#5 Siyamthanda
I’d only ever seen it in movies where a person ceases to hear anything that follows the statement they had been waiting to hear. I can only explain the sound of her voice from that point on as being like an echo in a long cave – by the time the sound reaches the other side, the syllables all merges to create a monotone melody.
She hugged me as she said “hey dude”. When I opened the door, I noticed a slight curve in her hips and a freshness in her face. Her lips were always her defining feature and today they looked like a peach in season. “She’s sober,” I thought to myself. And once she had confirmed this, all other words fell into the melodic echo. She is so brilliant.
When we were teenagers I used to marvel at how she moved in confidence while the rest of us endured adolescence. I loved her and wanted everyone to see this version I saw. Few ever did. And I was too young to communicate it. But as time went by, reality came for her sooner than it did for some of us. And when it came, it created a thin film of fog between who she is and who they want her to be. Years later when I got close enough to see the details, it was like looking at a painting that had been left out in the sun. Beautiful still, but bleached of it’s primary colours. Though her colours faded, my love for her did not. I even touched my heart where her name is written and found that it was still as soft as it was when we were younger. This is good – a soft spot can not be replicated but faded colours can be restored. She is doubtful that they can be. But she will believe it one day, even for a second and she will be (that) happy again. In the meantime, I hope that my words will at least allow some sunshine to get through and shine on her beautiful face.
I shake my head in an attempt to focus. It helps draw me out of the internal vosho that I was doing. I guess it’s the pouncing cat now? Angazi, oksalayo I was dancing in celebration. Her posture has changed, even her vocabulary is back to awe inspiring. “… some days fee like they’re drawing blood, but it was time you know,” she says and smiles. Fuck, why am I such a sucker for a beautiful smile, all smiles are beautiful to me actually. She interlocks her hand in mine and raises it it slightly as if our fingers resemble a monument erected to celebrate her sobriety. It’s not the first time we hold hands this way, but this time is different. I think it’s because the thin film of fog is gone and I can see her again. We haven’t spoken enough for me to know whether or not she’s content, but she is exuding comfort and calm. Calm, not zen resulting from anxiety dampened by her efforts.
Seeing that I haven’t said a word since she came in, she moves in closer to me. She runs hot, so I immediately catch her strawberry scented breath mixed with the heat from her bare arms. A humid tropical breeze with eyes like big glossy glass beads, she towers over me slightly.
A chest bump, really dude? But I laugh anyway. “I love you,” she says. She says it all the time. I think it’s because she doesn’t think that I believe her. And she doesn’t really believe that I love her just the way she is. Minutes after the chest bump that turned into a tickle fight, we’re both on the floor panting. Well, I’m panting and she stands up like nothing happened and offers to make us coffee. I accept.
Noma the writer 