Left Unsaid (Short stories from Africa)

These Four Walls

I was strong.

For a long time I believed that. I thought that one day, I would make it out. Once upon a time I had dreams, dreams of a better life, dreams where I sat in the light, surrounded by the ones I loved again. But that was all they were, just dreams. They are gone now. All I have left is myself, whoever that is, trapped inside these four walls.

Lifeless, deteriorating and dying, those are the only words fit to describe me. I lie on this flat surface, I think it is a bed, I don't know anymore. I hear voices around me, but that can't be, I'm probably hallucinating. I am alone now, in a river of breaking glass that once was my life. Life. Living, I don't know what that is anymore, I'm only existing now. That girl who lived, is gone. She was kidnapped, stolen away brutally from a world that worshiped her, loved her.

I still remember. I think being cut off from the real world for so long might have altered my memory, maybe what I remember isn't real anymore. But it is the only light in this dark hole I live in. It was a beautiful day, one I had imagined my whole life. I had wanted it to be perfect, to be a day I would remember for the rest of my life. Well, I succeded in that aspect. It was still vivid in my brain.

How can I ever forget that dress? It cost my father a fortune, but he was willing to do it, it was, after all, the last time he would get to buy his little girl something so precious. I cried when I saw it. It made everything feel so real. I was really getting married.

The venue was my uncle's treat. A man making sure that the niece that he was so proud of, had the best wedding in all of South Africa. It was a beautiful place. The flowers felt so alive, the decorations, oh the decorations were so savory that they made me cry too. What more could I have wanted? I was surrounded by my favourite colours, brown, yellow and gold. I would not have chosen to get married at any other place.

And of course, the starlight of my wedding day: my groom. He was the kind of man whose beauty lay in his heart, he always knew just what to say to make me smile. That's not to say he was not pleasent to look at, no. He was my perfect dream, with eyes so brown they pieced me, his skin so dark he made me look like the sun. He had a smile...I remember that smile, it always did something to my heart and drove my brain into overdrive.

I remember the day that he first spoke to me. I used to be a lonely girl, invisible but he saw me and made me feel my worth. He asked me to help him with something. Months after we finally  got together and started dating though, he told me that he didn't really need my help, he was only looking for an excuse to talk to me.

The day he asked me to marry him, I had been waiting for the question for months. It was still a romantic occasion but I saw it coming from a mile away and I pretended to be surprised to make him happy. In truth though, it was one of the best days of my life. We made each other happy and that was our world of love and adventure.

He was an engineer, so he saved up large mounds of money. However he was still afraid that it would not be enough to pay the lobola. He was right to be nervous, my father had raised a beautiful, strong, educated, hard working and successful woman. I would have been disappointed if the lobola did not make my fiance sweat and show me how much he was willing to sacrifice to be with me. How much he would give to make me his wife according to the Zulu tradition.

I remember wearing the dress, I remember wishing that my mother was alive to see me like this. I remember my friends crying in my dressing room because I looked gorgeous. I remember wearing my veil proudly and sincerely as my father walked me down the aisle.

Mostly though, I remember the look in my beloved 's eyes as he watched me behind my veil. It was as if he was seeing me in a new light. He looked transfixed at me as if staring away from me would be a sin. He was looking at me like I was his whole world. My father looked both sad and happy as he handed me over to him.

When the love of my life finally unveiled and kissed me...I felt brand new and ready to step into his world...a new world.

Everything changed when we finally drove away at the end of the ceremony. We were so excited, happy and tired but looking forward to our first night together. I remember smiling widely as he held my hand and called me Mrs Ndaba. We were being driven into the start of our life together.

And then, it happened. I only rember fear, pain and darkness as I fell into oblivion. I was ripped from my love, stolen, blindfolded into darkness and I've never seen the light since. I am trapped and my mind is detached from a body I have not felt since the accident. I am a prisoner inside these four walls, held captive in my own mind.

I held on to hope that he would come and save me. That he would come for me like a knight in shinning amour. I used his voice everyday...but I feel as if it has been years since my husband came to see me.

That's if any of the memories are real. Maybe I was abandoned unloved, and I make up stories to convince myself that I had a better life. Maybe I died that day and I cannot feel my body because it has rotten underground. Or maybe I have altered the memories to suit me. Maybe I had a stroke on my wedding day because my fiance cheated on me and I lost the will to live.

The possibilities are endless...the only thing I know is that I am trapped inside these four walls with no way out.