Hi Everyone,
It has been a tough few weeks especially for Black people all over the world as we are once again confronted with the systematic racism that lies within policing, not just in the USA, but globally (even in majority Black countries). We are reminding the world yet again, that Black Lives Matter. I know this is not a non-fiction newsletter, but as a Black Africa Woman artist, I am affected, inspired, motivated, and moved by my reality and my existence. My art comes from my lived realty as a Black Woman. To Black people who are carrying these events deeply and heavily in their bodies, minds, and spirits - I hope you are finding ways to gives yourselves rest. Self-care IS a radical act too. To those who consider themselves allies, I hope you are finding ways to use your privilege in your communities, no matter how small the action is and to educate yourselves and those around you about the current moment.
I would like to thank my patrons on Patreon. It means a lot to me that there are people who support the art. If you missed the previous stories, you can find them here. Now, onto some fiction. I hope you enjoy this piece. This piece, like the rest is incomplete so as always, I ask that you read these as drafts.
With much appreciation,
Tedoex
P.S. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
These stories are not to be republished anywhere without permission from the author.
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I am tired of mourning. My bones are too weary to carry the pains of those that came before me, those that walk with me, and those that will walk after me. I hear them now. Outside a cock crows. My father awakes to heat up his bath water. My mother begins her long morning routine which is interjected by hums of praise. This country will not allow your bones to grow brittle with age. It will not allow your eyes to deepen with wisdom. It will kill you before you’re dead. It will keep you in a constant state of grief. It will hold you hostage forever in a cemetery of dreams and hope.
I roll in bed. I find it hard to stay asleep once the sun is up. To be honest about it, I find it hard to sleep anyway.
I weep for you no more
Yes this is my farewell
I know you said it first
But I had held on for a while
Kept memories as company
Emotions as a lover
Hurt as companion
Expectation as an acquaintance
But it is time I pull you out like a stubborn thorn
The poem keeps writing itself. I can never finish it. Perhaps I will finish it when I am done healing my shaken heart. Lately I have been unable to finish many things. I think it is the part in me that fears death that is leading me. If I have numerous things undone, then I surely cannot die today or tomorrow. If I have tasks unfinished, then I will not end my life - at least not until I have gone through my to-do list. The universe will not allow for my work to go unfinished, my purpose unlived, my dreams unrealised, or whatever other bullshit I continue to tell myself.
I hear the other neighbourhood chickens crow. I should wake up and continue another day of looking for a job while waiting on graduate school applications I sent months ago. I read somewhere, I have forgotten where, that if you are to find a job you must bake job-hunting your job. I do not think the author of that article had lived in this country or even knew of conditions like the ones in my country. It is not that people are not looking for jobs, no - it is that there are no jobs to look for. Even the menial labor that had enabled my father to move to the city, was not available. The factories were carcasses that were not given just burials. No one had wept as they each fell silent and dropped to the ground. How could we mourn the industries when we were busy fighting to put food on the table and stay in school.
Between political thoughts and thoughts of my future, my shaken heart took up more space. I nursed it, caressed it, felt it, sat with it. It is not that I expected this love to last, for I do not believe in happily ever afters. In fact, I go through life knowing and expecting that love will end some day soon. I just have to deal with an ending amidst other uncertainties. An ending that was not communicated to me. It was more like an ellipses than a full stop. That is why I am shaken.
I sit up and rub my eyes. I drag my feet to the chair across from me - the one with the clothes that are too clean to wash but too dirty to be folded away. I pick out a black t-shirt with a large New York University seal across it. I had not attended New York University, yet. I had never even left the country. I bought this t-shirt at second-hand market two months ago. The market with the clothes that come in bales from oversees. I thought the t-shirt would inspire the universe to allow me leave this dying place some day. I do not believe in signs, but I thought that if I pretended that I did, then maybe this t-shirt could be that sign.
I put the t-shirt on and some sweatpants and drag my feet to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. The splash of cold water on my face wakes me up. I go to the kitchen to help my mother prepare packed lunches for her and my father. My mother is a senior matron at a local clinic. My father is a headmaster at a local school. Both my parents had come so far from where they had begun. Had you read just the opening chapters of their lives, the current pages they are writing would be unbelievable. My father moved from the village to the city after his high school exams and he got a job loading and unloading trucks at a local shoe factory. He saved his money by sharing a room with his cousin. He took himself to night and weekend classes at the teachers’ college. That is how he became headmaster. My mother was fortunate enough to have an older brother who was working as a driver in the capital city. He paid for her nursing school. Theirs are stories I would read. Mine is a story I can barely write. I doubt anyone would want to read it.
“Mangwanani amai”, I greet my mother.
“Mangwanani mwanangu. There is someone who came to the clinic yesterday with his mother. He said he might be able to help you find something to do while you are applying for jobs and schools. O, here is his number. Call him”. She applies peanut butter and margarine on slices of brown bread. She is soft spoken. I can tell she is not trying to force me into calling this man. She does not want to raise my hopes. Last time they were every high they were shattered completely.
I had finished my Bachelors degree in media and journalism at a local university, but there were no jobs at the few media houses we have. I certainly could not work for the government’s mouth piece because no one could vouch for my loyalty to the party; thankfully. I cannot imagine waking up every morning to twist the truth or divert the nation’s attention from stories that matter. I studied journalism because I wanted to tell true stories- to bring inequality to light and not to cover it. The few independent media houses were not really keen on a young journalist with no track record.
I worked with a foreign funded peace-building Non-Governmental Organisation until a year ago, creating and publishing their newsletter. The work was political. I traveled around the country immersing myself in the horrors of the political reality in the country. It was everywhere, even in opposition politics. After a year my contract was not renewed due to minimal funding - the donors felt that we were working in very dangerous spaces and that supporting our work was risky for them too. The organisation decided to keep the programme areas while research, advocacy, and in-house media was cut. After trying, and failing, to get a job, I decided to leave the country. I began to apply for masters programs in the USA.
