Dear Bolu,
Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies ends with the discovery that a man has fathered his twin siblings. I am watching the moment of discovery when two messages deliver to my phone:
“There has been a death in the family.”
“We lost The Man this morning.”
I put my phone away. I continue watching until the credits roll.
Grief must consider me one of its cheapest performers, for I do not dance with it on five stages. I make do with one, delivering the performance of a lifetime, one death at a time. The curtain opens with my eyes on his picture, lost in thought about the futility of it all. I recall a memory, and I smile; recall one more, and I play a song he liked. I play it on repeat—like he always did, like he taught me to. I sigh. I shrug. The weight falls off my shoulders, and the curtain closes on the stage of acceptance.
At 1 a.m., my struggle with sleep wakes me from my delusion of acceptance. It was, well and truly, an act after all. Grief must consider me one of its most bankable performers, for I do not dance with it on only five stages, no. I contrive one more—delusion—where I write you a letter about my overcoming of it, before packed inboxes and timelines full of hearts and applause. The weight, it’s clear, was never gone. It merely fell off my shoulders and landed on my chest—a chest now heavy, like his gift of a watch on my boy wrist.
“You’re a man now,” he had said the first day I left home for university, slipping the gold timepiece off his wrist and onto mine.
The air in my room cannot sustain the pace of my thoughts, and the watch says I cannot go out. It’s wrong, this time. If it is too late to take a walk, then it is early enough.
Often, when I walk, I’m running from a fear; sometimes I’m running to you. Tonight, I do both. My feet are winged, lifting before landing, and I cover the ground quickly. I cover memories, too—the good, the scar on my arm. It is cold outside.
I asked him many questions and he had answers to all. Once, I asked about luck—I’ve always had a bad streak, you see.
“I don’t believe in my stroke of luck; I believe in the luck of my stroke of work,” he answered.
I would have snapped my fingers if I’d known then, the language of the audience of the performing artist. I could only sit and stare in awe—at the tower of the man he was and the shadow he cast, the becoming of which became my daily devotion.
He read. He wrote in sonnets and colour. You could tell from the way he spoke how easily his words held sway over pockets and hearts alike. He was good with the women—maybe too good for his own good, something I never learnt. I’ve always had a bad streak, you see. A Culer with a wicked left foot, he loved the game. His left hand was wicked too, but I forgive him.
Thirty minutes later, my feet slow down, their wings giving way to wheels, and I dwell on my remembrance of him—of the man he was. He was full of life—so full he grew full of himself, yet he never quite became a man in full. Still, boy, the man he was!
Home now, the curtain closes on this stage. My pen prostrates in hope that you have enjoyed this act, dear friend.
Fin.
P.S.
Yet again, I’m sorry I was gone a while without notice.
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Write you soon, I promise. Merci!
- Wolemercy
Curse you for making me cry!! Thank you for bringing my thoughts to life in ways I couldn’t. Rest on La!