The horizon’s dyed in a severe shade of blue as the dusk deepens. The moon announcing its arrival by a peep. Rain drizzles- light, swift drops descending in shimmering abundance, quick to discard as ‘not serious’, at least, not until you step in and get wet within seconds of getting in.
I’m outside, seated under a shade, far from my family, my knees jerking here and there as I try to prevent the drops sliding from the roof from touching me. As I do so, I feel myself drifting to the past. I think of mama. I sigh as I do. The woman died before I hit it. It didn’t hurt me that she left. It just hurt me that she died before I made her smile. Before I gave her a quarter of what she had done for me.
I prevent myself from thinking about him. He’s the sordid image behind my tantrums and thrashing frustrations. I think of those moments in the past, of ankle-deep murky shit and too much blatant piss, of transgressions and experience, of grim desires and quick dough, of severed friendships and shattered trusts, of silent wars and abrupt goodbyes… of life.
I think of friends- the ones I’d grown up and started my life with. We had spun our dreams together, helping ourselves tighten the slacks of each other’s seams. We had talked of alliances and disagreements certain to be settled, and about the desired positions in the future. They weren’t just fickle dreams borne from the unrealism of idle minds. They were certainties not yet made visible.
And there were the sacrifices we made for ourselves. Perhaps, it was altruism, we didn’t know and we didn’t care either. We just knew that all of us helped just one get forward because we knew that that one would, in turn, turn and drag us forward, then see us grow together. We damned the dimness of our present. It was almost as if we got a thrill from spiting our situations by talking on how we’d retire, being kings together, raising heirs and building empires. It never occurred to us that we would be anything other than what we already were. We had stuck together when we had nothing, why then would we separate when we had something?
Years had passed, mistakes were made and learned from, lessons were incorporated into life, status had changed. From our oversized shirts faded at the neckline and stitched at the armpits, Fubu jeans that sagged even when we had belted up to the last notch and boots large enough to increase us to twice our sizes, we had gone to slim fitted shirts and sleek shoes. It was a thrill watching the changes in us. It was even much more thrill hearing ourselves being what our yesterdays only spoke of. We still aspired higher, talking about ambitions, aware that we were slowly encroaching on the space of the other but choosing to ignore it because we were too certain of the strengths of our foundations, of where we had come from. It had continued that way. But things gradually changed.
Slowly, we had drifted, but we’d refused to come to the terms that we really were. Slowly, our tightness waned and sagged into indifference. Slowly, that, in turn, had turned into spurts of envy spiking through us when they made a move farther than us. There were quick, alert gazes that spoke of sensed mistrust.
There were those averted gazes that told of shame at what status had made us descend to. And then, there were the stiff smiles and handshakes and an exaggerated effort, almost embarrassing, to make up for what we knew we were doing but were too adamant to admit. We had quickly become strangers to ourselves, not really interested in being any more than that.
Like the way strangers were treated, we consoled ourselves for the wrong we intended to do to the other by calling them ‘not friends’. Unspoken, cold wars had sprung and quickly, hate arrived.
As I sit there, I wish we never found cake. I wish it wasn’t round and so complete, even if we had to have. I ask myself whether it was really worth it, destroying friendship and breaking brotherhood on the altar of the alien and the truly unimportant. I miss the warmth of the past that cuddled and bound us together. I miss our Fubu jeans and Construction boot days. I miss the days we struggled and ate from the same aluminum plate with both hands, how we shared the shattered mat because we had no bed, and how we slept on each other’s bodies in so carefree a way that remembering it right now, brings a tear.
In getting what we wanted, we lost what we had. It hurts to think we may not see, that we may never speak let alone meet because of how far we’ve moved apart. It hurts that when we do, it’d be to clash and slander. It hurts that we’ll be building kingdoms instead of forging empires.
I’m drenched. I get up and go inside. I don’t believe too much in gods but I kneel all the same and do something I’ve not done since I was five- pray. For us all.