First Time Ever - Part IV
By Leonard Ojwang , College Station, TX, June 24, 2009

Indeed, this was a day like no other. It was hot in the beginning and she remembered it felt as if she was perspiring steam. She was in Kenya, Eldoret town, and she had kept walking the streets the whole day to exhaust her energy; that when it came to the time of death, she will be fully spent. During the evening, thick dark clouds had begun to intermarry across the sky, promising to blot out the cruel sun and bring in some storm with it.

Her past was not worrying her now. She thought of her boyfriend in class somewhere gossiping about her; talking ill of her; blaming her for the pregnancy; and her heart pounded with murderous urgency. She had been informed of all the bad things he had uttered and they kept hanging stale in her ears. They had had an unforgetful uncomfortable meeting where he had ranted in public about her immaturity. It had come once, and because it had a lot of gravity, she could not fathom to stand another. Moreover, she had literally termed it as her last one on earth. 

If the sun could kill her then she could have died several moments ago when the temperatures were soaring. Now, it was cooler. The sun had been blotted out by the thick comulo-nimbus clouds that hung loosely from the sky; pregnant with rain. The wind puffed through the trees, whistling painfully past the corners of the buildings. The atmosphere was now becoming grey. People trafficked from street to street in a hurry to make it home before the storm. The first true rumbling noise of thunder reached her ears when she was engrossed in such good thoughts of her parents and sisters.

Only nature could encourage her now. If the storm could kill her without any pain then she could wait for it with two open arms. There was no going back now. How long would it be before her business was settled, she wondered. 

Her jaw muscles bulged when she reached the bridge over River Sosiani. Her business would begin to unfold now. She shifted her eyes and looked around aimlessly, but her curiosity picked up few individuals who were attending to the tree nurseries near the river. She grinned and felt blood pounding in her ears. For a minute, she stood there, not knowing what to do. She then held the safety rail above the bridge. 

One drop of rain hit her forehead, making a large wet patch. She wiped it with her sleeve and then turning around, she faced the river, leaning against the iron rails. She had just been completely disappointed some time ago, because her fate was in the hands of someone else, but now she had the world on her shoulders, and she was the captain. The dull sound of rushing water in the river below lulled her anxiety.

She looked at the brown rushing cold water below the bridge and thought could be boiling with dynamite. Then she swallowed some lumps of stale saliva. She was momentarily lost in admiring the beautiful kingfishers that adorned the surface of the water with their occasional excellent fishing tactics. Paradise must be having dozens of other species, she thought. The birds moved swiftly below the bridge, as if the coming storm was as good to them as it was to her. A bright, sharp, blinding lightening flashed across the sky and she closed her ears with both palms. 

The cold breeze that swept over her face suddenly jerked her out of her daydream. She lumbered to her feet and moved her left leg onto the rails, such that the iron rails crossed between her thighs. Then she began searching for her image under the water. It wasn’t there; maybe it had already died. 

She thought if she had a gun then she would shoot at her image first before killing herself … and destroy it. Nothing of hers was to remain on earth. She was just standing there looking at the rapidly flowing water below her and waiting for something to turn up. She was aware that even if she could allow herself to live she could not easily discard her old ways. And this little life within her will grow up someday to torment her. That was not a talking point now and everything had to be stopped. 

Now.

If she jumped in from that height, the big, sharp rocks on the riverbed could possibly break her into small pieces. Such was going to be a painful death. The pain she was bearing within her system was enough. The water directly below her appeared to be still, before it flowed rapidly a few metres away. Still water runs deep, so they say. She shrugged her shoulders and her eyes gleamed with some unique unnatural brilliance. She saw the men who were attending to the nurseries and grinned round at them deceptively. She could see them, now that they looked at her, that they were curious about her and uncertain about her aim. 

Teresa dragged a lumpful of air down her lungs, and sighed. The three men eyed her with interest, but she just stood quietly, just allowing air to drift in and out of her nostrils involuntarily. The rain started at last, the big drops propelled by the force of gravity. One by one, the men hurried away for shelter, casting glances over their shoulders as if they were expecting her to dissolve in a second.

“There a time for everything; it’s a beginning and it’s end; when it is good enough and when it is just bad,” she said in a low voice. “Well, for the love of God …. The best wedding one should never miss is when something is ending … and I won’t miss this one.” 

To be continued next week

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