I shall die here. I’m even seeing myself being buried. Various moods prevail the attendance, but sadness is not conspicuous. I know I have lived with sadness, so when I die, I might take it with me from this world. Then my remains will be disclosed from where they buried me, they shall raise it as a statue of a good this or that. This is what Hope kept me from saying, now she is also gone, I shall diarrhoea.
‘Love, you’re so negative!’ She would cut in whenever I started my ‘I shall die here’. We were born here; I shall die here, in this place of solitude. I am the last keeper of the inn, which due to our regular patrons is called the Singles’ Club.
‘Ever since we lost Faith, you’re so negative.’ She would silence me with that.
This establishment means the world to me. It is home, where everyone feels I’m alive. Its importance was brought about by the people who enter through that door. Actually, there is no door but an opening. No walls stand, its walls are like those of the heart, moved and moved by music. Hear the music, you will find it poetic, face the music and you will find it tragic. We built the inn and furnished it in nature’s design. Unlike others, we never dwelt on the romantic theme. The basic atmosphere recreated here is realistic. People from all walks of life come to find a true experience of a lifetime.
It is here, I hope, many find their redemption. All enter the inn regardless of their choice and motives. I admit hyenas as freely as I do lambs. I only intend each deal with their being dangerous or vulnerable. If you spend time by yourself, in front of our deep mirrors, sipping my tonic, you are bound to heal yourself, as you rest journey here.
Don’t keep to your misery like that boy, look his worn out T-shirt is written on it ‘No Wonder I Support the Occupy Mvt.‘ You must also see behind him that old philanthropist and a bewildered girl. Consider the broad smile shared and colour of each face unmatters. All enter here regardless of fame and money.
Look at the widow over there. She is sitting on my apple shaped pouffe, sitting so still she is part of the painting behind her. She is the painter of the closed eye. That is the hottest place in the inn, for the painting hangs over the fireplace. It is so hot there, look she is struggling to raise the infant, who fell from her breast when she had gotten dizzy, looking back fuddles her; you might think the sun is behind it. They murdered her husband for money. She won’t marry them, not even for money. She will die here, if she stays angry at men.
‘Don’t trust men, my daughter…’ She said often to Faith, with the anger and bitterness common in counsel. ‘Be as untrusting as the butterfly’.
If one must suffer widowhood it ought to be once. Yet see now many suffer bouts of it before wedding. To suffer this loss when your man gives up the ghost is bearable, but it deranges if your men give it to you and go to the next.
Faith grew up listening to doubts; others’ hypocrisy would be her undoing. She waited for the chosen man, guessing whatever God joins together no other woman shall put asunder. As if that would be the worst to occur. I regret the moment her eyes fell on him.
He was big headed, talking as if he had two mouths, and no courageous word ever came out of that nail cutter. What did she see in him? What did it mean to her? That he was a believer, and she needed him to go to heaven. Indeed, many patrons refuse to believe, it is why she did very little work here.
The whole time he and company were here, they stood around the exit, enduring their weighty baggage, even after Faith begged they make themselves comfortable. I’m not aware how that Jack robbed me of my Faith.
Faith would have turned many life journeys around. She is all that miserable boy ever needs. I remember how his eyes detailed her, now they are inattentive. I bring people together; I regret never having paired Faith and him. She would have given him a creative heart, he has the mind, and hence he would go places without being mean towards others.
To idly quit, he sits on his ears issuing threats and prophesies. Improve or! But the day is too slow and dull to improve, and not with that tone. A day is a child we’re left with. Anyway, before I lost it there, I was saying, to quit feeling, he is drinking crap, losing his taste for clean water. If only Hope was here too.
I had told Hope about it. I am going to wait here. I will neither go out there looking for her, nor will we have another Faith. She ignored me those first first times. It was as if she was not affected by the loss. As for me, I started zoning in and out; memory lapses, that kind of thing.
One time I found myself behind that misery of a boy. As one closes eyes to believe, I closed mine to hold back tears. She prays if I love her I would free her. She does not say amen, a call fires her phone and sets her trembling. I can’t answer it for her. I lost Faith.
She answers it in that typical fake voice; then it changes back.
‘I’m at the Club Singular’
I guessed it was a new number, and she had expected it was one of those guys she had passed her number to.
‘Yeah girl friend, downside of being singular is being broke!’
She is the kind who speaks that language, where as funny means to be fun, money means to be man.
‘Haki I miss him, but he was so G4S’
The guy guarded his wallet. She spoke on and on, her eyes fixed on the guy at the counter.
‘Now that I have got your attention, ‘ he said once he came over, ‘you wanna get mine?’
How comes such lame pick up lines work? Blondes. I never used any on Hope.
Hope Hope.
Everyone who met her became bright. She happened to often give me a piece of her mind; these are the only wise parts of me. Her eyes remember were tender and radiant as Daisy’s, but not with the innocence. Her songs turned insomniacs into dreamers. Her voice assured the seers in the blind. If only we had been there for her, as she had been for us!
When she suffered her first panic attack, regretful now, I was quite tickled. Maybe it was a laugh in denial, not even the devil was sure about Achilles’ heel. She lamented:
‘My dying Love, don’t hate-‘ her last words; terrified by either the fall or by me. I found her broken.
I shall die here too. Except my daughter Faith returns. This truth is incomplete; each was created and born singular. But don’t we all seek who we were created and born to be and unbe with. You can doubt I exist, but don’t doubt love. I shall die here; we shall all die here, unnaturally. Because of hatred, the doubting of us.