Ever after

She sits there writing in her battered journal, oblivious to the shrieks from her noisy age mates playing yet another game conjured in the heat of the moment. She shouldn’t even be there but submitting to her papa’s whims is much easier than another fiery argument. So she creates her own little bubble where her fantasies come alive, where the little characters she dreams up run around; sometimes floating lightly, other times stamping angry feet impatiently waiting for their stories to be written. She indulges them, sweet talks them, spoils them – anything so they can love her as much as she loves them. And she writes.

He watches her from across the room, wondering why she’s here since it’s obvious she doesn’t want to be. He sees her every day, sometimes in the park, sometimes like today in the youth auditorium. Lately, she stays with him in his head, becoming a constant distraction, an obsession even. He sits there, watching her, wondering why there’s so much sadness in her eyes. And then he rises and goes to her.

Pause

We’ve all seen this scene played out a dozen times; mystery dude to the rescue, knight in shining armour or whatever and the unsurprisingly saccharine happy ending usually involving a castle, eternal love and a ‘happily ever after’ to boot. This is not one of those tales. In this story, there are broken hearts, very sad tears and the big climax that I find constanly missing in all folklore – the moment the boredom sets in. So let’s say we skip the tedious details. Boy meets girl, instant chemistry…… blah, blah, blah.

Play

One year and counting and the knight realises that his damsel is addicted to her distress, that she can’t actually be without the perpetual sessions of brooding, that the little bubble world of hers he found oh so curiously appealing is in fact impenetrable to him as to the rest of the world. Then what? How long can that love wait pleadingly at her door, urging her to open and let him in? And when the door is eventually open how long can he stand to hear stories of her pain? Pain he feels she is strong enough to bear, the hurt he feels she should have out grown, the constant throbbing that eclipses any semblance of pleasure making even the slightest inclination to smile so outlawed that it might as well be the sacrifice of young virgins on alters of pagan gods.

Then, the very same pain that made her so arrestingly vulnerable, damns her to heartbreak because despair is something we can’t stand to be around. We loathe irrevocable hopelessness in our own different ways. For some it’s the outpouring of sympathy which if directed at them would kill every bone of pride in their bodies, for others it’s the pure and perfect hatred of weakness, and for others it’s complete desertion. Any way it plays out, the only sob stories we stand around for or perhaps even enjoy are those that last up until the part right before we get bored. Now that’s where the drama lies……

Imagine if Cinderella, twenty years into her ever after woke up haunted by the memories of her teenage years, or Rapunzel remained forever a prisoner in her heart even after her prince hearing her ethereal voice saved her from her tower. How long would the pretty memories last? How long before these princes start to prefer patterns of normalcy to colourful outlandish tales? How long before they just walk away?

Venus significat humanitatem

He swings his legs over to the side of his bed, muttering under his breath words I can barely make out. I think he’s cursing or not, given his constant mantra that a man only curses because he doesn’t have the words to say what he thinks. He says that just to rile me, to rub in the painful truth that I can’t seem to stop swearing; as an affront to my supposed eloquence…

It works.

Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he shakes his dishevelled head. He says it again and this time I hear

“What am I going to do with you?”

There’s laughter in his voice, mirthless laughter. I don’t know how to react to this statement, whether to be angry at his denigrating tone or simply continue my annoying morning ritual of humming broken tunes of all time favourites. I raise a lazy finger and trace little circles round and round on his back, from the nape of his neck to the small of his back and then back up again. He grimaces as he stands and I can tell that he is angry; angry that even after teasing, tasting, taking all night, this seemingly tame gesture can wake his exhausted body up. Angry that he is powerless to stop it. Angry that last night, as we lay asleep side by side, merging into a gigantic question mark, he held me so selfishly, so possessively as if I was only for himself. Angry, perhaps, that I know this and that it gives me so much control….

In a few minutes of hurried preparation, we are out the door and in the car. I make a comment about a project he’s working on. He laughs mockingly at what he says is a gauche and amateurish observation. I know that is his revenge, that what I said is note worthy, profound even, because his brow is furrowed in intense concentration, the way it always is when I make one of my arresting assertions.

