A. M. K

Last night was foggy. She had jumped out of bed that morning, her hairstyle still brushed and firmly lying upon her head and it made her furious. He had rolled out of the bed next to her but today he had not asked her why she too was up early. Then he went to read for his exam and she could vaguely remember him murmuring, about two hours before about if she could take the baby to his bed. And even in her sleep she had made a mental note to keep calm about it because there was little room for feminism in marriage.

It would come out later though at the cocktail evening he would plan for her, calling her while she sat in the boardroom of her workplace, filling out her desire to be wanted, to be seen, to be important- working on a project she had just happened to be dropped into that morning. He said it as if he had planned it all along. Are you free for lunch? What about later on this evening?

It always came out, -the frustration, even though it was never supposed to. When she did think about it, he seemed to enjoy it. She had asked him once, how a man like him who found excitement in danger, risk and the forbidden had decided on marriage. Things were not exciting until the steam was a halo above her head and she had calloused her tongue from chastising him.

That morning, before he rolled out, she had whispered, loud enough for him to hear.

Why do you like doing things in reverse? You couldn’t wait for me when I wanted you to and now you have me and you are waiting for me. He didn’t respond. He never did. He was cunning in that way, just like his eyes. It was both a learned defense and a compliment to his nature. It left her brewing while he waited patiently for her to burst. But things were changing because she was studying him too.

It didn’t help that his dark black skin was smooth and gleaming at lunch time, his square intelligent face passionately butchered by her words. And, on a whim, he had taken her to a place of her choice which she would never have chosen had she not been annoyed. It was the type of place she usually reserved for her father’s- where should we go for dinner?, because no one looked at the price when he was paying. But this time, she didn’t feel sorry for him, she didn’t care about being the considerate wife.

“I’m learning how to spend money now. Why don’t you just give me the money and I go and eat it? I don’t care anymore. You go work hard. I’ll go work hard. And we can take care of our child,” she stung. It was the last thing she wanted and yet she threw at him often.

His eyes were the last thing she saw before she disappeared. That was how she wanted it. He lived for danger and excitement. He insisted she take the dry martini. Another one maybe?.. No! she replied. The people at the table behind them had stopped what they were doing. She could tell they were listening in on their conversation and by the sudden soundlessness from their conversation, they were highly entertained.

You can’t take half of me and leave the other. If you want me to be the guy I used to be, then I can’t be the guy you want me to be now-

Is that a threat? she interjected.

You know how I used to be. And I changed for you…

I changed you? she exclaimed.

I’m trying to be kind and listen to you. But now if I tell you anything, you refuse. I hate that. I hate it. Fine, you are not taking that green juice. Have a drink. And then-

And then what? I’m not that 19 year old girl anymore. I do what I want.

Fine. Then go.

She shifted her legs under the table and her legs brushed against him. It irritated her that his legs were too close.

I just – I’m going through a lot. But you won’t understand. Let’s go to the parking lot. This is not the place. These people can hear us.

No. Tell me, what are you going through. I planned for us to come here and chill and spend time together. He was using her words against her.

How was your day, she asked.

It was the refresh button. He understood this.

She followed behind him, the cocktail making everything woozy and mildly blurry. She loved that restaurant. He knew she did. The Indian man who handed him the keys stole a few glances at her. Finally he took a picture of his I.D and promised to send the password to the WIFI. He directed this last statement at her, as if she was only here because of the WIFI. She wanted to tell him, that she was not here to be murdered. But what else could he think? She sat there quietly on the dining room chair, with no eye contact, hiding behind the expensive glasses his insurance had bought her, desperately wishing she could be found.

This place is fancy, she said, when the door had been closed. She had already began to wonder if she had wound herself up too tightly earlier before.

It is, isn’t it?

The fog had waned by morning. He jumped out of bed uncharacteristically when she said she was already on her way out.

I just wanted to say Good morning, he said, holding her closely.

She checked his face. Why?

