It’s weird sitting out here. I feel with the time I have left, it would be better if I attempted checking stuff off my bucket list. Sigh. The cool June air tickles my nostrils and forces me on a trip down memory lane.
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It’s weird for me when I think back to those days. Ten or so years ago was it? I was a young newly trained teacher at the village. I was kind of a spectacle and the folks had a welcoming ceremony for me and everything. She had caught my eye then. She was part of the troupe that had danced. Her trinkets jiggled so beautifully when she jumped to do that swerve with her feet . Her eyes…they were bewitching.
It’s weird that she caught me gazing at her. I tried to do it subtly but she caught me. She was sly like that I would soon discover. I met her under a tree at the outskirt of town a fortnight later. The full moon glared at us from above as if wanting to announce to the whole town that we were there. Her name was Eyram. She had gone to school as far as primary six but had quit because her father passed and Mama not strong enough to stomach the widowhood customs, fled with the next door neighbour, Agbadji.
It’s even weirder now when I think of how quickly I had fallen in love with her. I was deeply materialistic and she was a school dropout yet we made sense somehow. To be fair though , I hid my affair with her from the village folk or at least I thought I did. It wasn’t long before I knew her intimately.
Aghast! I felt aghast when she told me a few months later that she was pregnant with my child. It didn’t make sense to me! I’d used a condom. (Fun fact: condoms are only effective about 97% of the time) Google made me aware of that when I researched it. With my luck, no wonder the 3% had fallen to me. I panicked. I was young and immature then. I rejected her pregnancy on three occasions like the Peter I was: once in front of her, one before my headmaster and the last time before the catechist. The youth of the town felt that was ammunition enough to lynch me. The district office intervened with the police and a day later I was transferred…
Weird is how I feel when I look back on those years I had first come to Accra. My parents sponsored my reposting to a senior high school at Adabraka. The years in the village seemed like memories from a past life since these five years had passed. I had a Masters in Literature-In-English-Language. I was excellent at my job at Adabraka. It wasn’t long before my incident at the beach…
Everything is weird at the beach and if you don’t know this for a fact , you were probably too drunk to notice. I think looking back on that now I should have made a better choice than have a quicky with a stranger I barely knew. It was a hot February 14th night and my girlfriend, Benise, had a work emergency. I was bored and drunk…she was thrilling and funny. Everything was blur after that.
It’s pretty weird to hear a doctor drone on and on about how HIV isn’t really a death sentence these days. I have HIV! I have HIV! I keep telling myself and it’s shocking every single time. Shock was what other people felt too. The shock fired people from my life like the precocious CEO of a failing corporation. First to go was Benise , then the few people I called friends followed and even the school found a farcical way to terminate my appointment. I would have sued them but the prospect of having a realistic version of “Philadelphia” wasn’t that appealing.
Waking up today, twelve years later after my first diagnosis is a “blessing” my mother calls it but she’s not the one who is literally a month away from the grave. I had given up trying to survive until yesterday when I received this text : ” Hello kwabena, Eyram here. I heard about your “issue.” Anyway, Petra wants to meet you. She’s your daughter and don’t tell me you can’t feel that in your bones. I’ve attached a picture of her so you tell me…anyway, we’re in the city now and we’ll be coming to see you at the hospital. Wait for us or whatever but either way I’m bringing the girl to see her father.”
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Hello, we’d like to know the whereabouts of the patient Mensah Peter, she said.
Are you family? the nurse replied.
She is his daughter, she said pointing at the teen beside her.
Oh I see that now, the nurse nodded and flashed the girl an awkward smile. She continued, I don’t know how subtly to put this but Mr Mensah Peter passed away at the dawn today.
Eyram and her daughter gasped. They left a few minutes after lamenting his demise. When the taxi,that had brought them, zoomed away, the nurse went toward the little annex room down the hallway and opened it. They left she said and pulled his wheelchair out.
Thanks Selassie ,he thanked her wearily but she didn’t react.
He knew his little sister was mad at his decision not to see them. He didn’t know exactly what had made him change his mind about seeing them and it sucked but here he was again, denying Eyram the fourth time… like the Peter he was…
Vanity Card:
This story was written in the spur of the moment one evening as I watched the news with my family. I had no visible ending in mind but I don’t believe I did too badly with it or? Anyway, if you liked it: you are totally at liberty to share with others and write about your experience reading it in the comments section. If there are a few things that might have inspired some objections on your behalf, those aren’t out of kilter either! Let’s hear them in the comments section too or on the walls of a public bathroom!…just kidding😂😛
Bisous,
Mikael ❤️❤️
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