Baskadia

Rhetorical questions filled my brain, but there was no one who could respond to them. That was the time I realised that the sun casts a much peculiar glow in the morning, but as it rises, its heat becomes so much that it can scorch the skin.

“How can love like this be so untrue? In such mighty love, there was no light. Sellina, have you really gone?” I murmured.

The tears that poured out my eyes were as strong as water falling to generate electricity. After waking up from a coma, my mother narrated to me a shocking story.

After seeing my belly, I was shocked that there were stitches indicating that I had gone through surgery.

“Mom, what happened to me, and where is my wife?” I enquired.

My mother’s eyes were as wet as the morning dew, but she still gathered strength to tell me.

“Son, we thank God that you are now fine,” she slowly started. “It was on June 27. The fierce winds of July hustled you into in-activity and you fell sick. Lucky, your rich friend, Likagwa, was available. We carried you to the hospital and he offered to take care of all the medical expenses that we incurred during your sickness.

“You had difficulty breathing,” she continued. “And as a result, you were put on oxygen. Things normalised for three days, and you were released from the hospital, but the condition changed a day after you got home. Your stomach started inflating, and the condition got so worse that you could not respond to anything. As such, we drove back to the hospital again.

“The doctor then advised that you go through gastrointestinal surgery because you were diagnosed with a blockage in your colon. The surgeon did his work at first attempt, but to no avail. You still could not peristasize. In the second attempt, a part of your intestines was cut off, and we buried it in the soil. I just thought that you would not be fine, but reading the scriptures gave me hope. One said, “Seek and the door shalt be open to you”, and I prayed to the Lord to guide the operating on you.

“A protruding pipe was put through your belly for the disposal of fecal matter as peristalsis malfunctioned,” my mother continued. “These hands of mine were only there to wash your pajamas. Lucky, the third operation gave you life. A few days after it, you regained consciousness. We thank God,” she concluded whilst wiping her tears off her cheek.

“Well, I’m now fine. These surgical wounds will heal,” my inner voice said.

The statement that my mother made about washing my pajamas touched me deeply, and it made me question Sellina’s womanhood. Oh my dear Sellina, how could you ran away from me during my worst days?

***Sellina was seven months pregnant, but she took an infernal decision whilst I was sick. My sickness made her love fall ill too. She could no longer hold on, and she broke-up with me during such atrocious days and ran away. She falsely foresaw a luxurious life ahead her with the money that was in my bank account.

While I was gasping for life in the hospital, she hired a vehicle and mopped out all of the goods in my house, and then settled far. She did not leave me a single penny, and the house looked like a poor community church without even a single chair.

“I’m saved from death, yet suicide is the only way to escape this situation,” I thought, but my heart felt that death was not an option, and I should just face reality.

Deep thoughts rushed into my brain. “Should I report to the police that they arrest her?” I wondered, but my heart ignored it because she was pregnant, and I could not bear my child being born whilst she was in prison.

Well, as I was recovering, I did some simple work to help me find food for my mother to eat and let her fulfil her wishes. I continued with my teaching career and earned through teaching some part-time classes, but the plight of unrequited love by Sellina traumatised me during my dark days.

My mind hovered into the past, when we could find our love in the stones of the lake and Malawi beaches. It went back to how we could express love with the daffodils that I picked and gave her, and the dimpled smile that could set the sweetest heaven into my heart. I remembered how I used to carry her on my back, and how warm would I feel when we held each other tightly. I also remembered how the waters of the lake would turn holly when we both dove into it and baptised each other.

Perhaps love is blind, and I am the one whose vision could not be enough. Maybe the rods and cones in my eyes sensed the beams of light and love. I thought I was her truth seeking rib, despite her being older than me and having a child from another man she claimed had died in a fatal accident.

Despite all that, I still had a reason to put a golden ring on her finger. Our wedding burned with stars and the moonlight. Yes, we got married, and I agreed to take care of her bastard son, but all the love and the care I gave just sank in her. It is true that we should not swear by the inconsistent moon that its circle will re-appear again tomorrow.

*********

It took only two years to regain and double the wealth I had when I was with Sellina. Perhaps the Lord was able to see. I blossomed like a flower that grows in a swamp, and in the same year, she came with the child she bore me. My eyes could see her ribs enclosed with a very thin muscle. Her dimples were wrinkled, and her hair looked like it had no keratin. I knew that she has contracted the world’s best purge, HIV and AIDS.

“I am sorry darling,” she pleaded.

My veins were bursting with the anger I had for her, but I restrained my fists from warmly touching her. I could see my eyes burning with fire in her eyes, and then strong words came out of my mouth.

“I have already forgiven you, but you are not worth staying with, so leave me alone,” I said.

She knew that I was no longer her home, and that I had completely quit on her. She then peacefully left, leaving me with the child. “I am sorry I broke our vows, but stay with my child and raise him, he is your son,” she said.

The child was only two years old by then. I tried taking care of my handsome boy with every sort of care. Three month later, I received a phone call from Sellina’s parents. They claimed that she was dead because she had stopped taking ant-retroviral drugs. I wept and wept for her. We then went to bury her together with my son and other villagers.

Lastly, I laid flowers on her tombstone and remembered the flowers I used to give her when she was alive. May she continue to rest in peace, and I hope someday, God will help me find the right person