Imani was stuck, just as she had been the day before, and the day before that. In her room, she scribbled down nonsense hoping for inspiration to strike. As a form of distraction and entertainment, her hand turned, swirled and danced lightly as she attempted to write in the best cursive she could remember. She had spent a majority of her younger school days being forced to write in cursive, and then never using it again. It was a shame. At least now, she could use the virtually useless skill to seduce her brain into finding the words she needed for the chapter.
She paused her penmanship, squinted at the paper and brought it up to her nose. Even in the better lighting, the cursive was still as ugly and illegible as it had been back in primary school.
She almost felt like she was back there, in her 4th-grade classroom, her teacher Ms. Winnie breathing behind her, cane in hand.
Time had erased many faces over the years, but never Ms. Winne. In her mind, Ms. Winnie’s face was always clear, and frowning, bright red lips pursed in eternal disappointment. The memory of her teacher also brought with it a scent of baby powder, which Ms. Winnie usually caked her face with. She could have been a beautiful woman, and maybe she had been, Imani could never see past the displeasure and the cane.
The memory of Ms. Winne also conjured a phrase Imani had heard frequently as she practiced her cursive in Ms. Winnie’s presence.
“Not good enough! Try again.”
The words echoed around her, but they were a distant memory and didn’t possess the same harshness. Age had also weakened their veracity, because, at thirty-five, Imani was no longer scared of Ms. Winnie. She saw her now, not in the eyes of a child, but of another woman. Ms. Winnie had been an older single woman, unable and unwilling to find a husband, but with a family that made it nearly impossible to live past that choice. She had been an incredibly intelligent woman who couldn’t live past the ridiculous expectations placed upon her by her culture. Ms. Winnie hadn’t been mean. She had been trapped and bitter. Imani understood that now. It wasn’t easy to remain patient and kind when the world kept pressing you down.
“Not good enough,” she murmured, silently agreeing with her old teacher. She crumpled up the paper and threw it behind her, not caring where it landed.
She stared at a new blank page of her notebook and sighed. A part of her knew that today wouldn’t be it either, the day she finally finished. It should have been simple, she knew her characters well enough to know the way the chapter needed to end, but…
She brought her pen to her mouth and bit it in mild frustration. A nagging thought appeared, urging her to pick up the crumpled paper she had thrown, and properly put it in the trash, but she saw it for what it was, a distraction. She knew that the moment she got up, it was over for the day. So she shrugged away the thought, and she could almost see her mother glaring at her. It was sad really, that after so many attempts and interventions by her mother, she was still so disorganized.
Mama.
The memory of her mother took her back to her grandmother’s house. Far and away from the insistent noises of the city and pollution. To place where cars were replaced by sporadic bleats of goats, and the other farm animals that casually wandered around the area, accepting or in denial to the fact that they were food. There, at that little house, her mother would mostly be laughing with her sisters, helping grandma finish stirring the ugali.
As a child she had never really paid attention to their conversations, choosing instead to run around with her cousins in the close-knit village. But despite that, her grandma’s house was the only place she had ever heard her mother laugh so freely. As she grew, Imani often wondered why her mother had not just moved there, away from the city, away from the brick white house, insufferable church friends, and an absent husband.
Mama.
She missed her. Their relationship hadn’t been the best, but only because it had been filled with too many secrets. Until her death, Imani never really knew her mother but she had loved her, despite the secrets.
She shook her head, focusing back to the story, and let out a long desperate sigh.
She wanted so badly to finish the story. She had vowed to finish the chapter before she allowed herself to leave her room. At this rate, she would never leave her room.
She contemplated just deleting the chapter.
It wasn’t the first time she had thought about it, but this time it seemed like the only option.
Suddenly, a sound filled the room. It was the most bizarre of sounds, nearly indescribable. It made her think of drums and a rainstorm. The sound rushed from every corner of her room, but most particularly right behind her.
