper, he settled on the only thing he knew would be important. “Goodbye Sheila.” Without picking any of the bags left for him, he walked out into the street; under the drizzling rain.

His gait had often been described as masculine but as he walked, he almost laughed at the irony of it all. The man with the masculine gait had finally succumbed to his secret longings of being with another man. It had always been a ridiculous fantasy; one that convinced him he had lived in Europe for too long. But they persisted; and after festering since his childhood, he had succumbed. Gavin was just a distraction; an exciting morsel of fun that he permitted himself sparingly. He neither loved him nor cared for him; because the great love of his life would always remain Sheila; his soul mate. It had been stupid to bring his gay lover to the house when Sheila was away on a business trip. But then again, getting involved with Gavin had been a stupid idea all along. Most people feel remorse at getting caught; but what he felt was regret. Regret at having given leave to a ridiculous temptation that he had known all along would suck the very joie de vivre of his life from him.

Sheila had wanted to surprise him by coming early. She knew he liked surprises. She had no way of knowing that it was she who would be surprised by catching him and Gavin on their special love seat in the living room. It killed him just to think about it and he tried his best to suppress the image of her horrified face.

He stood facing the bridge. The expanse of water below it was foggy and deathly still. The rain drops fell on his face in urgent drops; as if trying to talk him out of it. He tried to look for alternatives but it was no use. He knew his life was over. He started climbing on the ledge of the bridge; the stone wall scrapping across his palms and drawing blood. The blood glistened on his hand; bright and shiny ; yet quickly dissolving in the urgent rain drops. He stopped suddenly. God! What was he doing? He couldn’t leave Sheila alone in the world. They only had each other. All at once, it dawned on him; he would go back and wait for her. And when she came back, he would apologize over and over until she forgave him. He had broken his vow once but he would not do it again. He would never leave her again.

He quickly got down; his mind whirring at the various forms of apology he would offer to Sheila. He was ready to get humiliated. He deserved it after all. His mind was so occupied that he did not notice he was walking smack in the middle of the road. He was like a demon possessed as he counted and recounted the cost of getting her to trust him again. He did not see the Jeep coming towards him at full speed. He barely heard its angry skid on the slippery road. All he felt was an impossibly strong force lifting him off the ground and the angry whiplash of gravity setting him back down on the gravel tarmac. He felt shattering from within ; everything blurred. All he could think of, even as he took his last breath, was “Sheila. I can’t leave Sheila.”

Do you Regret Anything?

Whenever I read an interview of someone whose achievements have managed to earn them a spot on those glossy celebrity magazine covers that cost an arm and a leg , or even watch a live interview of someone who has managed to  please that fickle mistress we call fame, one thing sticks out like a sore finger for me. Now, I do not claim to have been a journalist at any point in my life but I usually imagine that in Journalism school, there’s a handbook that dictates which questions must absolutely be asked of the rich and famous or either. In my mind’s eye, the first of these questions is “Do you have any regrets?” And because the script never changes, the said subject of the interview will go on to answer in the negative, all the while, quoting some overused saying on why every experience has made them into the person that they are, i.e. the overlords of us common folk.

While this might be true to some extent, come on!! If we are to speak practically, is it really possible to live a life sans any regrets whatsoever? Everyone has those moments which if it was up to them, would be erased from the memory of the universe. I’m sure everyone has at some point felt frustrated at the lack of time travel machines for the sole reason that there is nothing they would like better than to go back and undo their actions at one point or another.

Yes, I believe in fate. And yes, I also believe that there are events which occur as blessings in disguise. I also believe, though that there are actions which will always be our undoing. In the story of our lives, there will always be that one road which we took but wish we hadn’t. The one that probably limited us from being all that we could have been; the one that interfered with our progress; the one that we ultimately regret.

Regret, though is bitter. I suppose the reason that most people would rather die than get caught professing their regret about anything in their lives is the fact that regret is like a disease. It bogs you down and eats away at you if you let it. It gets you stuck in the past; makes you more paranoid than Ebenezer Scrooge. And when regret is souring your every day existence, then you know your goose is truly and well-cooked.

