African Writers’ Corner
Red was our favorite color
Amira Ali
2010-07-28, Issue 492
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/66280
Printer friendly version
I have started to keep your letters close to my bedside, even closer than they were before. They are now stuffed in the pillow case, safe enough to ensure that the words will not escape my dream. Lucid dreams of you and I, the closest I have gotten to kissing and holding you. This one time, I had this dream of awaiting your arrival, there I was at the airport dressed in a bright red dress – red was our favorite colour, "you do remember, don't you?” It signified the intensity and vibrancy of our love and the details and irony of our world. This moment of awaiting had me ecstatic with joy, an excitement that had every part of my being trembling, it felt so real that my senses were awoken to the smiling sensations of my bodily parts. My emotions took total control of my being and I lost count of the number of times I paced the long and pasty, tunnel looking corridor; at times sitting down to get right up, to sit again and repeat each session with each nervousness. The anticipation of how you would welcome me and how I would approach you got me rehearsing our moment of reunion; would I first kiss you, or do I hug you and then kiss you, or would I just stand in front of you and look you in the eye, search for the soul connection that once unionized us, the truth that we once had seen in each other, and even if for a moment to reclaim our lost identity, to know our nature and place on this earth. If only for a moment, if we would quickly love each other before this very unprecedented crisis of our world, if we could free ourselves from what we have been denied and enrapture in our splendid hearts; in this very little time that we have if we can quickly love each other before the triple destruction of our world that threatens to annihilate us.
Each thought provoked the anticipation of the mind even more, making the blood rush vigorously and the heart expanding to a point of feeling that had no return. Then in the midst of all the rushed sensation I look through the glass, the glassed wall that separates the loved from its lover, the mother from her daughter, the son and father; and on the other side right in front of me, there you were, I could see you clearly, you were close to me but separated by this glassed wall. I want to rush to you, meet you like a child runs to her mother in ecstasy, but my legs fail me; my heart races to you but the crippling of my feet hinders me to get to you. Determined to touch, to feel you, I use all my internal might to move, I get closer to find that the reality of our union has been obstructed by this glass barrier, it has imprisoned us from our hunger for the splendor and glory of our world, destructing the eye of our hearts. I kick and bellow to find that I cannot build enough strength to recover. Everything I do seemed to be trapped internally and as if to relieve me from my pain, lulled to an illusory sense of relief, someone taps you on the shoulder motioning you to leave, a cue that your time was up. We are once again denied the affection and compassion that would open us to the beauty and mystery of our world. As we lower our gaze to this sad state of our world, the systematic and appalling brutality of many decades, your image starts to fade. It starts with your eyes distancing to follow the contours of your body diminishing; and as parts of your body leave the scene, the last thing to stay and leave was your heartbeat, it was heard aloud, it was one with mine for sometime. But as I struggled to be freed from the pain, to let go of the world that obstructed us, to cure this horrific psychic agony, the only thing that united us faded to a point of no return. A silence within me that left me suffering and isolated in the heart from you. I was left with my loud, wild heartbeat and my eyes wide open. It was that morning that our baby died from malaria.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
* afro'disiatic © 2010
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.
Readers' Comments
Let your voice be heard. Comment on this article.