This is for the dreamers.
Everything is changing.
Everything has changed.
Like a comet dashing across the night sky in a flashy second, we watched the last four years go before our eyes—oh, the last five years now. But unlike a comet, it did not contain the bright starry light; it was bleak. Dark.
The harmattan did not even grace us with its haze. I missed the chilly, dry mornings and sunny days which make my clothes dry fast on the clothesline; the way I’d see my breath coming off like steam in the sunrise, making my mind childishly pretend like I was abroad…in Prague or Istanbul. No, the harmattan did not come.
Instead, we are plagued with a burning heat. It comes invisibly but I just know the colour is red. Global warming is upon us, and superstitions about the mysterious season we have come out of the mouth of my African parents. I don’t even know how to explain global warming to them; we just take it as it is, God is angry with us.
The agbalumo was sweet, but not as sweet as before. Perhaps because the bees did not sting them; someone I used to love in the village would tell me that the agbalumo gets even more juicier when its stung by bees. Maybe the bees are gone, just like the butterflies because I don’t get to see them again. Vanished with the time.
My skin sizzle as I lye under my mosquito net. The blazing heat battles fiercely with the air conditioner in the room, somehow the heat is winning, because my ceiling is all warmed up and the waves descend upon me.
I think now; here we are again. A new year. New Year resolutions. So many of us are here with our dreams and something we seek after in life; is it love? Success? Even death. We all want something, and we hope to get it in this year.
And as the year comes, so does a mounting pressure that collapses against us like we are drowning deep in a green sea. We’ve graduated, where are the jobs? Would I be recognized this year? Is this talent just in me, never to be seen? I want to bloom like a morning flower, would it work out for me?
You there, your parents keep pressing, asking when you would bring a husband home. But you know deep down the person you love is not a man…the person who loves you in your own language and knows everything from your heart desires to your scandalous secrets and Achilles’ heel, has the same long woolly hair as you. You don’t want to disappoint your parents, you don’t want to disappoint her. What would you do?
I don’t know what to do too. This is not a motivational piece or advice. It is for we the dreamers, who long to have it all figured out. We hope it’s this year. Maybe.
It just went on as a continuation of days for me, the seconds hand on the clock ticking endlessly. I did not feel the brand new sensation of a new year, unlike others. It was just life constantly going on, and here we are. We don’t know what to believe anymore as so much keeps happening all at once while we strive for ourselves. But might I suggest we just keep it moving, savoring each day as it goes by, sewing our very veins with the threads of time, so we move along in symmetry like a fine embroidery.
Everything has changed and time is an illusion. We can only dream.
Because this is for dreamers.
From Ned.