My advice? Embrace Regret. Do not let it be the boss of you because that is the easiest and fastest way to bitterness. Do not pretend it does not exist, though, because deep down, it will always be there. Regret should be a lesson; Learn from the experiences you regret. After all, all we can do is hope that each moment we live out in the present does not turn out to become a source of regret in the future.

 

I am “WRITER”!

Wow, it’s been so long since I posted anything on my blog. Yes, two weeks in my books is quite long, especially given that during the past few months, I decided to be putting up a post at least twice a week. Well, I started my internship and the 8 to 5 business really takes some getting used to. Also, a friend of mine and I started a project and it’s been taking up most of my free (read lazy) time. I know, I know, excuses, no matter how good, are still excuses so I’ll stop the rambling.

Today, I was going through a fashion website Lookbook.nu and first of all, let me just say how I was blown apart by the level of creativity going on in the fashion world. Secondly, the other thing that thrilled me was that most of these designers and stylists are approximately the same age as I am. I guess I have finally reached that age where people my age are doing cool things with their lives and discovering themselves and actually excelling in those discoveries. Now excuse me while I go curl up in a corner and feel inadequate.

Jokes aside though, Artistry has always appealed to me. I’m not much of a fashionista but I like to think of myself as a connoiseur; I appreciate good fashion. I’m not much of an artist or painter as well but good art draws me in. Neither I’m I more than an amateur photographer, but I appreciate good photography. I guess at heart, I really I’m artistic.

I started brooding at the irony of it all, and then  light bulb went off in my head. I write! I’m not just artistic; I am an artist! I’ve always hesitated to term myself as a writer because it seems like such a big title to label oneself with. Besides, I always sneer inwardly whenever common folk call themselves writers. I mean if I call myself a writer, what will the likes of Khaled Hosseini and Ken Follet call themselves?

But as Toni Morrison put it: “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” And so, I write, because there are many unwritten stories in my head. I write because I find horror in calmness; I write because I find beauty in ugliness; I write because there are tears in joy and vice versa. I write because the bleeding of ink on paper simulates the bleeding of my heart on my readers’ eyes. I write, simply because I love it.

I write for the sake of writing. And if that doesn’t make me a writer, I don’t know what else does.

Keep Your Distance

We are brought into the world with very little in the way of possessions. No clothes on our backs; no money in our pockets; no convictions in our minds; just a little defenseless body and the most basic of needs. However, one thing that we all possess from conception to death is personal space. I mean, look at the womb, your very own space to grow from a barely-there zygote to a full grown body. Seeing as it is something that is granted to us free of charge from the very first second of our existence, you would think that it would be programmed into everyone to appreciate and even respect the concept of personal space.

The reality however is cruel. Very few people seem to grasp how important it is to maintain the fragile balance of respecting other people’s personal space without being overly skittish. There are people who seem to have never heard of personal space and proceed to treat it with appalling disregard. A few weeks ago, I was queuing at a bank and as is typical with banking halls within the CBD, it was a long queue and all everyone wanted was to get at the head of the line as fast as possible, perhaps to escape the nauseating verbal diarrhea spewing out of the radio station that was playing from discreet speakers in the wall. (I digress, however; that is a story for another day.)

Standing in a queue is an art with its own set of politics. The first rule of standing in such a queue is that thou shalt absolutely avoid eye contact with the other people you’re standing with. Disregard for this rule may lead to one looking like a stalker because come on, what are you supposed to do after locking eyes with a complete stranger? And so you study your phone, the walls, your shoes or the screen on the wall with muted ads. If you have to stare at someone, let it be at their back, because then they won’t catch you ogling at the fanciness, or lack thereof of their shoes. The second rule is that thou shalt not trouble your fellow queue-ers with the drivel of mindless conversation. Mindless conversation is acceptable at weddings, at parties, at luncheons; but it is absolutely not acceptable in banking halls. So what if you are tired? I really don’t care. So what if you think the service is crap? If it was good, I wouldn’t be stuck in a queue with morons like you, now would I? There are few things more annoying than a talkative stranger who thrives on pointing out the obvious. Comments that go along the vein of: “ It’s so hot”; “This queue isn’t moving”; “These cashiers are too slow”; “This bank needs more branches in the CBD” and then my absolute favorite: loud dramatic sighs that hint at exhaustion but which also hint at that being impossible because of the vigorous manner in which they are delivered. Sure, there are people who thrive on small talk with strangers but I think I speak for majority of the population when I say it is thoroughly annoying, especially when you, the audience, is only required to nod and sigh at the appropriate places.

