Not so long ago
An imaginative composed by Manuel (Year 11 Advanced English, Mackillop Catholic College)
I wandered into the function alone and waded towards a spare seat at the back of the room. I didn't look the part; I appeared almost otherworldly, with radiant skin and the sun over my head. I took my seat, and an uneasy aroma wafted into the function. Eyes glided over me and I was greeted with flickers of nosey glances.
A large family emerged from the familial tent, adorned with regal kente cloth juxtaposing their achingly morbid demeanours, and began the customary greeting of the guests. The white cloths, married with rich blacks shone in the blistering sun and clung onto their backs as if it was their tether, restraining them from floating towards the heavens and joining their kin. The children’s eyes darted feverishly, as if they looked for someone who shouldn’t be there. They stood before me, but only for a second, and I promise I could have heard the groans of their souls.
Their Mother stayed standing and waded towards the front of the function, towards the coffin. There she loomed over the corpse’s glowing form. She took his lifeless hand in her’s, in an attempt to soothe her own fractured soul; but it gave her no comfort, and her son, now reduced to flesh and bone, lay with his soul now with the Most High. Her vision was obscured by her dark, cat-eye glasses so she did not see his sculpted eyebrows, his prominent cheekbones and his pristine complexion.; but she never actually saw him, at least not for what he really was. Not for the human that he once was. She saw the world through a plethora of lenses, that each stole a ray of reality, soaked in rich colour, and left a monochrome canvas that left the realm of existence indescribable.
Her husband woke from his comatose daydream, and his stone-cold eyes began to follow his wife and watched her sleek figure parade around the function, monitoring her facial expressions, attempting to pierce through the polarised lens. He studied her movements and body language and watched his wife, hidden beneath the layers of a shedding exterior that fell to the floor behind her as every guest insinuated their innate disappointment in her. She made her way back to her seat and sat by her husband’s side. She spoke with gentle fury and her words slid out.
“I did not raise our child like this.”
“You did not raise our child like what?”
“Weak.” The words almost spewed out from her acidic tongue, as a single tear slithered towards her chin. Adwoa watched her mother remove her sunglasses and flick the aqueous remnants of her tear away. Her mother’s eyes were foggy, obscured by the reality she would kill to sustain, the reality that blinded her from the trauma she left in her wake. Her mind combusted, and for a moment she saw her mother’s weeping exterior crack and a scale of her cloth fell, revealing what had become of her mother, a boiling pot of shame and fear. She wanted to scream, tear the kente from her skin and burn the place to the ground but her family had already had their image stained without her help, so she scooped the parts of her scattered mind, and poured it cautiously back into her head, lapping against the ashes that coated her skull.
“Ma, can I go outside?” She asked.
“Briefly.”
As Adwoa rose to her feet, her fiery stare met mine, and the roaring wildfire became a tender spark that warmed her soul. Then she smiled, a tender smile that triggered a stroke of colour restored to her divine skin. She made her way past her brother who awaited the first serving of food and winced, seeing her brethren’s eyes dilate euphorically at the mere sight of something to eat.
“Why are you here?” She turned to face her brother, who’s comical persona lay lifeless from a
splinter of tragedy.
“You know exactly why I’m here.” He replied, fixated on the trays that meandered toward the kitchen door as if family blood had not been spilt a week prior. Adwoa, now at the gate of the function, turned to observe what had become of her family. She saw her mother, conversing in an almost serpentine fashion while her father anchored himself against the crashing waves of his wife’s non-cohesive babble. He did what he always did, forgetting that there were those who couldn’t challenge her forked tongue. Adwoa looked over at her brother, who had just laid eyes on his deceased brother, marred with visible confusion and anguish until he remembered the soccer game he was watching at his seat. Then she turned to face me, who had gone outside as well, and the grief built up in her cheeks and brought a quiver in her lips.
“They do not mourn you.” Each syllable was pushed out by the tears that followed, drowning the meek embers her memories despondently fanned, “They only mourn the part of them that died with you.”
I wish I could console her, but all I could do was look on as her raw floated up towards me. I embraced them, the delicate spheres of her struggle, her pain, and her hopes. The clouds gave way and a cluster of light streamed down on her, giving her rich complexion a heavenly glow. She searched the sky in hope of me being there, in hope that I would reveal myself to her, but I had retreated to the crevices of her mind and the depths of her heart, blissfully alive in the sacred memories being the human that I was.