And that I love you… And, I forgot to tell you that I was leaving for work today.

It was always like that with him.

My emotions were written on his skin. His beautiful dark brown to yellow baby skin was jagged with red marks, dark swellings and shadowed by a rash that spread all the way to his back. I had not slept at all in 36 hours but maybe, on the whole, maybe I had not slept in two months.

I found myself looking for a church with one of those names that my heart usually turned its eyes at, Fire Power ministries, Revivalist burn church, Holy Spirit presence house and others with more names than I can come up with. I myself had attended an Anglican church with a succinct neat name, as I was growing up; one where Mother’s Union members met after church to judge how well the other was dressed and how far ahead the other mothers’ children were getting along in life.

As I scanned the road; having driven for a little more than an hour though it felt like three, I realised that the road was littered with many like the one I was looking for. My stomach shrunk and my hopes receded. This was the second day and the second time the phones were off just when I needed the directions the most. Lingering in my mind above this though, was the second question the woman on the other side of the phone had asked me after she requested for my second name, You are from the West?

I had recoiled and hesitated in confusion for I had thought that the things of our earth were so much lower than the things of heaven, that there were not supposed to be tribalist sentiments in the enlightened and more so, not in this delicate post election season of divisive politics and taut tensions. But then again, maybe it was the time for them to finally show up clearly in the church. When I finally found it, abandoned in the parking lot of an empty building, I wondered grimly whether this was the place where I would find my redemption or whether this was how far my sorrows would lead me.

The first time I had heard of ghosts, I must have been less than six years old. I always circle my childhood memories to around five years or after eight years. I can’t remember all the years in between but I remember some days. Like the day I heard about about the invisible hand, like when I had snippets about an aunt who had died and guzzled them down and created a story, a connection and dreams that would haunt me into my youth. There were also days like when I attended my great grandfather’s burial and I slept off and woke up alone in a room near the burial site, a five or six year old looking for where everyone had gone; and I saw a crowd of people in the distance throwing soil and trying not to get pushed into a deep pit. There was a song they were singing and though I remember it to this day, I had banned it for years, from playing in my head.

This time though, I had not just watched. I found myself spinning with dreams and anxieties and nothing but punctured gut instincts to guide me on my next steps forward.

This time, three quarters of my support system had disappeared into a land that had been often mocked without restraint in Primary school, with the phrase, We shall not wait for Karamoja to develop. The rejection towards Karamoja was that its tall, dark skinned cattle rustler nomads still did not wear clothes to that day. They still adorned themselves in only beads in the typical backward African way that we modern Africans had overcome. Yet they, had kept most of their old ways, bad and good; still scarring and marking their foreheads with pock mark designs probably made by some hot iron instrument. They cut their hair, in tribal fashion and the women formed their ear lobes into large holes and placed rings inside them like tyres.

Before he left, my systems were already in shambles and particularly my mental alarm had been sending reflexes and setting off false signals in the middle of the night only to miss the most important signal that should have been picked. The day at the hospital and the night at the hospital, watching baby struggle to breathe, had sucked a lot out of me. I had done, as I usually did under enormous stress, done everything with a much more emphasis than usual on what normal would look like to a curious eye or a bored stranger. I had come straight from the nebulizers and IVs into the Judge’s chambers. I was there to support a man who had heavily relied on and entrusted me to fight for his cause. I did not know, that he already had more backup than I knew about. And because of this, I had been caught up in the middle of a battle that was being fought in a different realm. There is something about the law, an unwritten rule, the less you know [sometimes], the better.

I have been shaking uncontrollably for days. I have felt my heart rushing, swinging, pouring. My son comes to join me in the chairs at night. He thinks that is where we sleep now. I never forget to check the list of every normal thing that normal unaltered unshaken people do. I check on others. I laugh. I smile. I talk a lot. Even though I have experienced something that I can not forget.

Author: A. M. K

A foggy night

Do you believe in ghosts?