While a violation of the above rules is enough to earn you serious moron points with me, there is one thing that absolutely trumps the rest. And that is people who have no concept of personal space. So there I was, tweeting with reckless abandon (yes, I just quoted the Nokia ad) when this hijab-clad woman standing behind me started making loud pointed comments that I suspect were directed at me. I, being the snob that I am, pretended not to hear and continued scrolling furiously away on my phone. When her comments did not elicit any response, she went ahead to sigh dramatically; said sigh being enough to flood the back of my neck with her foul breath. Ugghhhh!!! I wanted to howl and scream in disgust but having tact ingrained in me since I was a toddler, I discreetly moved out of her line of breathing as best as I could. Big mistake! The woman apparently thought that my slightly forward movement was an invitation for her to also move ahead. And so she inched closer towards me, all the while breathing down my neck and all but pushing me ahead with her frame. She seemed to think that the closer she was to me, the faster the queue would move. By now, she had firmly sandwiched me between her and the poor soul standing in front of me who by the looks of it, was also very uncomfortable with the situation. Her monologue did not cease however and by now, she had started showering the back of my neck with spit.

I fantasized about a parallel universe where I would turn to her and give her a dressing down while punching the living daylights out of her. In that universe, I had raw guts and no self-control whatsoever. After using her hijab to strangle her, I would shove her head into the wall to silent the speakers and then proceed to use her as a bat to hit the cashiers who seemed to be getting speed lessons from turtles. Back in this universe however, I stepped out of the line and continued staring at my phone while I tweeted my distaste. That’s right folks. This is the 21st century where you air your grievances on social networks and do nothing about them in reality. From the corner of my eye, I caught her inching closer to the man who had been standing in front of me. She was now at my side and I laughed inwardly at the hope she had, that she could actually overtake me. Mercifully, we reached the head of the queue and I firmly stepped back into my place.

This woman looked to be about 30 and I wondered how she had survived for three decades in this world without learning how to respect other people’s personal space. Unfortunately she is not the only one; There are people like her that have been set loose in public places; left to terrorize the rest of us who are very mindful of having our space to ourselves.

One day, when I am obscenely wealthy, with more money than I can ever spend, I will start a school that trains people on the concept of personal space. Just you wait.

The Landslide

“Recalcitrant; Mutinous; Rebel.” “Recalcitrant; Mutinous; Rebel.” The three words bounced around Femi’s mind, teasing her to grasp them, savour them; say them. She lay staring at the ceiling as she tried resisting the temptation to say those three words out loud; Recalcitrant, Mutinous, Rebel.  If it was possible she would be tossing and turning but the incessant snoring and warm breath of her baby sister on her neck reminded her that that was a luxury she did not have. The faint glimmer of dawn seeped through the corrugated iron sheets that doubled up as roof and ceiling.

The heavy storm last night had slowed down to a steady drizzle which ceaselessly drummed on the roof. She sighed in relief that the roof had been repaired just the previous day. Otherwise, they would have been all forced to huddle on the opposite side of the curtain partition that hung limply in the middle of the room. Her parents slept on that other side; it was the good side since the mattress was comfortable and the roof better but other than that, it was no different from the side that she struggled to fit onto a thin mattress with her three younger siblings.  It was a single room, after all and the children’s bedroom functioned as both a kitchen and living room during the day. 

