A second. A glance. A word. It’s strange how powerful these seemingly little measures can be the difference between life and death.
You’re sitting in a bus reading a novel and easing into the sound of the engine you know so well after hundreds of trips like this one. You notice a baby flapping her chubby arms across her mother’s shoulders and you smile. The baby’s wide eyes glow and she smiles widely, innocently beautiful.
There was something about the way she looked at him when she was about to leave that should have alerted him but he didn’t want to read meaning into anything at that point.
She’d made it clear earlier that she was upset when she called. He had acknowledged her feelings and told her they would talk about it the next day after he dealt with the sensitive work “thing” that presently occupied his mind. She’d hung up.
I like to sit on a rock beside our house in the early hours of the day when everywhere is quiet and cool. The crickets would be chirping away, a few fireflies would fly by but other than those, everything would be calm.
The breeze blowing gently would hit me with such freshness that I would start craving that feeling even during the day.
It was easy to understand “no”; it was a straightforward answer. There was no ambiguity in it. The same is the case with “yes”. Simple. Like right and wrong. Black and white. The only problem was that everyone else didn’t care about easy as much as Ayo did.
When the rain finally came, we sighed with relief It wasn’t just because the hotness that plagued the days would finally reduce, but because we knew the effect it would also have on our relationship.
The past season had put a strain on us more than we expected. It was our first year together and while things were always manageable when we visited each other over the years, living together was trickier. It found ways to press buttons we both never knew we had. Yes, the heat didn’t help, too.
Your life has up to this point been good. Not good in the sense that nothing bad ever happens, but that you can always fall back on the reassuring love of family and friends to help you get through the tough times.
You know for sure that no matter how hard things get, you would not be unable to deal with it. You remember that Celtic legend that everyone is allowed to pick the difficulties they will encounter on earth before they are born. So there was no way anyone would select something that would destroy them.
I have been away from home for a while. I don’t regret the life I’ve chosen, I don’t yet want to turn around and put an end to my travelling. Because this is something I’ve wanted for so long.
Many nights, I dreamt of what this would feel like. Backpacking from one destination to the next. Meeting new people, eating new foods and taking a picture of the night sky every day I’m alive to see it.