It stings anyway; because it’s him, because he knows it matters, because I can’t say anything about it without him making it about my ‘sudden’ oversensitivity to his satirical nature. The drive is silent after that. He, fighting the overwhelming urge to be tender, me, lost in thought. I remember what Maimouna, one of Sembene Ousmane’s characters in the book God’s bits of wood, says:

“You see with us – with women – we love a man when we know nothing of him and we want to know everything. And we pursue the one we have chosen no matter what happens, no matter how he treats us. But when we have learned what we wanted to know and there is nothing left, no longer any mystery, then our interest is gone.”

No matter what happens, no matter how he treats us…..

Sometimes, because of our miserable inadequacy, we are often overwhelmed, with envy or maybe fear, by the beauty in others we feel we can’t realize. We want life; our life, their lives to be limited to the confines of reason. In our desire to grossly violate the extraordinary, to erase its existence, we sever it pretty head and in so doing, level it to the mark of acceptability.

Well, at least that is what he does and now we are in limbo, so much so that we have quietened even what we thought was the immutable voice of reason; our raison d'être, so to speak. We are driving on fumes, on memories of a happier, fuller time. Loving has become so hard, a battle. What we have now? I don’t know…..

Overtime, the pain grows and with it, the intolerable cruelty that unvoiced confusion brings. I become somewhat frightened by the abysmal hopelessness of the ever growing hurt. Somehow, it reminds me of dull pounding that, regardless of how long it lasts, you never quite get used to and in the same moment of shattered glass, flying in ever which direction and yet still shooting wide of the mark.

Silence: that’s what defines us nowadays.

So many things left unspoken for so long that we forget each other so completely; even small talk becomes immeasurably difficult. Then there’s the hidden chaos; the dissonance of restrained feeling constantly mounting to a point that you have to express it or die! At that point, clarity dawns, as if the gods, waking from deep Adam-like slumber open their sleepy eyes and deliver me.

I see the world, I see him.

I see the little boy, terrified by what he feels, by the staggering intensity of it. I see his constant struggle to fight off the demons of past hurt and his continuous failure. I see his effort to convince himself that he is worthy of me; me who always puts up a show of eternal self confidence, me who’s tricked the world into loving me and now struggles to be that which the world loves, me who he has placed on his pedestal……. Me

And I laugh at life and its absurdities, at how like the six year old boy in the play pen, he pushes me into the proverbial sand pit and screams how I smell of dog poo, leaving me in tears – bruised knee and all yet what he really wants to do is share his lunch. I laugh at the detection of his masquerade and the relief I feel in unearthing this deception. And in that moment I think that perhaps Maimouna is wrong, that even when we know all there is to know and solve the mystery, that our interest still holds and we are in as much danger of falling in love with him as we were when we knew nothing to begin with. Perhaps, I shall wait for him to out grow his fears and then share that lunch. Perhaps, I shall stay….

It is love after all, that is the sign of our humanity. And love is intangible, illogical, unreasonable; without definition.

Love is you

By Chrisette Michele

What's your definition of it?

How does it make you feel?

Tell me what you say that truly makes it real

Kings and Queens, Philosophers have tried so hard to find

Tell me what it means to you dear, nevermind

Love is kind when the world is cold

Love stays strong when the fight gets old

Love's a shoulder to lean on

Love is you

Love's like the water when the well runs dry

Quench my thirst, keep me alive

Just need it once too, baby

Love is you

Is it possible, there is a kiss that's so divine

Or am I just a fool, is it all in my mind?

Is there something chemical

A scientist might say

Well love must be a drug

To make me feel this way

Cause love's my permission to be who I am

No inhibitions cause you understand

Freedom to breathe oh baby

Love is you

Love's like a kiss when the sun goes down

Holds me tight when no one's around

Love's what I want to hold on to

Love is you

Love is kind, it makes me stronger

I don't have to look no longer

You're the one I cling to Love is you

When the chips are down

Love will stick around

I'm so glad I found

Love is you

As much as I've tried to clarify

Love's quite simple, he's just my guy

Perfect definition

Love is you