Her arm was cramped but she did not dare to turn because she knew that if her siblings woke up, the burden of taking care of their morning needs such as breakfast and cleaning up lay on her. After all, Femi was the first-born and her parents would have to go to work in the stone factory on the other side of town. She wanted to delay the start of her day for as long as possible. Wanting to move a little, she got up gingerly and tiptoed out of the house, locking it carefully.

 Femi lived in a slum; it was a fact that she accepted and chose not to dwell on. Simply put, it was the only life she had ever known and was probably the only one she would ever know; on account of the fact that she had already dropped out of high school. As far as slums go, her family was lucky because they lived at the very edge of the slum, right next to a large boulder that separated the slum from a quarry on the other side. Given a choice between the large obtrusive noises from the quarry all day long and living smack in the middle of the slum, Femi would choose the former any day. She was an artistic intelligent soul and artistic intelligent souls (no matter how low their level of education), abhor idle talk and petty squabbles. At least at the edge, she could take refuge under one of the many crevices that the boulder offered and smuggle books to read there. Of course, there was always the unhappy chance that she would stumble on someone turning her private spaces into a toilet but that that was a chance she could live with. She craved solitude and peace; two things that were the farthest out of reach given her circumstances.

She had just sat on a small rock under one of the crevices in the boulder when she heard footsteps approaching. She spread her palms on the cool rock she was sitting on, all the while groaning inwardly. She hoped whoever it was would head to another space and wouldn’t take too long to relieve himself. The footsteps were not deliberate, it sounded as if the intruder was stumbling and she stifled an audible groan. Great! It was a drunkard who would probably pass out in the shade of the boulder. However, whoever it was had obviously not reached the point of passing out because he continued stumbling and after a few seconds appeared in front of her with a lecherous grin on his face.

“Femz!” he declared. She recoiled at the stench from his cheap liquour and tried to suppress the anger rising in her. “Femz, Femz, Femz!” he chanted, grinning at her. “That’s not my name,” she grumpily replied. “It’s Femi. F-EM-I.” The silly grin did not leave his face as he started approaching her. His name was Boyo and he was the dirty old drunk who lived next door to Femi’s family. She hated him with every cell in her body and shuddered in revulsion every time he looked at her like some meal he wanted to devour.

She hurriedly rose to leave but he blocked her way out of the crevice with his bulky frame. “Leaving so soon? After all the trouble I’ve taken to follow you?” he slurred, making an attempt to touch her. Like a wounded animal, she backed away quickly. “What do you want, Boyo? My mother is looking for me,” she snarled on account of the fact that her teeth were clenched. “You think you are better than all of us Femi, don’t you?” He was closing in on her, with an evil glimmer in his eyes that she did not like at all. She decided to take a chance and dart out of the cave around him. After all, he was really drunk; his reflex actions would be slower. She said a silent prayer and lunged towards the entrance, hoping to squeeze herself in the space between his form and the cave wall.

However, as soon as she had put her plan into motion, she regretted it almost immediately. He apparently was not as drunk as he appeared because he had read her mind. No sooner had she begun moving than he lunged at her and pinned her to the wall that had just seconds ago, been her only hope of redemption. She fought him with all her strength but his grip was vice-like and he clamped her arms behind her while pushing her face against the damp boulder wall. She started crying and screaming but the sound was muffled because he continued to push her against the wall as if he hoped to make her one with the stone. He laughed in her ear, “Don’t cry, I’ll take care of you.” She was still fighting him as he started licking the back of her neck with that repulsive tongue which felt rough and reeked of alcohol. He maneuvered behind her and pressed his body close to hers all the while chanting that he would take care of her. “Boyo, Leave me alone, I promise I won’t snub you again. Just leave me alone,” she cried desperately. She could taste the salty tears she was shedding and could feel a sharp pain that had begun slicing through her shoulders. “Please, Boyo, Let me go. I won’t tell anyone, I promise. Just leave me alone,” she begged through her tears. Boyo just chuckled as his breathing got heavier and heavier. “I like you when you are submissive baby. It’s so hot. I just want to teach you some manners.”  He started rocking against her in a rhythmic motion and she renewed her screaming with alarmed vigour. “Shut up you bitch, shut up!” he snarled and tightened his grip on her while pushing her farther into the wall. 

