Pulse Blogger: 'She'

It was She. But I was looking at a very familiar stranger.

She was a dense cloud of sorrows carrying a heavy rain.

That day, She didn't bang on my door the way she used to.

She is the one person who could bang at my door like a chronic debtors'. That always jolted me from my quiet, monastic life behind the door. I had joked about her breaking my China door with her iron fist someday.

Strange Entry.

I had joked about her being too boisterous for a lady. I had gotten used to it as the very signature of her arrival. But that day, She knocked. Like a normal person,and the normal people in my life are mostly strangers. I waited for another timid knock before going to open the door.

She was standing there, looking taller than she already was. Like a rain-beaten dove, she looked more shriveled than she was already thin. Her eyes sunken, her brows furrowed and attempting a smile at which she failed woefully. It was She. But I was looking at a very familiar stranger.

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“Hey, you didn't say you were coming,” I said. I knew it was a stupid thing to say, because She never notified me on visits. She didn't reply. Just walked in. Sat on a plastic stool. Fiddled with a book on my reading table, sniffing.

Silence.

“My Dad is dead,” She said with tears in her voice, her gaze still trained on the pages of the book, shuffling her feet on the threadbare rug of my room. That caught me off guard. I looked at her and wished I could absorb her pains.

She and her Dad had been buddies. They were so close she could pluck out every strand of hair growing on his chest, because she hated hairy chests. He was a timber dealer at the Okobaba Foreshore in Ebute Meta. And on days when things went really well with his wood business, he came home with a special treat for the family: three bottles of 33 Export Lager beer, three bottles of soda and a wrap of Suya.

He would mix the beer with soda for the girls and have it undiluted with the grown-up boys. She always slept with him on the same bed and they cuddled each other until morning. I thought about how rare that was for an African father, and I saw that the hurt was too deep for words.

How do I start stitching up all of that? I couldn't just sing the regular platitudes: that I was so sorry; that it was OK; that God knew the best. I even hate it when people say such nonsense.

I looked at her, sitting like a statue on that stool, still distraught, still fiddling with my book of poetry, still waiting for me to say something. She was a dense cloud of sorrows carrying a heavy rain.

“When did he pass?”
”Yesterday,” she said.

“He took ill?”

“No. We even spoke the day before.”

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Silence.

I was not sure if I should say exactly what I was about to say; not sure whether she would take it well.

“Have you cried yet?”

She had a shocked look on her face. I knew I had fucked up, as they say, but I said it again. And again. And again. Until the shocked look on her face morphed into disgust and anger. Until she began cussing at me.

Until she came at me with slaps and kicks and punches and bites. I didn't block or dodge any. I took them all and waited patiently for the tears. She finally exhausted herself. Then stayed still. Then the tears came. In trickles. Then in torrents. I held her firm. She rocked like a grinding machine.

One thing about losing someone you love so much, especially when it’s all still fresh, is the denial couched in wishful ‘maybes’: maybe he is not really dead, maybe he is just sleeping, maybe he is just joking, maybe he will walk right back someday and we will be together again, maybe...

And this deepens the hurt in a way that we cannot exactly measure.

Assurance

I had to assure her that her father loved her, and that if it were up to him, they would be together forever. But that he was gone. I also had to be sweet about it, so I put it in a poem.

remember him:

how he used to walk through the door

with a broad smile,

and the music of his footsteps,

 

how he would take off his shirt,

hang it up on the wall

and you two would cuddle each other

so tight that night felt like the safest time.

 

now, no more.

and someone will walk through the door,

but it will not be him

 

always, there will be music,

but not of his footsteps.

 

there will be a shirt hanging up on the wall,

but no him to rise up, take it off or wear it.

 

your sleeps shall be sweet,

your nights the safest time,

but you will not wake up again

in the warmth of his cuddle,

or light of his smile, or scent of his body.

because he loves you too much

to stay in these imperfect forms.

She cried herself to sleep. Dreamed about him. Woke up with a start. Cried some more. We talked about him, the things she would miss the most, and how none of us were meant to live forever. She cried herself back to sleep.

When she woke up, not from a nightmare this time, she found me with a bottle of 33 Export Lager beer, a bottle of soda and a wrap of Suya. And when I popped the bottle tops with my teeth, She smiled and said I did it just like her Dad.

Written by Prospero O. Anuforo.

Prospero O. Anuforo is a writer and spoken word poet. He has been guest artist at major literary festivals, and his works have been published in both local and international journals and magazines.

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