WEARY FINGERS

“Let me tell you something about my people….,” the email introduces. “In my village, we wait for more than seven months to do one planting. Farms are fallowed in March just to receive calculated amount of rain drops in the following year.” It continues.

He thought of it because the story seems familiar to him. He must have read a similar story in a column or this same email but forgot to finish reading it because he has been chasing a loan with the bank but he couldn’t give up on it. It’s a week ago when he read it and failed to mark it “unread” because he had so much to handle on his desk. By the way, this habit is common these days. When he was still a campuser, not by default though, he had developed these two cancerous habits: insomnia and amnesia. Note. For those of you who have never come across these two, amnesia is a memory lost. If it has never passed by your door, give thanks to your makers to add you more days without meeting these.

Anyway, he’s a victim and lived with it. Just like AIDS, he has been living with it and he doesn’t really know what will ever cure him. At times, he would use three notebooks in a row because he’s always forgetful. “This is the second mail I’m sending in a row and you have the rights to reply it or leave it just like the rest. I know I was such a nerd, rude, emotional and arrogant wife to you. But all these did not stop me from loving you, not even a little. I was bad, I was that bitch that anyone could never tolerate but you never give up on me. You tried your best to raise me like a flag. You tried your best to bear with me whenever I scold you.” This was the second paragraph of the mail that he read without skipping any single word, nor even blinking his eyes. His thoughts were coming back so quick that he was even beginning to get guilty for the emails he ignored to reply.

Though he didn’t bother to read the name of the sender, he knew exactly who the author of this mail was – Mary Mariba. This lady, she was – actually, to be fair enough on both sides of the story, the same woman he once shared his heart with for three good years before she called it quit – reason being that she could not bear it anymore when her age mates were having some young ones who call them mummies and wet their laps when they forget to dress them up with diapers. Si watoto ni zawadi kutoka kwa mungu? As the Swahili puts it.

Sometime back, her mother scolds his parents and the entire village where he comes from savagely: “we never had this tragedy in our family before. My daughter is clean! God, my daughter is clean!” she lamented. He was on a dining table reading a copy of the book he had borrowed from a colleague, ‘Half Of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi.’ He pretended like reading but he couldn’t control anything because the anger was continuing to grow. He started hating characters like Richard, Mrs. Adebayor and Kaneni. The African tea on the table started tasting salty. He closed the book and went straight to the bar to drink off his moods. He didn’t protest, not even a little. When he came home later that night, he picked one of the couches and then slept peacefully.

On the day that she departs, Mary left a small note on the kitchen counter. She smartly placed it where he could easily see it. That day – too, she prepared his special meal, wore the last dress he bought her; just like two weeks before. She wore it when they were going for a simple date and she swore with all her rare possessive life that she loved the dress from moons to back. Whatever that moons to back mean, he had no freaking idea about it. My point is, why did she massage his egos to that extend; I mean, by wearing the dress on the day she left him – moreover, send him the photocopy of the picture on Whats’App and expect him to moan for her departure just a day, or a week, or month or more before she leaves him?

“I was supposed to be like my people; big hearts, tolerance and bound to persevere without giving up. Giving up has never been part of us and we’re not bound to giving up.” He went back to the same line and read again who this “we” she was insinuating before he could continue to read the whole mail. “I don’t know how much time you need to take for you to come back and realize this too, that we’re the same sizes of a single coin. I am not in any hurry, anyway. You can reply this mail right away, or when you have all the time in the world to reply it. One last thing, before I stop checking on you in the next five months; how I wish I could find the same old you when I come back, just maybe, I repeat….”, he paused. “I have been having this bad feeling whenever I start thinking about us – knowing quite well that you will never be mine. Anyway, your recent marriage news was well received here. How I wish you would have her as your first-born and christine her with Uzuri. Hey, do you still remember how we used to fight over the name. You wanted a baby girl and I wanted a baby boy as our first born because I have never had a baby brother in my whole life before? I am sorry to mention all these to you but how I wish we could rewind or rewrite the history.  I missed those chances: the trips and the weekly movies that we used to watch home every Friday.  I know, it’s useless to cry over spill milk, isn’t? – but, I feel empty because no one is there to listen to this nonsense?”

The last time he saw Mary, if he could quiet remember, was like two years ago: when she was campaigning for the women emancipation in the community. Her blog, “STRIDE” was ranked second after a Uganda female blogger whose her main specialty focus in kids literature. Mary had her silver spoon inform of a pen, paper and keyboards. She can convert one’s wrongs to rights by defending them with twenty-six alphabetical letters. He loved her so much: with all his life, with all his heart and with all his soul. When she left him in the abyss of darkness and call it quit, he didn’t bother to write any letter of reminder about what they used to have. He left the current to take edges and then draw the curtains to unbutton mysteries. He unsubscribed her blog because he was being reminded about what they had in the past. He was not that type of a guy whose pain get heals very fast.

