Zach's Muted Celebration.

23 years! Twenty three… drie en twintig. Feels like a life time… it is a life’s time. Zach had been awaiting to the day with just a little trepidation… should he celebrate? Should he mourn? Cry or laugh? Should he even bother remembering at all? Whatever he chose, it was a cross-over point none the less.

Twenty three years had rolled on by since he first set foot on Irish soil. He thought back to that time. Why was he still here after all the years? Why had he not moved on a long, long time ago? Compulsion? Caught in the trap he’d set for himself?

Twenty three years. He recalled that first day… mid January… off the aircraft at the crowded Dublin International Airport. Bleary eyed… excited… a little scared… tired, stressed. Anticipation of a new life. The next step along the path to the lonely existence he’s so carefully crafted for himself.

The strange clammy white stuff he encountered as he stepped off the plane was a lifetime away from the sunny shores of Southern Africa where he’d departed less than 24 hours previously. Sleet… that’s what they called the stuff. A world apart from the glare of the hot African sun. A world away from the heat haze that danced lazily across the Kalahari’s red dunes. A world apart from the harsh, soul sapping thirst of Southern Africa.

The white stuff seemed intent in finding ways of sticking to his skin… to slide into exposed crevices. Down his back… seemingly searching for his core, as if the stuff sensed he was really after a cooling down of his overheated soul. Maybe the physical shock of minus 5 degrees Celsius would translate into the soothing of his boiling emotions. Dampen the flames of anxiety… quench the smouldering passion.

Twenty three years… all that time craving the call. The call that never came. All that time existing in the exile of his choosing… in the penitentiary of mind and thought. Twenty three years living in hope… twenty three years living the lie. Yes, someday the call will come…

“Come home… come home… I’m ready for your affection… I need you here… not there. Come home, won’t you please come home?”

Twenty three years… now Zach officially marked the point in time where he’d lived longer in Ireland that in the country of his birth. Should he have a quiet celebration or should he drown his sorrows in commiseration? Maybe he should do both… it was a milestone of sorts so why not open a bottle of good red? Why not place the two glasses on the coffee table as he’d done every year since leaving South Africa… why not leave the contents in her glass… to evaporate over the coming year or, as he believed… to be supped by her essence…

Twenty three years… a lifetime of longing… in a strange land filled with strange people doing strange things and believing even stranger myths and legions… twenty three years of exiled loneliness… twenty three years of living in hope…

Zach recalled that last evening back in South Africa. His aunt had made the long drive from her remote hideout in Rolbos. Her last offering? Words of wisdom and a postal address in Upington. He’d always wondered about that address. Was it hers? Hessie’s? He sat staring at her glass, filled with the warm glow of mellowness only to be found in a rich southern hemisphere red.

He remembers his last sighting of Aunt Gertruida… he was walking away, down toward the exit gates when he turned one last time. He was about to wave when he thought he caught a glimpse of a face from the past. The face, the beauty framed perfectly by the unruly mop of jet black curls… had she been in the background all along? He will always wonder… yes, he will…

I rather like the image above… sorry internet, I had to ‘borrow’ it from you… look upon it as loaning something from your vast library… now a few more can enjoy the picture!

About these ads