Just then, the rock that Femi was sandwiched against started trembling violently. She tried looking up in confusion but Boyo held her in place. He was too busy fumbling with his zipper to notice. “Boyo, the rock is crumbling!” she cried in alarm as dust started falling on her face, “Shut up!” he snarled, “do you take me for a fool? I know that that is the vibration from the quarry machines.  By this time, he had started pulling her dress up and fumbling with her underwear. “Boyo, this thing is going to collapse on us!” but her cry was lost in the terrifying thunder than rent the air at that precise moment. Cracks appeared on the rock she was pressed against as Boyo simultaneously let go of her.  The earth beneath their feet was shifting and both of them began scrambling out of the crevice as it began to collapse all around them. 

Femi felt something heavy knock her off her feet and she fell face down on the ground. Boyo’s loud scream was audible against the backdrop of the sound of rocks crumbling and giving way to gravity. Femi’s only instinct at the moment was survival and she scrambled out from under the rock that had partially collapsed on her and given way. She looked back and saw that the same rock had floored Boyo as well, only that in his case, it had trapped his entire torso and he was unable to move it. “Help me move it you little bitch, don’t just stand there. Get me out!” he groaned trying to push and prod the rock off his body.

In retrospect, that was one of those moments that would burn themselves into her memory forever. Within a fraction of a second, she looked at him and felt rage rising within her. Her heart turned to ice as the bruises on her hand burned from where he had been holding her. Femi turned and ran out; ignoring the pleas coming from him. As soon as she stumbled out and away from the boulder, she saw people running for their lives. It seemed that the entire earth was shaking on its very foundations. She was swept up in the running mob. It was bedlam and in a detached part of her mind, she saw herself caught up in the scramble for safer ground. There were screams everywhere; but she could only hear one man’s screams. Boyo’s. As she looked back she saw that the entire boulder had caved in. Boyo’s screams went silent in her head and in their place, a mental image of his corpse firmly etched itself. She continued running all the while chanting: “Recalcitrant, Mutinous, Rebel….”

Don’t Let Me Go

Don’t let me go

Because if you do

I will fall into a bottomless abyss

That houses nothing but skeletons

Of grimy memories and sleazy flashbacks

 

Don’t let me go because if you do

The sound of my soul weeping

Will awaken the multitude of demonic zombies

That are buried in my yard of horror

 

Don’t let me go

Because letting me go will mean admitting

That I’m a lost cause beyond human redemption

It will mean that I belong with the dirt

That shifts uneasily under my castle of dreams

 

Don’t let me go

Because letting go will mean prying my fingers out of your grasp

Letting go will mean dragging my stiff body across the battlefield

But unlike Hector of Troy, I shall not die

Only my pride shall die; and my dignity; and my fragile control

 

Do not let me go.

Do not let my voice fade away.

Do not let my transparent form grow invisible.

Do not let me be the death of me.

The Get-Away

It was an ordinary bus that she made her get-away in. An ordinary, red bus with cramped seating and dusty flooring. That was a little disappointing. Whenever she envisioned this scene, the bus had always seemed a bit surreal. It had never occurred to her that she would be working on a tight budget and would not even blink at having to squeeze into an economy-class bus. An old man shuffled in and took the seat next to her, muttering to himself. She tried to edge away from him as far as she could but the seat was too small to allow much movement. ‘Thank God for small mercies though,’… she thought as she eased open the window next to her seat. A humid breeze fluttered in and for just that one moment she believed that this was perfection.

 Running away was not what she called what she was doing at the moment. Running sounded cowardly, inept; a preserve for murderers and fugitives. She preferred to think of herself as leaving before the world left her. One lesson she had come to learn earlier on was that people always left. Even life had a way of going and leaving in its wake, a trail of misery and dredges of unbearable problems. And so she had decided to leave her old life behind before her youth passed and she was left trapped in the grimy old town that had been the only home that she had ever known. In her thinking, it was better to live fast and die young than die a slow painful death that took 80 years in that grimy old town where everyone knew everything about you; down to the last detail of which midwife had attended your mother at birth.

