Tag: Prose

When the audience was silent and the spotlight shone on him, he lowered his eyes onto that saxophone and blew in it as if to whisper a negotiation, as if to beg it not to let him down. He blew until the begging began to sound like a silent tear, an expression of pain. The piano began to play , acknowledging his plight and urging him to express it, assuring him that it was alright to shed the tear and that it oughtn’t be silent. Together they cried in co-ordination as dancers on the ice, as lovers look into each other’s eyes. Like broken eye contact, the saxophonist went louder, dividing the crowd into two, those that listened and those that played with him.

He told his story, loudly and bitterly until something broke when the guitar began to play. The three instruments played together as if to celebrate a broken heart’s freedom, the lights shone brighter and the saxophonist looked up to the audience as if to communicate  the end of deep sorrow and the peak of joy. The veins were visible on his neck but he blew harder into the instrument, working with his fingers, beckoning the guitar and the piano, screaming out for joy and falling at the dimming of the lights into a solo storytelling.

The other two quietened as if to urge him to walk alone the way one would let go of a child’s hand when they are ready to walk solo. Again it sounded like a whisper, this time not a negotiation, I couldn’t quite make it out. It was like a silent whisper that was becoming quieter with every blow. Now I could make it out. It was a resignation. It suddenly went louder like a cry for help then dissolved back into a whisper. He lowered his eyes to the instrument once again, blew into it one last time and silence befell once and for all. He bowed and walked off the stage still in silence. The audience had died with the song and they couldn’t feel their hands.

The applause that came five minutes later caused the ground to vibrate and the drums to shake as though they would play themselves. She clapped with the crowd, clapped from the bottom of her stomach as she felt a shiver of impression running down her. She hadn’t understood before the power of music but now she did. She’d felt in it the present, she’d moved with it and all its emotions. She’d understood a story of  love and betrayal. She understood it even better because once upon a time, she knew the man behind the music. Nothing seemed different about him now except that now she understood through his music what in the four years they’d been together, he had never uttered by mouth nor by action. He told an audience of a thousand people all the secrets he had never told her when they were alone. He told the world the story of them together and them apart, of their joy and sorrow and love and hate, of how she lied and said sorry and how he forgave and took her back, of how he left her in the cold and never returned again. He whispered into that saxophone the tears he’d never shown her and the anger she never knew. He had whispered those tears right into her ear and now they flowed through her eyes while she stood there and clapped.

It didn’t matter to her that the tears rolled down her cheeks. It didn’t matter because he was gone and she was alone even in the midst of the crowd and she would be alone when the crowd dispersed and she drove past Ruby street knowing that she couldn’t turn into it anymore.

From the top deck I could see down below. People dancing in that lit darkness, happy, laughing, their eyes glowing. Some were in groups, others were in pairs, no one was alone, but me. I saw him dance with her, their arms around each other. They looked so happy together. Now to think of it they made a beautiful couple. But then again, he makes a beautiful couple with anyone. He furnishes them like a golden vase in an empty room, or a blue rose on a thorn.

Roses die! I watched him leave her to go outside. He didn’t return for a while. Later, I saw him walk in again, looking around like a knight who’d lost his shield. I imagined he was looking for her, hunting her down the way he had once hunted me. I knew what would happen if he found her. He would embrace her and dance with her like the night would never end. But the sun would rise and when it set again on the morrow, she would be standing here where I was, on the top deck.

She would be watching him like I was watching him now, wondering how it feels not to care for anyone but himself, to go through his days like a wave, caressing every rock in his way and moving on. Wondering how it feels, to make the stars cry and not feel the rain.

That’s the problem with beautiful people. When they smile they look like they are in love because their eyes glow. Perhaps it’s not just the beauty, perhaps it’s the darkness too. It makes everyone beautiful because it hides the deceit in their eyes and the slyness in their smiles. The noise drowns the mockery in their laugh and covers the truth of their hearts. I watched the young men standing in front of the curtain, seven or eight of them. I watched him go to greet them. They were friends! Of course they were friends. Birds of the same feather flock together.

He took his place in the line as the eighth or ninth member. They stood there, like hunters sharpening their arrows. Who were to be the hunted? Not me! I was standing on the top deck observing from a distance safe enough to never be prey. Someone tapped me on my shoulder and thought they should say hello. My God! They were everywhere!

I was home at 3 and was up by 8. The first thing I did was to write to you.

Dear Anthony

Can’t you see that the stars are weeping?
Set me free so I can feel the rain.

As we sat there in the lonely desert, she whistled again and then turned to me.
“Teach me how to whistle”, she said. “I never really learnt to do it. It just came. Like clicking fingers or rolling eyes. But if you teach me, I will finally know how to describe it. Perhaps I will learn to explain it. Perhaps”, she said,  “I can even unlearn it. So teach me”

The moon when it is a quarter gives its light. When we look closely enough we can see the full moon in the background, like a child waiting to be born, a song waiting to be sung, a match waiting to light a fire, something that is and yet is not. It is in the passage of time that the absent become present, that the unknown are born. It is also in the passage of time that the present become absent, that the existing, like autumn leaves fall away and die.

Words are just words that at some point or another every wise man have attempted to define. The same goes for time with the endless proverbs, quotations, poems, philosophies on it. Yet none of them satisfy us all, for one man’s life, thoughts, passions can never be the same as another’s. What difference is there between time and life? Is time not the only thing that the living have, or have not? Is to run out of time not to run out life? A part of me says it is, until I look up at the trees waving slowly as if to dance gracefully, mocking me, belittling me with their height. A part of me says it is until I see the sun shining, knowing that it will set and rise again tomorrow, and I will still be sitting here beside Anthony’s grave, mourning alone. And nature will not stop, no, the trees will not stop waving for a second and the sun will not stop shining at least to acknowledge Anthony’s exit. When I leave the graveyard I will dip my feet in the running stream and it will cool them as if to console me, as if it cares for me. But I know that it does not because when my time runs out, the same stream will not stop flowing to mourn me, just as it is not mourning Anthony.