She slowly turned around, and stifled a scream as a man gradually materialized at the foot of her bed.
The impossible man stood unfazed, patiently waiting to come fully into form. He was adorned in typical Maasai warrior attire, the astounding patterned red cotton cloth draping his slim shoulders. He was incredibly slender, and tall, clothes stretching to cover him, but also trying to stay on his dark-skinned bony frame. His face was long and sunken, but his ears and eyes were large. He was a beautiful and terrifying barely fleshed out skeleton.
The tall man startled when his gaze landed on her, and his thick eyebrows arched in a frown.
“Earth?” the tall man demanded impatiently. She nodded numbly, surprised that she still had the ability to communicate.
The man’s eyebrows arched deeper.
“What day?” he demanded, examining the room.
She tried to croak out an answer, but this proved too difficult, and she shrugged desperately.
“Shocked into silence? Ok. Don’t worry. Let’s see,” he reassured and reached into his red robe. He pulled out a tin metal cup and sipped it, his eyes closed. He took a deep breath and smacked his lips, savouring the taste of the unknown substance.
“Mmmh, what you earth people call Tuesday? I like Tuesdays.” He admitted with a grin. His teeth were impossibly white and long. When Imani didn’t reply back, his grin started to fade, and uncertainty clouded his otherwise clear dark brown eyes.
“Are you deaf?” he barked but not unkindly. Then he laughed at himself, “What good would screaming be to a deaf girl anyway.” He raised his hands and his skeletal fingers started signing.
She looked at his long dark fingers captivated, then finally she cleared her throat of the existential crisis and replied, “I am Imani.”
The man did a double-take. “You are an Imani? What is that?” He paused and glared at her disapprovingly, “You aren’t a Whisper are you?”
Imani gaped.
“Whaaaat?” She replied absolutely disoriented. She had also not failed to notice that the metal cup the man had been holding had just nonchalantly disappeared. She had obviously fallen asleep mid-writing and was dreaming.
The tall man relaxed his frown and smiled, “No, no, Whispers don’t exist here. Not enough patience.”
Then his eyes widened in understanding, “Oh. Ah yes, introductions. Such a human thing. Imani. You can call me Mr. Wakati.”
Imani let out a mirthless chuckle, “haha. Wakati?”
Mr. Wakati stood there waiting for her to accept her reality. But she just shook her head, “What’s happening? I was here. And you just? Am I dreaming?”
The strange man let out a single chuckle and walked…no, that wasn’t what he was doing, he seemed to be floating. He floated forward and plopped onto her bed, testing out its bounciness. Then he got up and started exploring her room, making low remarks under his breath. Why was Mr. Wakati acting like Imani had invited him for a sleepover? Imani pondered, her eyes trailing the curious figure.
Mr. Wakati nodded not turning around, “You are…in a way, you are dreaming. You’ve been dreaming for a long time Ima.” He traced a hand on her ceiling, had her ceiling always been that low?
Imani got up and approached him cautiously, his back to her. He was now crouching, her bin in his hand, looking under it. He tossed it and things went flying out. He was making a mess. But she didn’t really have time to talk about that.
“How are you here?” Imani asked picking up a single sock in an attempt to do something about the scattered mess.
He looked at her doubtfully, “How? How am I here? That’s a rather more complicated question. I am not even completely sure myself. How I get to places is usually a bit strange but I am sure if I tried, I could explain it all to you. It would just involve a lot of fables. Do you like fables?”
Imani thought briefly and shrugged, not particularly.
It was strange how she was going through every emotion except fear. There was something very familiar about him despite his appearance.
Then he examined her like he was trying to decipher something but then continued searching, crouching down, and feeling for something under her bed.
“I don’t know why you didn’t just ask me the simple whats, whens, wheres, whys, that would have been easier to answer,” he remarked. Then retracted his hand, which was holding a sock. He stared at it amused then tossed it back under the bed. Imani opened her mouth to protest, she had been looking for that second pair.
