by Deon-Simphiwe Skade
It feels like a dream. One I may easily wake up from. If only someone could shake me. Can someone shake me – Please? But it ought to be the right push, lest I get tipped off from the comfort of my bed and fall. I’m fearful of falling, and of heights. Perhaps this fear has something to do with my bad dreams. I usually experience dreams in which I fall; from rooftops, bridges, trees, mountains – I’m always falling – forever.
As I try to make peace with my fear for falling, I see a man I always struggle to outrun. He has graced many of my dreams before.
Even though I haven’t seen him in a while, he still carries the same malevolent air about him that holds enormous darkness in my sleep. I watch him approach a short distance away. Like me, he’s walking in a dimly-lit alley with the clearest night watching over the world. The man seems to be calculating ways of eventually capturing me in order to cause me serious bodily harm. It’s in the way he inspects me that reveals his malicious desires. To date, I still don’t know what I did to him to be such sought blood.
I could turn around and run, but such a move could cost me in many ways. For one, the dark man runs very fast which is of course my disadvantage. If I have to escape him this time, I have to be a little innovative and lead him to believe that my calm approach is merely to submit myself to him, only to surprise him with my sudden escape when I get closer to him. The escape I would manage, would lead me to the resumption of my search for Cynthia. She promised to kiss me. I’m sure that my girlfriend would not approve of Cynthia’s lips touching mine, especially the way lovers’ lips touch. But we’ll make the whole thing our little secret, Cynthia and I.
I have been eager to kiss Cynthia since we became colleagues a few months ago. She’s been very keen to kiss me too, but has been playful about the whole thing. She even teased about her desire to kiss me in the presence of our colleagues, who then just laughed her talk off like it was a joke. But I know she meant it. That is why I have to find her before the night dies so as to put an end to her little games.
The sky is a clear dark blue blanket. But the stars have shunned its darkness. It’s as if the vast space above had caused an embarrassment to the entire universe, and somehow the non-showing of stars serves as a fitting punishment to the heavens. But it’s the same ol’ night. The preceding ones have had the same melting blue, which twinkled with traces of ghosts that roamed above while the whole world was fast asleep.
With all the risk I’m taking to find Cynthia, I know it may seem like I’m the one with the greater urge to kiss her. But she’s just being strategic about the whole thing. I know she’s being deliberately elusive so that I may chase her and later become the one to carry the blame when we’re both caught and shamed for our kiss.
“I did not suggest that we kiss; you did and pushed me to that end.” I imagine her saying this, washing her hands clean of any traces of guilt.
But I don’t think it would come to that, we’d keep the whole thing discreet.
I have to find Cynthia and show her how silly traces of ghosts look in this sullen blue night; which if one thinks about it, ought to be affected by the revelations of dead souls flashing over its tremendous plane.
As I get closer to the approaching dark man in the alley, I search for his large illuminated eyes and find them. They are flickering like amber flames fighting not to die. He fixes his stare on me, ready to pounce. Then out of the blue, the air suddenly becomes thick with pressure, as if throttled by the tensions of evil forces. And before I could assess the distance that keeps the dark man away from me, he charges, snarling like an angry predator. Something subdues me and takes away my ability to move. I become weak: at the knees, in my thoughts and throughout my entire muscled frame.
But I manage to jump towards the top edge of the alley wall in the same way as I planned to escape. My hands lock into a firm grip which should allow me to lift my body up so as to jump over the wall. But I’m too heavy to do that. The dark man stands and watches me as I struggle. And then he laughs with a dark whimper in his voice...
... This story continues
here.
(It was first published on
Botsotso Literary Journal.)