 The intimacy of it all drove her crazy; she craved the blessed anonymity that a large city could offer; just once she wanted to walk down a street and not bump into someone who wanted her to pass all her love to her ailing grandmother; she wanted to walk into a shop and buy groceries without having to explain which new recipe her mamma wanted to try out next; just once she wanted to be a mere face in the crowd. For someone who had been brought up amid niceties, she hated small talk; loathed the people she couldn’t snub when she walked down the street. Perhaps it was because the familiar faces unfailingly reminded her of her inevitable fate if she made the same decisions that her parents and their parents before them had made.

 Her parents. The thought of them unexpectedly drew a twinge of raw guilt from somewhere deep within; a place which had housed her conscience; a conscience which in turn, she thought had died a long time ago. The thought of leaving them bewildered with no clue as to her whereabouts or as to her reason of leaving almost tormented her but she shrugged it off. She was good at shrugging things off, her slowly awakening conscience commented. ‘No,’ she admonished it; she was merely practical and did not let foolish sentimentality get in the way of her dreams. Her parents were good people. They were simple, unremarkable good people.

 Her father was the only mechanic in town and was in charge of fixing up the trucks that carried agricultural produce from the many farms around her home to the large city factories. It was the only auto-repair shop in town. Commercial competition wasn’t exactly conducive to good neighbourliness and no one wanted to sully their name by being a bad neighbor. Her mother in turn was a housewife who dabbled in Sunday school teaching. She was a socialite in the eyes of their neighbours. “Some socialite,” the devil on her shoulder snorted.

She was the only child and had been exposed to books and films at an early age. However, instead of training her to be the civilized marriageable young woman they had hoped, it had showed her a life different from the one she knew. It had showed her the possibilities; the adventures that existed beyond their town; simply put she wanted to be remarkable. Her thoughts turned to the letter she had left them on her pillow. It was poetic; for she was poetic at heart and read; “It was either this or suicide. Don’t come looking for me. Goodbye” She thought it expressed her sentiments eloquently without sounding like a broken record. She did not want her parents to think that this was just another bout of teenage angst. Heaven knew she had already had enough of those. It was the reason her parents did not want her to attend college in the city. Their vision for her was attending a local college and earning a diploma in business management. To them, that was the epitome of progression. They often remarked how lucky her husband would be. From the host of dumb boys her age, she doubted that she wanted to make any of them the ‘lucky’ object of her affections; now or in the future. Her parents had thought her difficult because she failed to accept the status quo. They had even grounded her last month for being disrespectful. The thought of that argument strengthened her resolve. She had definitely made the right decision.

 Suddenly, the ordinary bus lurched violently. It wasn’t one of those one-off lurches that scare passengers into abusing the driver’s carelessness. This was a protracted lurch that sent the world spinning out of control. Screams pierced her eardrums as the window next to her shattered to pieces and went flying all over her. She felt her head hit the ceiling of the bus and as if on cue, a warm wetness spread on her forehead. Something was clamping her chest and torso. She felt snapping from within her body but she couldn’t be too sure. Her vision was fading fast and a brilliant whiteness was enveloping her, overcoming her will to stay alive and lucid. So this was how death felt. She wondered why she was struggling because the other side seemed so much more comfortable to cross over to. She wanted to shut out the screams, the excruciating pain in her chest, the glass in her eyes and mouth; she wanted to leave behind her shattered bleeding skull.

Her last thought was that she would have no gravestone; she would probably rot as an anonymous body in some municipal mortuary. As her life ebbed away, she conjured up an image of which epitaph she would have liked to have at her gravestone. It was scrawled in a diary inside the backpack she had been holding just a minute ago. A backpack that held secret admission and acceptance letters to the university in the city as well as secret scholarship applications. Inside a diary that no one would ever find was written: “Here lies a girl; who dared to defy life.”

