Feelings was just Lemuel wanted. Or what he needed to drown
his guilt that evening.
Come on, he told himself as he looked, lost, at the
bartender but actually miles behind the cellar behind him. The evening is still
young and mingle is written in the air. Breathe it and live!
Daniel sipped some brandy, gargled it, came close to him,
and in some uncouth fashion, extruded the hot spirit into his ear through the
gap in his front teeth.
He came to like some voltage was passed through his system.
It was no use; Daniel was already nestled
across the hall between two buxom ladies: far out of the reach of his wrath.
He helped himself to some Tangaray.
The Lenovo appeared in his hands. He pressed the search
button. He pressed ‘B’ in the search box.
Her name was first on the list. He couldn’t do it. He
couldn’t face her. He had to keep up the façade.
Suddenly, the Lenovo buzzed.
A text message.
He got up and took one last look at his friend and two other
men in varying degrees of morally-depraved activity with up to five ladies
slithering around them. He walked out, heavy.
Two thousand kilometers away in some cozy hospital, a
pretty, fair complexioned lady was staring with trepidation at the
electrocardiogram. The sinusoidal pattern that measured the heartbeat was
ebbing flat. She looked on in horror.
‘Jesus! Save me!’
It picked up once again.
Lemuel walked in, crestfallen. When he saw her, he buckled
and landed on his knees, sorrow painting his face.
He knew how she looked when he last saw her. He knew his
eyes were not deceiving him, here and now.
She had drifted to sleep, a tired and uncertain one. He
could not ask what happened.
Like a gymnast doing the final round of a series of backflip
stunts, Sheila threw her bag to the far corner of the room, lifted her fit
self, and landed square on the ten-inch spring mattress in the middle of her
room, all in one swift movement. She did
not care that her throwing calculations were not so accurate:The bag had missed
the second layer of the open closet by inches, fallen on its side, and spilled
combs, her vanity box, sweets, an extra weave, and perfume.
She did not care. Today was hectic enough.
She savoured a good twenty minutes’ rest.
Here she was, engaged to the best man in the world, having a
4.87 grade point in her final semester, with the United Nations expository
team watching her academic progress with
eagle eyes, impatient to swoop down on her upon graduation, parents to whom she
meant the world, and an only brother who would give an arm for her. Could life
be any more sweeter and fulfilling at this point?
A Lenovo ThinkPad materialized in her arms from wherever,
instantly. She hadn’t networked in like a month, thanks to this hell, otherwise
known as school.
She punched in her Facebook password.
Her long time friend, Kemona’s wall came into focus
instantly. She had added six new photographs.
Characteristic of the epileptic Ogi network, the fractions
of the picture began to fall into place one after the other like the pieces of
a jigsaw puzzle. It started with a head, arms, which looked like they cupped
something. She watched on as the image progressed to that of a lady inside the
cupped arms. The lady looked fat and white initially, until she saw it was a
gown, which flowed and covered like half a metre radius around her, swallowing
the lower part of the man entirely, for he was behind her.
The loading progressed.
She could see the man was tall, way taller than the woman,
and he had his lips buried in her mass of Brazillian weave, and she could make
out a part of his shoe which peeked out of the covering of the gown on the
ground. The entire picture was completely formed, but blurred.
Then it became clearer and clearer, pixel after pixel.
Sammie. Her Sammie. She checked the date. Two days before.
With a loud crash, the Lenovo fell and bruised.
Something strong and hard tugged at her heart. She passed
out.
Lemuel looked up at the electrocardiogram. There was an
urgent beeping sound, and the waves were ominously flat.
‘Doctor! My sister!’
Sheila’s chest received five voltage-induced resuscitations,
as well as five more manual ones. But it was useless. She had stopped breathing
long ago. And had crossed the divide horribly.
‘Noooooooooooooo!’
Lemuel dashed out of the ward and stared down fifty feet
below him. He climbed the balustrade.
He leapt into the air before the fastest of the doctors
could reach him. With eyes shut, he waited for the inevitable.
Just as he neared the ten foot mark, an ambulance braked and
parked sharply below him.
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