“Although to be fair I don’t actually know WHY I am here. Yet. But everything seems clear. Your room is free of Leechers. Don’t ask me about them.” He added quickly.
Finally, he got up and walked up to her, arms folded.
“So why am I here Imani?”
She looked back at him nervously, a sock dangling from her hand. She shrugged clutching the sock close to her chest. She suddenly wanted to ask about Leechers.
“Maybe because it’s my room?” she guessed, but it didn’t feel like the correct answer to her either. And from the look on his face, it wasn’t.
“Are you a very important person Imani?” he asked her softly, standing a few inches away from her. Imani shook her head again. Mr. Wakati gently grabbed her face with his bony hands and bent down to stare into her eyes. They stood like that for a bit. Then feeling calmer, she dared and asked, breaking the moment.
“What are you doing?” “Trying to see how important you are.” “Is it working?”
Mr. Wakati pulled away exasperated, “Of course, not, that’s impossible. No one can judge the importance of a person. Not even me. That was a test.”
He broke into a sad smile and gently squashed her cheeks in between the rough palms of his hands. “You do have unexpectedly sad eyes.”
She stood still not blinking and managed a few words through her puckered lips, “You too.”
He smiled again and made circular motions with his palms on her cheeks like he was trying to soothe her. “Well I have reason to be, I am very old, and I have seen many things. Why do you?”
Before she could answer, he grabbed her hand and shook it awkwardly in greeting.
“Well. Imani with the sad eyes, shall we begin?”
Imani wasn’t sure what was beginning but she felt apprehension. Worse than the apprehension she had felt as a young child when her mother lifted her covers to look under the bed after Imani had lied that there was nothing there.
Then like she was in some sort of under-budget simulation, her room changed, and they were suddenly in a small, very green room. The room was completely empty, except for a brown short table, with two matching brown chairs at opposite ends.
On the table was a long purple plastic thermos and two wide white cups.
Mr. Wakati gestured for her to sit, uncaring that she was going through a lot at the moment.
She allowed herself to be steered toward the chair, shock giving away to realization.
It was starting to come back to her.
“How long have you been in your room?” Mr. Wakati asked as he sat down opposite her, somehow managing to squeeze his long legs under the table.
She shrugged, “I don’t know. Maybe an hour, maybe a day, maybe a second.”
He gave her an interested look, like he was finally seeing her, really seeing her.
“You are not afraid of time. Most people are.”
Imani felt herself getting embarrassed mostly because she couldn’t legitimately remember how long she had been in her room.
She felt like she was on the verge of remembering, and felt cold for the first time, in a long time.
Mr. Wakati screwed off the lid of the thermos, and steam flowed out. It took her back to her grandma’s house again.
Imani knew what it was from the odour. Her fondest childhood memories were associated with it. By the time Mr. Wakati poured the yellow liquid in their cups, she felt warm again.
Uji!
Mr. Wakati pushed the drink towards her.
“You have been here for too many years Imani. You should have moved on by now. So why?”
There was a ringing in Imani’s ears that had started the moment Mr. Wakati had entered her room and was now drowning out her thoughts.
“What do you mean?” she shouted above the ringing in her head. There was something she was forgetting. Something important. Her eyes started to tear up at the noise.
“The uji will help you, drink it, I made sure it wasn’t too hot,” Mr. Wakati advised, already sipping at his cup and gesturing at her untouched drink.
She reached for it; the cup warming her hands. She took a sip and the ringing abruptly stopped. She sighed in relief.
Like a wave, she felt it coming back.
The memories.
She saw a hand in hers, and how she had wanted to hold on forever, but…
Imani gasped, and stared at Mr. Wakati, he was staring at her sadly.
“Love?”
She shook her head, feeling overwhelmed with sadness.
“No. Fear. Regret…”
Mr. Wakati blew into his cup and took another tentative sip, his gaze never leaving hers.