Matters of the Heart

They say that the heart wants what the heart wants. What they fail to tell you is that the heart also wants what it can’t have. That thing that is just out of reach is what the heart will crave for. It is the madness that the brain will choose to torture itself with and ultimately, it is the cancer that the body will choose to waste away from. It is simply the state of the human condition; pathetic and unyielding.

And so Cat sat in the beautiful chintz-decorated chair wasting away in the glow of the stunning sunset. It was a beautiful evening to hold a wedding. This is what she had always dreamt of; the lacey clothes, the scented flowers, a delighted audience, a somber minister and most importantly, the man who stood by her side. He was her soul mate and sometimes she was convinced that he was the sole reason for her existence. Soul mate. What does that really mean? The philosophers would have us believe that a soul mate is the other half of a person but she disagreed. In her experience, a soul mate was the other whole superimposed on her whole. Every integral part of her was him and vice versa.

“Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold…till death do you part?” the minister’s voice intoned with ringing overtones. If there was a heaven, Cat was willing to place her money on the fact that St. Peter’s voice had such overtones as he called out a roll of names at the entrance to the pearly gates. Her ridiculous fantasy of St. Peter’s white beard was interrupted by his quiet voice saying “I do.” Six years ago he had said with that same quiet voice, “that’s my chair you’re sitting on.” “Some gentlemen you invited here,” she had whispered theatrically to her cousin as she scooted over to make room for the new arrival at the former’s birthday luncheon. “I can hear you, you know…” he had muttered, raising one eyebrow, to which she had snappily replied, “well, that was the point” Before somebody noisily cleared their throat and changed the subject of conversation.

They had endured a forced friendship as a result of the many mutual acquaintances they had but gradually, their snippy retorts turned into heated debates which gave way to long philosophical conversations. It took them two years before they admitted that the heat in their cheeks when they met was not because of anger or frustration at each other but due to the fact that they just so happened to be attracted to each other. “I’m fraternizing with the enemy,” was a recurrent joke that had survived six tumultuous years of on and off dating.

To call them boyfriend and girlfriend, in Cat’s thinking, was demeaning. What they had went beyond that. They had been to hell and back. Their close friends often termed theirs as a destructive unhealthy relationship. They hit each other, shouted at each other, cried together and then soothed each other back to sanity. Finally, something had to give. After a particularly nasty fight in which she had set fire to his favorite couch and he had subsequently kicked her out of his house at 3am, their friends staged an intervention; pleading with them to split up. Arguments during that intervention had ranged from the fact that their temperaments were incompatible to the prediction that they would end up killing each other one day. That would sound laughable if she hadn’t accidentally stabbed his arm one day as they wrestled over who was going to cut the beef for supper. It was a long tedious intervention; it lasted an entire afternoon and at the end, everyone went home, feeling that they had fulfilled their moral obligations as far as the ‘crazy couple’ was concerned. Later that night, he had called her to laugh about the whole intervention business but instead of joining in the laughter, she had gone very quiet. “Cat, what’s wrong?” He had asked in that quiet voice. “I think they were right…. I don’t think we are good for each other. I almost cost you your job. That’s not normal couple behavior.” “But Cat, we are not a normal couple… we are dysfunctional and neurotic. That’s what makes us so great,” he had pleaded. She wouldn’t budge even after he had resorted to emotional manipulation and dark morbid threats. (I can’t live without you and if you leave me, I’ll leave this world.) But Cat knew him too well to know when he was bluffing. She stood her ground and hours later, they were both crying on the phone.