He drank too much beer until one fine day; he couldn’t realize that there is nothing like life ever after, after her exit. He lost his job because of indiscipline characters, poor conduct, reporting late to work and being rude to his boss and the fellow employees. Though he had saved enough, which he was thinking to erect at least a shanty in his village –  from his saving plan, he resort to drinking all by himself. Life gets worst. He went back to the street. Hustle afresh, sold his important items including the TV to raise some money to start a small business.  He start, failed, got up and then re-edit where he went wrong until he start winning the trusts of his clients.

One fine night, as he was leaving the bar drunk, he knocked down a fellow drinker. Which according to him, he had seen at the mall when he was buying books for his new structured homemade library after he lost about a hundred plus books to rats and ants in his mother’s house, in the village.

He was tipsy. Not purely drunk beyond limit, he told his friends. Poni, the girl he knocked down, was bleeding throughout their journey to the hospital. He was ready to pay anything as long as she was going to be alive. “Doc”, that’s how we, the modern people calls people with different professions. Doc for doctor, prof for professor, lib for library, dic for dictionary, etc, etc, “how is she feeling no, doc?” he asked with much hesitancy.

“She will be fine though she has lost too much blood.”

“Doc, what are you saying?”

“Well, she has lost too much blood. Her life might be at risk if we don’t rescue her.”

He became so frustrated that he couldn’t manage to blink his eye.

“So what should we do now, doc?”

“We need some blood urgently. By the way, are you the husband or boyfriend or the brother?”

“I am just a helper; I mean, I was the one who knocked her.”

“And you don’t know her, I mean, you have never met her before?”

“Not at all.” He replied with frustrations painted on every word he says.

Poni’s phone was on a lock and there was nowhere it could be unlock to reach her family. It was thirty-six hours later that her mom appeared. He volunteered to donate his blood because he has the donor blood type. After few months, they got a tight relationship that no bond could ever be break or any mother in-law could intrude. A year later, they wedded and this time, he decided to change the location of the honeymoon. Not France, or Dubai, or Zanzibar, they went to one of the simplest hotels in the city, lock themselves in the room and then read books, write blogs, make journals, write love letters and plan for the better future.

“I have been keeping all this from you because you don’t have to hear it. I mean, you don’t even deserve a sheer of it. The guy I married was the least I could compare you with. I know I have wronged you and the entire universe and I don’t even deserve a second chance from you. I am a victim of AIDS and I know I will have to carry my own cross. Can I tell you something,” and then a sound came from behind. It was from his wife who has been reading from behind throughout with him. “Huh!” He turned and then looked at her. “Hey, honey.” He stood up knowing that his wife could release a thunder of slap any second. “It is okay, honey, I also want to read the mail, too.” She replied while trying to wipe off the misty in her eyes.

He wasn’t sure whether his wife was serious or not. Poni picked the laptop by herself, and then she continues to read it. “Can you imagine, even the so called father who was pushing me to leave you because you were impotent now cannot even afford to visit my house because I’m a big shame and a disgrace to the entire Mariba’s family. But hey, never get worry, okay? You don’t have to think a lot about this or even take it serious when you click on this mail’s link. All I’m saying is that I’m not going to live to witness masses of nincompoop judge me for the things I have done. I have turned down the HIV/AIDS awareness campaign that is being run by World Health Organization (WHO) to amass their pockets. I’m still standing firm. One last thing, I divorced him earlier last month. This is going to let me die a happy soul. Please keep up the fight, in case you don’t hear from me again. I was discharged last week from the hospital after pneumonia seriously terrorizes my health. Currently, I’m taking my drugs at the comfort of my couch. I sometimes go to the library. There are so many untold stories that will rot in our personal archives because we have no much time to tell them. Adios!” and then the email ends.

He picked up the keys from the table and went straight for the car. Poni didn’t bother to ask him where he was going. He followed him to the car. They knocked twice before the door flung wide. A figure stood before them. Callous, clumsy and pale. You could see the cracks of once a bright future in her scattered smiles. “Wow! I didn’t expect you here.” She said. There was a lady reading a bible from across the room, sighted a bit to confirm who the visitors could be and then never bothers to say a thing.

“Well, we didn’t plan it either. So can we come in now if you don’t mind?”

“Yes sure! Come on in.”

“Thank you.” Said Poni.

And then she walks them up to where this other lady was reading.

“Meet, my friend. Her name is Judith Mogga. Judith, meet my other friends, Mr and Mrs. Taban.” and she signals them where to sit, “you can have your seats.”

There was a mild of silence in a short while before Taban breaks it.

“Well, I don’t know how to say this to you. I have been swinging in all corners of the wall with life. I wish I had time to read your mails. From the bottom of my heart, I have never wished you a bad lack or anything evil against you. My wife here,” he pointed at Poni, “is a wonderful soul and would never wish anything against you too. You’re a member of a society that would always deserve better,” he says. He went on and on until he successfully installs smiles on her cracked lips. They prayed together, Judith leading them in prayers. Five months later, after Mary had left to rest with angels from above, they received a daughter, whom they baptizes Mary.