Just as I predicted, the sun is setting, the trees are waving a little more, maybe not dancing this time but beckoning frantically, stripping me of the comfort of the heat and leaving me cold. As cold as Anthony’s face when he was possessed by anger, that anger that made him cruel. Cruel enough to want to destroy me, cruel enough to leave me broken,  cruel enough to slit his own wrists and lie in that cold bath just to destroy me. The first star appears, bright and gentle as my Anthony’s eyes when they were filled with tears. They said “I’m sorry”, they said “save me”. The next star appears while I am still looking at the first one, then the next and the next after that. I can’t stop them no more than I could stop the blood oozing out of Anthony’s wrists. I can’t stop them no more than I could stop Anthony’s time from leaking out of his clock, I can’t stop them no more than I could save Anthony’s life. My tears begin to flow endlessly as the stars have now filled the sky. They say “I’m sorry”, they say “I loved you”, they say “How could you?”

My body shivers from the sobbing and from the cold. My skin feels rough as sand and the wind will not forgive me. It rages on, it hurls and whimpers until it starts to fade from my ears. My eyes are heavy, my hand is weary, I can’t write anymore…

I open my eyes now. There are no more stars in the sky but I cannot see the sun. The trees are as still as British guards, still as if listening to me breathing. In the stillness I hear nature weeping, mourning, I hear nature acknowledging Anthony’s exit. I hear her and I am grateful.

I stand up and the tears won’t flow from my eyes anymore. I know that from now on, the tears will flow from the inside where no man can reach. No man but the memory of Anthony’s laughter and Anthony’s sparkle, the memory of Anthony’s time and how too soon it ran out. I won’t cry those tears alone; I cannot define his time alone. I will paste it on a blank paper and on that paper I will paint my tears in alphabet. I’ll paint Anthony’s heart, I’ll paint his life…I’ll paint his time.

You stood at my doorway, all three of you. Demanding answers I did not have, to questions I did not understand. You accused me, lectured me, belittled me. I said nothing, because I knew you had not come to listen. You were charged, and determined, and you would not leave until I was broken. I wanted you to leave, but it’s not my fault that I do not break easily.

You had to speak your mind, you said. So you unpacked your prejudices, offloaded your suspicions. But your thoughts were not your thoughts, I hope you know that now. As I stood there before your young eyes, you had seen me a thousand times before, each time with a different face, a different gender, a different name. We were all the same to you, that is how you were taught to see us.

Your parents referred to us as “them”. You grew up thinking that was our name. They gave you a profile of what to expect from “them”. No matter what I did, I was always going to be incapable in your eyes. Because no matter what you did, your eyes were not your eyes. I hope you know that now.

I heard some of you left town, travelled a little bit. I heard you found love, got married, had some kids. I hope you eventually regained your sight, took charge of your own thoughts. And for all our sakes, I hope you teach your kids well.

Do you remember what it was like to push those old tyres at full speed and then trip over them?  The blackness on our hands would take days to completely disappear. I still have the scars from all that falling. The most visible scar is still the one from your bike.

Oh that bike! It was a Raleigh wasn’t it? We shared it amongst the four of us, taking turns to ride it to the end of the street and back. When you got tired you would take it and say the bike was tired and needed to rest. That was a little mean.

Do you remember the big mango tree that stood in front of the house? I still can’t believe you used climb up and label the mangoes before they were ripe. You never really stopped labelling things did you? You still guard what is yours quite carefully.

I still think we would have been great engineers. Remember the mud bridges we used to build in the orchard after the rain. They were so impressive and surprisingly strong, they lasted until the next downpour.

Sometimes I can still smell those goose eggs that we broke. They splashed all over us and we were stinking for days. I’m glad we did that during the school holidays. I also still wonder if that big red spider we used to feed grasshoppers to was dangerous.

Did we really bury that little doll called JJ?  Why did we do that, there was nothing wrong with him? I remember that his sister was my doll Bridgette. She had lovely curly hair and I washed it, put mother’s curlers in it and then put her in the oven to dry because we didn’t have the dryers you sit under like the ones at the hair salon. The plastic curlers melted and fused with her plastic hair and the rest of her melted in the oven too. Who cleaned up that mess?

What did we call the ice-cream man again? Nqi nqi, I think. I guess because his bell made the sound nqi nqi. He was nice, he let us ride on his ice-cream bike sometimes. I wonder where he is now.

I see you still have your wooden axe from the wildlife taxidermy. I wasn’t there when you all went because my punishment for throwing a tantrum was to stay home. But while you were all out I still climbed over the fence and went to play at the neighbours’.

It wasn’t half bad that childhood, was it?  Fences were usually easy to climb over. I suppose not all fences are like that. I heard in Hungary they put up a big fence to stop refugees from coming to their side. I heard it’s not a fence a child can easily climb over. Especially if there are soldiers with guns guarding it. We played war too in our camouflage clothes and our water guns, do you remember? But I heard these guns are real.

Remember how much we used to complain when we got hungry? Ours was the kind of hunger that was satisfied within minutes, yet it always felt like an emergency. Can you imagine that some children starve for much longer than that? That they live in perpetual starvation?

And the 4 o’clock bath time, do you remember that? We would be so clean, our skin shiny with vaseline, that we wouldn’t be allowed to go outside anymore. Then we did homework and watched Captain Planet.

The planet’s problems seemed trivial then. Or was it just because we were too young to understand, that far too many children have their childhood stolen, by war, and by those who turn a blind eye to the suffering that war brings about?