“Ah. An ugly thing regret.”
Imani closed her eyes and saw another memory.
This time her heartbeat was low, and someone was crying out to her.
“Are you here to help me?” Imani asked not masking her anxiety.
“In a way, yes. I am here to help you work through it.” Mr. Wakati admitted.
“So you are here to make sure I finally let go?” Imani asked tiredly, feeling the weight of time crushing her.
Had it already been thirty years? She hadn’t even felt the time, but now she felt how crushingly lonely time had been, maybe that’s why she had chosen to forget. She remembered the feeling of wanting to let go, and she had tried, but it never felt right. The chapter never felt right.
Mr. Wakati shook his head, his expression kind, “No, to finish the chapter.”
“I tried you know but I can’t seem to get it right,” Imani confessed, feeling exhausted, remembering what had been her life. It hadn’t been short, but sixty years wasn’t long either. Her mother had lived to be eighty, and her dad just fifty. Imani tried to remember what had killed her, and couldn’t.
Mr. Wakati hummed in amusement, “It has always intrigued me, the limitation and complexity of your species.”
Imani chuckled sadly and shrugged, “It is how we were made I guess.”
Mr. Wakati hummed again, his eyes looking past her and into space, then he looked back at her, a smile playing on his face.
“The best thing about your kind is the unpredictability, even in death you remain strange beings, gods in your own rights.”
Imani wasn’t sure about being a god, but she knew unpredictability, that was one component of being alive.
Another memory flickered at the words. This time it was the constant feeling that she was cursed and wrong.
“Like you. Sad eyes,” Mr. Wakati said gently leaning backwards, “look at you, sitting here with me all, and ultimately because of a single moment in your life. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Imani felt a spark of irritation which quickly faded. It wasn’t wonderful. It was unfair how her whole story couldn’t come together because being human meant learning lessons too late.
She shrugged, and for the first time, it really dawned on her that she was probably speaking to Death. Or a form of it. She didn’t dwell on the fact that it meant she was dead. It felt like something she had known for a long time and had simply accepted.
“Oh! So Death is black? A Maasai? And a man?” Imani blurted out instead.
For the first time, Mr. Wakati laughed. It was a booming sound that reached every crevice of the barren room.
He motioned to himself, “I am not Death. I am Mr. Wakati. And I am like this because of you.”
Imani raised her eyebrows, and then it occurred to her, “You are what I think Death would look like?”
Mr. Wakati clicked his tongue and crossed his arms, “Yes. And it’s Mr. Wakati. Or Mr. W for short, not Death. It’s like me calling you Africa.”
Imani offered her finished cup to Mr. W. and he refilled it slowly.
She stared mesmerized at the ritualistic nature of it, he was just filling her cup, but it felt like she was watching clouds form. Familiar, but inexplicably magical.
“Are there others like me? Stuck?”
Mr.W frowned slightly, “You are not stuck. Aren’t you almost finished?”
Imani blinked rapidly yes, she was almost finished with her life story.
“Yeah,” she answered hesitantly.
“So tell me about it. A little about the book, and the chapter you can’t get right.”
It was a simple request, but she hesitated again, suddenly feeling embarrassed, “I don’t know if it is good enough to share.”
Mr. W raised an eyebrow, and gave her a look, “You will have to eventually share it when you are done, might as well start practicing.”
She nodded weakly, she had always disliked presentations. They made her question whether she really knew anything. She started getting up but faltered when Mr.W gave her another impatient look.
She stammered nervously, “I was going to get my notebook but ….”
Mr. W shook his head, and waved her to sit down.
“Why must humans make it so complicated? You don’t need it. You’ve been remembering it for years. Tell me.”
She sat back down slowly, ready to argue, to complain about the unfairness of it all, but then she saw the beginning.
Oh.
She had been so young.
She closed her eyes and it slowly came to her.
It had been The wedding.
*
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