A Glorious Mess July is here. You know it from the long, dour days, overcast with a pall of dark mist and eternally non-forthcoming rainclouds. The chilly winds spread little nippy gossamer spots of bitingly frozen water droplets. The very air one breathes is laden with pollution, humidity and a life-sucking coldness. Everyone is shivering and sniffling. The flu is endemic. Conversation is impeded by mangled syllables; nasal passages are blocked. Everyone breathes through their mouth, leaving a vapour of steam to trace its ineffectual way up into the air. Laughter is muted and conversation eerily muffled. Figures go about their business with a strange stoop and no spirit, as though enacting a macabre parody. It is freezing. She is seated by the window facing west, wistfully regarding the sterile sunset. To the eye, it looks warm and rich and colourful, with its orange bursts of flame and pink plumes, surrounded with a grey-brown corona. Streaks of black-brown feathery clouds loiter mischievously, speckling the extravagantly fiery golden curtain escorting the setting sun. After ironing, she wanted to go into the kitchen and commence dinner preparation, but the coy sunset entranced her. So she sat immobile, with a distant smile hanging sadly upon her beautiful features. Her hands rub her flat tummy in round tender motions. Over and over and over. The right hand in clockwise motions, and the left hand opposite, the circled touching somewhere just above her navel. Her phone emits a sharp ping. She picks it up and quickly reads through the text message. “Al b hme 2moro”. Her face contracts with displeasure. Grownups shouldn’t text like that. She places her phone back on the window ledge, and commences the tummy rub. It seems to animate her with joyful spirits, for in a moment, she is humming huskily, but tunelessly. All of a sudden, she rises to her feet, unwraps the lesso from her lower body, leaving her in nothing more than a sweatshirt. In this state, she saunters gaily into the bedroom, and emerges wearing a black jeans and sneakers. No socks or underwear. Her thick, black lustrous hair is a glorious mess. Picking up her phone, she slams the front door shut and proceeds to her car. She is going to Obasanjo Lane. From her house on Arafat Avenue, her destination is a right turn, barely 600 metres away. It is a small, tidy estate, where ell the neighbours know each other. The paved little lanes, and the wider avenues, lined with jacarandas and gravilleas it is customary to hail neighbours over the tidy low bougainvillea hedges and spend time making small talk. As a result, without being nosy, everyone knows each others’ affairs most minutely. With her husband, her destination would not be problematic. A family friend. The groom’s man at their wedding and longest mutual acquaintance. With him away (hence “Al b hm 2moro”), it is scandalous. It’s late Sunday afternoon and the poor man-child is simpering with helpless rapture over the manoeuvres of rally drivers in the chalk-dusty plains of Kajiado. Then he will mimic them on the dangerous highway back to Nairobi, shrieking with boyish glee at every near-crash. It stopped being fun months after they met, but she married him anyway. It’s clear he isn’t going to grow up too soon. She has not bothered to notify her surprise host. Suppose he has someone over? She thinks as he takes a convoluted route, executing a confusing series of right-turns, until even the most intent of stalkers cannot guess where she is headed. This estate is just the place for it. Turning left into Arafat Lane, she drives for a little while before turning right into Gadaffi drive. This heads her into Murtala Mohamed close, which gratefully exits after a half a kilometer to the left into Garang Road. She re-crosses Arafat Lane and joins Museveni Road, turning left, then right into Sankara Street. A few minutes later, she turns right into Samora Machel Drive, which terminates at a T-junction with Obasanjo Lane. She parks at the top of the lane, and walks towards her destination. She is calm with anticipation. ******************************************************************************************** He is struggling with the gate. The watchmen always offer to assist, but in a burst of egalitarian outrage, he always brashly rebuffs them and begins his pathetic struggles to close, or open the gate. It’s awkward. He always forgets something, which makes his work a nightmare. The double gate opens inwards. There is a smaller door which has its own lock. A little hatch on this door gives access to the locks. By stretching our his arm all the way to the shoulder, he can reach the bolts which anchor the doors to the concrete. They are always turned the wrong way around, and only frantic wriggling of fingers fast running out of circulation enables him unfasten them. There is also a latch at the top where the doors meet, which keeps them aligned, and prevents pushing inwards, because if the doors separate, it is possible for the bolts of the lock to come free. The bolts terminate one end in a right-angled curl which eases into a protruding curl welded onto the upright frame of the door. This is where the humongous VIRO padlocks are fastened. Always lots of work. Today he discovered that opening the smaller door first makes everything easier. He felt foolish because 6 months ago, the new watchman tried to explain this to him, and he was rude. Now he has to live with the knowledge of the fact that Oscar has been watching him with pity all these months. After opening the gate, he had driven inside and parked the car. The n he returned for the reverse process. He had left the anchor bolts hanging as usual, making his progress noisy and difficult. Amid much huffing and annoying grating sounds produced by friction between rough concrete and iron, he had brought the doors together. Now they wouldn’t align despite his greatest exertions. So he has stepped out through the little door to see if there is obstruction outside. That is when he realized that the top aligning latch is hanging in the way. He feels like a moron already, and his anger begins to simmer. The thought of a bunch of watchmen sharing a smoke and sniggering at him somewhere beyond his notice brings this anger to a boil. So he gives the gate a good kick. The noise startles him. A sharp pain in his big toe alerts him to gout or an ingrown nail. His anger bursts out in radiant steam, bursting out of suddenly bloodshot eyes and bulging veins on his neck and forehead. A film of sweat