A Doll's Nest

Prologue

It is funny how someone elsewhere would consider that to be a romantic dinner. They purposefully chose to sit under those conditions and continue to fall in love with those in front of them.

However, there on that table, too large for the room but too small for its intended use, dreams were made in the presence of God-forsaken ghosts. Beneath the table, three sets of feet dangled from the mismatched chairs, barely grazing the cold tiles. The smell of rancid sweat, from soil-stained school socks, meshed itself with smoke from the nearby fire. Nothing but the sweet sight of the night's darkness radiated any warmth in the already cold and elusive room.

This was a normal night in Halisbury. In every street, there were houses with children forced to candle-lit dinners, eating something that resembled meat but not quite. Whilst others did their homework with the light kindly provided by the fire in their backyard. These children fell into some of the fortunate few. With firewood as scarce as the elephants displaced in the name of coal, a dead promise said to resurrect the failing power stations, in Halisbury sunlight was seen as a blessing by many. A chance to wash your sorrows, before the night came and swept you to bed with no meal foreseen in the distant future.

It was there at that table, where the candle flame danced on the page of homework yet to be started, I felt most at peace. I could hear the distant cries of the crickets, as cars struggled against the pothole-ridden streets of our neighbourhood. It was not difficult to tell which car was which, as each car held a distinct sound as one part or the other slammed into the potholes. That is how we knew our parents were home, that and sometimes father's bellowing voice, angry at some innocent customer. We had all learnt to ensure textbooks, and pens lay spread across the table. If not, the dishes had to be done and the house prepared for any unexpected visitor. Fanning sleep was a seldom rescue when they arrived, only the respectful nod, or the casual tear would bring relief for some time. But no amount of fear of them managed to extinguish our desire for our parents to arrive home safe tonight.

The edges of the Kapadza flag could be seen escaping from the bottom of my school bag as if a memory of a boy a girl regrets having sex with. Mere hours had passed by since that flag flew proud, as my car melted into the sea of jubilant Kapazrians ecstatic for the first time in ages at the sight of military uniforms and tanks surrounding the government buildings. Amid this joy, if one chose to look from above like a god determined to unearth the sins of his children, desperation, fear, and anger hang in the air. It wove itself in the smiles of the women taking photos and edged itself across in the wrinkles of men aged by the toll of the sub-Saharan sun.

Halisbury had become the land of which only those predisposed to the confines of the liberties predating our first independence still held a sliver of any hope. In every laughter, one could hear the yearning for a future. A longing for something. Or nothing. It was this feeling of longing I remember that made me look across the table to Paxton's eyes as she rambled on about a guy, she had a crush on for several years now. I could not find it. I hoped she could see it, but alas like every other day we hid this desire far from recognition, a topic never to be discussed.