“Ehoi”. That is all I can say these days.
My parents have left for work. I am left to still my shaken heart. I had given it to one I thought was a friend, at least that if not a lover. I wish I could explain why he broke my heart, but I am having to live with accepting an apology that never came. That is fine. Perhaps that is my karma for other hearts I have broken. Being unemployed hurts more. How would karma explain that?
I remember the first time I met him. I came back home with cigarette smoke on my breath. He smokes menthols, I don’t. He made me feel beautiful and seen. He was adventure personified, living in the moment. Where I brought foresight, he brought spontaneity. Where I was slow and calculating, he was eager and caution-less. We made love in his car several times. Found alleys to envelope us with darkness and swallow our laughter. A car is never the most convenient place for such sensual explorations, but I was learning to not take myself too seriously and so sometimes we would laugh at ourselves. Movies were his thing, books were mine. He would recommend old films to me and I would recommend a book. We discussed these over whiskey - sometimes disagreeing with enough ferocity to counter the passion of our love making.
I turn on the morning news. They say America is answering to its wrongs. That Black people are gathering and demanding justice for the loss of many lives that were taken by the police. I look down at my t-shirt. I am dreaming of leaving to a place I am certain will not accept me, simply because “at least I will have a masters degree and potentially a job.” My hopes might live there but my mind or my body, or both, may not. I suck my teeth. It’s a weary existence. I leave the television on and I make myself some tea while my bath water is heating up. Today I will log into my accounts and see if any of the schools had made me an offer. I had used my entire life savings, and borrowed some money from my parents, to write GREs and pay for the application fee of some of the programs I applied for.
It is 11:00am when I finally leave the house. “Sister. Town here?”. A lanky young man is hanging through the window of the white kombi that is on the main road. He slaps the roof twice, the driver comes to a halt. I do not run to it, I did not ask them to stop. As I approach, the young man asks again, “Sister, town?”
“Urikuenda naKing George Road here?” I ask before I board. These kombis had the tendency to take the longer route into town in an attempt to fill up before arriving at the rank and thereby making some customers like me walk more than was necessary. I have to confirm that they are going my way. “Yes, King George”. I enter and lower the folded seat. I become the fourth person a three person seat.
I used to take this rote regularly to meet him, when he was my lover. This route always signalled joy and the promise of love. We would meet in town, have lunch, share some laughs. Sometimes, I would be writing my application essays for masters programs in the USA and he would be studying for his GREs. He too, like everyone our age, was planning to leave the country. Home had become a cemetery of dreams, a place where hopes come to die and aspirations do not take root. Those afternoons were fun. Sitting on a table in the park, sharing a cheap meal, exchanging perspectives on application essays or GRE questions.
“Pamashops”, I tell the conductor. The lanky man slaps the roof of the car twice and repeats what I said. The driver comes to an abrupt holt at the broken down bus stop, as if he had not received adequate warning that I was dropping here. I walk out and make my way to the internet cafe. I am not really sure what I will find in my inbox. I have never been one to be hopeful or optimistic; in life as in love. Even with him, I was always open to the possibility that it would end. I was willing to swim in the joy as long as the waters flowed, to bask in the love as long as it shined. And so when he found another and left with no words said, I was more shocked than I was hurt. I walked into a joyless desert and fell into loveless night. I waited for him to say an official farewell but none came. He simply disappeared, like he was never there. He taught me not to wait. And so I walk into the internet cafe with no expectation, not waiting for anything in my inbox - just to check my account.
“Hi. One hour please”, I say to the tall young lady at the reception. She slips a dirty sheet of paper across the table and shows me the mobile number to which I must transfer 100 dollars for that one hour. 100 dollars, even in local currency, sounds like a lot in normal places. But here, money and numbers are somewhat arbitrary. It begins with the incompetent government and trickles down to business owners who charge prices that can only be explained as being dreamt up. The other day, someone tried to charge me 50 United States Dollars for a second hand pair of jeans.
I transfer the 100 dollars and her phone pings. “Number 3”, she points, somewhat lazily, to a computer in the left corner of the room. She hands me a piece of paper with my one time password. I take a seat and log into the machine, then into my email account. The first emails I see are newsletters I have signed up for, and they are way too many. I only check the headlines in each news letter and open new tabs for those I find interesting. I browse through them. Almost everyone is writing about the state of the Black people in the world. Some perspectives are fascinating. I queue some of them for printing so that I can read and underline things when I get home. This saves me so much mobile data.
I return to my email inbox. Then I see it - an email from the New York University Department of Media, Culture, and Communication. I open it and it is an automated email that tells me to log into my application account. I am at ease. I open a new tab so that I login to my NYU account online.
“Two hours I think”. The voice I hear behind me brings me to a halt. My heart remembers. I have heard it before. Many times that same voice had made me smile. I turn around, we lock eyes. It is him, the one I used to love. But I am not waiting anymore, so I turn back to the computer and login. After a few clicks, I am looking at he message. It begins with “Congratulations”. I exhale and let our breath I did not know I was holding. I have also been offered the Graduate International Student Scholarship. I feel a smile appear on my face, something that has not happened in a while. My shoulders relax. A weight I have been carrying for a while is lifted.
“Number 4”, the lady at the desk tells him. He walks towards me,just as I have put in a request to print my offer letter and I log out.
“Nice seeing you.” I say to him with a smile and walk to wards the printing station.
The poem completes itself.
I bid you farewell
Godspeed.
You were but a short chapter,
My story is only beginning.