on his brow underlines his frustrating exertions. He lifts the offending clip, pulls the door back and drops it in place. As he stoops to enter the little door, he sees a figure walking leisurely down the road from Machel junction. He turns for a second and beholds her, all smiles, dressed simply, and her hair a glorious mess. Her jeans cling to her hips and thighs in a provocative way, and the sweatshirt does a reluctant job of concealing the flat tummy and ample chest. Her hands curl about the cuffs of the sweats, as if to accuse the inclement weather. It is a vulnerable, almost childish gesture. is stunned by the vision. He breaks into a wide smile, stands upright and steps back facing her. She doesn’t walk into his open arms or even greet him. Nimbly she stoops and hops through the little door. By the time he locks up, she is standing at his doorway. By the time he closes the door of his house, she is gone. The only evidence of her presence are her shoes, jeans and sweatshirt on the floor. From the first time it has been absolute magic. Sublime touches and caresses. Gentle, rollicking, undulating motions. Sighs, exhalations and moans. Limds, hands, fingers, lips and tongues. Slow, tender and soft. Fast, firm and hard. Waves of pleasure. Gusts of bliss. Sparks of ecstasy. Raptures of joy. An explosion of sensual culmination. Oblivion. Total cessation of existence. ************************************************************************************ When they come to, she wraps her arms tenderly about him, looks up at him and smiles. He squeezes her body to his, and kisses her forehead. “I’m having your baby.” she declares without any preamble whatsoever. He freezes for a moment, never letting his eyes leave hers. Then their smiles turn into the wonder of realization: they are aroused again. Deliciously concupiscent. Incandescent with love and lust, they embark upon a corporeal ode of rejoicing. Delirious with discovery, they feast upon the abundance of their mutual trance. Take to flight once more. And soar again. Crest the clouds and touch the sun. Burn hot in the glow of lusting, loving delight. ************************************************************************************ He wakes up at 3 a.m, and eases himself deftly to go to the loo. She does not move a bit. They didn’t speak, but he knows she was to return home earlier in the evening. He is loath to rouse her from such fulfilled repose. He sits on a stool by the bed and regards her tenderly, with a smile on his lips. Her beautiful face, framed by an even more glorious mess of rich hair. Her closed eyes with their wide lids, and long, gently curling lashes. And the little nose. The full smiling lips, now slightly swollen from all the kissing. The long, bare neck, which seems to rise from her chest, at the top of her gently swelling breasts. She is slim and wonderfully complected. He wants to wake her up just to tell her how beautiful she is. He moves his face closer to hers, and brings his ear to her mouth. He cannot hear or feel any breath. He looks harder at her chest, and does not see it rise and fall gently as he had seen countless times before. He put his ear against her ribcage and hears nothing. No breathing. No heartbeat. He hears a sharp ping. He sits still, not breathing, wondering where the noise came from. He is perturbed and distracted. He takes her hand and feels her wrist for a pulse. It is cold. There is no pulse. Another sharp ping. It seems to come from outside. Absently, he stands up and wanders toward the sitting room. He turns the light on and sees her clothes on the floor. As he stands there, a phone rings. He screws his face in concentration, but can’t locate it. He returns to the bedroom. She lies contented, in the same posture. One leg is stretched out, while the other is bent at the knee. He notices the different colours of the nail polish on each toe. Then he sees the birth mark on her left thigh. Higher up, he sees the stubble covering her pelvic mound, and itches to rub it gently. Her labia are still engorged, and seem to throb and glisten with arousal. All these things support the hysterical part of his brain in maintaining that she is alive. Her nipples are still hardened and dark, like ripe wild berries. But she is immobile, unbreathing and soundless. And the phone is ringing again. ******************************************************************************************** It was now 8 a.m. He sits still, in the same position, totally naked, watching the dead naked woman on his bed. Her phone keeps ringing from the pocket of her jeans on the floor in the next room. The sun shines warmly outside, driving thick shafts of light into the room, and illuminating the upper part of her body. The birds sing happily on the little shrubs all round the house, and toddlers coo incoherently at their guardians. Cars zoome past the house on Obasanjo Lane, accelerating then slowing down near the bumps. Their sounds are like a game – roar, purr, silence; roar, purr, silence in a crescendo as the cars approached the house, then a diminuendo as they drive past to Machel, Museveni or Arafat. She wouldn’t breathe. Her phone wouldn’t stop ringing. He is losing touch with the present, with all reality. He won’t move. In a while, he will have to consider what to do with a dead woman in his house. Hospital first? A morgue? The police? The hospital will call the coppers. So will the morgue. Perhaps they won’t even admit the body. What will be his explanation? Can he escape reasonable suspicion as the cause of death is established? Might the cause be connected in any way to their tryst? What about the husband? Her husband. His friend since primary school, over 20 years ago. He remembers their wedding; he was the groom’s best man. All the confidences traded over the years. His wife. Dead in my bed, he thinks. A dead lover. A dead wife. a dead baby. A baby who never was.What is there to say? For the moment, he wallows in the comfort of paralysis. He won’t move. He won’t think. He will indulge most wantonly in this inertia until it is time to figure out what to do. As long as he can hold his body and mind still,it is not time for him to think or act. It is the time for wallowing in the warm thick comforting blanket of absolute stasis.Its freezing cold in the bedroom. The phone is ringing again. **********************************************************
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 15:44:15 +0000
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