Cat had taken a temporary two-year job transfer to another town and in those two years, she learnt to try and hold her heart together with glue tape. The first year was spent crying to sleep every night and pretending to smile during the days. The second year was spent trying to convince herself that she had gotten over him and going on a few dates. When the two years were up, she was summoned back to the home branch of her company and it was with trepidation that she landed back. However, it seemed that everyone but her had moved on from the past. A huge welcome-back party had been hosted in her honour and he had been invited. And he had brought a date. He looked genuinely happy to see her and he gave her a hug, right before he introduced her to his fiancé. She was taller than her; fitter than her and seemed to have this fabulous sense of style going on. She had a warm genuine smile and seemed to charm everyone in the room. Cat wanted to hate her. She wanted to hate her with a rage so red, it turned her eyes scarlet but she couldn’t. He genuinely looked happy with her and It seemed that his new woman had been accepted into their circle of friends because everyone seemed comfortable with the situation. They got the awkward conversation out of the way by agreeing to remain friends. The conversation lasted 5minutes.

Cat felt she had been replaced in his life. She felt stagnant; like an old gnarled tree crouching by the river that watches water pass it by every waking day. Here he was with a stunning, mature fiancé who managed to disarm everyone including Cat, and Cat was still struggling to make it past a single date. In fact she had become something of a serial dater, dismissing each date as shallower than the last. They still talked like in the old days when they had just been friends but he had calmed down. He exuded a new confidence and whenever he talked about his fiancé, he glowed. The only time he had ever glowed when they were together was with rage. Whenever he told a story, he referred to his fiancé and had to keep explaining their private jokes to Cat. She was happy for him. But she was sad and angry for herself. What was wrong with her? Was she a leper that turned all her relationships into disasters the minute she put one foot in? As the wedding date drew closer, he asked her to be in the bridal party and she knew she had to make a choice. She could either graciously agree and lose him forever or bare her heart to him and tell him that she still thought they were soul mates. Decisions are dicey things but they have to be made and when she made this one, she hoped that one day, there would be absolution for what she was about to do.

“You may now kiss the bride.” Said the minister in his ringing tones and the bride and the groom turned to each other. Cat watched them kiss as she joined the rest of the audience in applauding the new couple. Decisions are dicey things but one must never forget that the heart wants what the heart cannot have.

My Epiphany

Epiphanies are strange things. They are insipid little creatures that gnaw on you and then lead you to believe that they are alien; that they have only just manifested themselves. Epiphanies are not moments of wide-eyed wonder; they are not characterized by little theatrical gasps of realization. Instead, they are tiny little scraps of dredge, dragged up from the subconscious. They have a way of building up slowly like droplets of a dam until they are brimming over into the conscious and when the floodgates of your brain opens up, they pour in, splendid and forceful. And so we term them as sudden, without realizing that they were there all along. All we really needed to do was notice them.

My epiphany happened bright and early today morning. I had woken up on the wrong side of my bed; figuratively as well as literally. The minute I opened my eyes, I remembered the dream that I had just jolted from. On a normal run-of-the-mill basis, I forget most of my dreams but somehow, the dream gods had deigned that this one should be crystal clear. The details were as vivid as if they had happened in techni-colour. He had been standing there; with that sardonic look; with that tender sardonic look in his eyes. He had come to look for me he said, he said. He would wait for me patiently, he said. Nothing would make him leave my side. But just as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone and in his place, a scrap of paper detailing some adventure he had gone off to. He had signed off with a smiley face. A sardonic smiley face with tender eyes that hoped I would understand. I woke up and my heart was shattering into smithereens.

The rising sun is a sight to behold and as I watched it defy the gravity of the eastern horizon, my dam of an epiphany started filling up and threatening to give way. The warmth of my coffee seeped from the mug and into my stiff cold hands. The dam finally gave way as I sipped my coffee and I had my epiphany right there with the coffee in my mouth, some of it already burning a fiery trail down my throat. It came on strong and powerful; jolting  me to the core, leaving me a wreck and then some more.

They always leave. They always promise to stay and brave it. But they always leave. I would like to call them cowardly and unworthy but if I thought they were so cowardly and unworthy, why would it feel like a dagger was being twisted into my heart and then slowly rotated for good measure? There is always something better; something worthier; something or someone more pressing than my needs that needs them. I get it; I’m strong. I may not seem like I need taking care of but damn it! They always leave! That was and is my epiphany: They always leave!

And now, I need some answers to this question: Why do they leave? Why do they always leave?