Seasons of solitude

Short Story Nigel Mabiza
I HAVE been having the same dream every night. Well, at first I thought it was one of the random contusions of heartbreak. So I had to quickly discard the whole thread. Every morning when I awake, my heart burns with suspense and tension of what could have been and what I could not change in the past. Could it be the past is pulling me to it with its freckled hand for me to dine with it in memories that I had chosen to forget. Maybe. There are seasons of remembrance in every man’s life. Seasons that gather wells of tears in his baggy eyes. Seasons of solitude; Seasons of redundancy. Seasons like these.

“What was she wearing in the dream?” Fred asks ninny questions at times and he really expects me to confide in him in the secrets that sap weight out of me.

“She was wearing black and beauty” I responded with the colours that matched an African woman. Perhaps I am being made to see what I want to see by the script writers of dreams so that I can go back to what I should forget.

“And tonight she was driving a car with her sister in the back seat you say?” Fred was listening attentively. I understand his predilection and I expect him to be the Daniel to my premonitions.

“Okay Nebuchadnezzar let me tell you what’s happening,” he picked up his walking stick which he used to balance his leg which he had injured in the pursuit of a thief. I smiled wryly to the enthronement and bowed demurely to the interpreter.

“You are in a midlife crisis and now your eyes are fixed toward your past goals that you could have achieved by now” I wasn’t expected to say anything although I knew that part of what he was saying was true. It’s not truth that I need. I need to be lied to so that I can find comfort in answers of fantasy. I need to be told that sleeping beauty is going to rise up. I need hope more than I need the truth. Who am I fooling I need to accept that I have found something far better and settle. But what if what was comes back when I have settled with what is. These are the riddles of a middle-ager.

“Maybe I am holding on to a lie so that I can dream again” I spoke out of turn to let out how I felt.

“The first time you said she wore a wig?” he asked to gather detail that would not answer reality. Sometimes we hang on to dreams so that we can live longer in expectations. Dreams are all some men have; well some have brown bottles that fuse their libido which forces them to live a lie and live to regret the children that spawn out of the months of amnesia. Fred should not take away my dream. I need it so that I can sleep tonight. Maybe tonight I will see colour so that I can perceive the lie of the rainbow in my eyes.

“Please Fred don’t take away my hope with truth that will make me forget what I want to expect” I begged him as I held on to his walking stick. He was like a wizard king with a wand that he waved to dreamers so that they could dream again.

“You can’t call me everyday to tell me about the reality you want to expect” he was right but tomorrow I want to tell him something again that will jilt him and make the dreams intertwine. Has my reality become the apparitions that I see in the night?

“You know what I want in a girl Fred?” he knows I always digress and speak about my life.

“You want someone who will not stop you writing about the things that you would have wanted to have?” Fred knows me too well. If you are a writer you need a wife who can read and tell you words she has learnt in her dictionary of love and life. A wise man said we fall in love with opposites; he said we attach to those who don’t find joy in what we are doing.

“Why do we fall in love with those who are beyond our grasp more; those we can never reach with words or touch?” I had begun to tease literature with quotes that made onlookers giddy.

“Maybe we are slaves to the nature of our creator; to live by faith till we grow grey hairs in our armpits” Fred married too early. He no longer dreams. She dreams for him and he lives the nightmare so he says. He is in love with a woman that he never wanted to marry but whom he loved. He lives a paradox. The labyrinth is nothing but my greatest fear which he paints so well in literature daily. He always says love is not the pivot to the longevity of a relationship. I always beg to differ with his dogma that has been carved by his wife. She has made him into the man he is now through love but, he is locked in a candy bar that he wants to lick himself out of daily.

“Commitment Bizmak; over time love will fade then all you are left with is the woman you chose to be with; she becomes your oracle; the woman who clothes and signs your indemnity” he always says.

“So you said some nights ago you when you dreamt you were preaching right?” Fred is trying to join the pieces.

“Yes in a small congregation though!” I answered.

“And you said you were glued to the pulpit, legs stiff and mouth moving uttering words of prophecy?” Fred is narrating to me so that I can remember what was and now is. I have been telling him about this dream and that she was in the congregation wearing a wig. I couldn’t recognise her till I laid hands on her head and the wig fell.

“So when the wig fell you woke up!?” he asked as he paced forward with a limp.

I am up now and I have been up for the past days looking for leads to the interpretation. I was left holding a wig.

“So this is the place where the pulpit was and you were facing the north?” Fred is baffled by my dreams. I stood behind the tree and faced the north. The sun was drowning with its beauty in the sea of the west, casting rays that were nothing but distress signals of the night. I was ready to dream again.

“And this is the wig” he used his walking stick to fish a wig out of the turf of the green grass.

“Yes, that’s the wig that she had on!!” I answered as I lifted my brow in bewilderment.

Fred looked pale and gently laid the wig down then set his attention to the tree. He knocked on it gently with his walking stick. The tree was hollow like an animated tree house.

“I have never been here before, I lie to you not” I had to affirm that. I had only seen this tree once when I was still in the habit of hunting for rabbits and rare stones back in my teenage years. That was over a decade ago.

“This is no longer about a pulpit a wig or a walking stick, look” Fred had found some fresh sand which looked to have been excavated; a mole perhaps? But no. A gold digger trying to hide his loot; a dog with a bone? I weighed the option of the burrowed soil. He sunk his walking stick beneath. I knelt beneath and pulled what seemed to be a head with hair. I turned the orb and saw the face. Darkness concealed the visage. I was holding my nightmare live in my hand.

“Run!!” that was the last I heard before I showed chasers a clean pair of heels. I left Fred in the pack of the blood hounds trying to explain what led him to this place. Tonight I will not dream. I will face the reality of having to dodge the bullet. I never saw the face of the woman clearly, the sun had hidden its rays in its feathers now it has left the moon to brood over the darkness. Tonight is the beginning of a new dream I hope to wake up soon . . .