Helga (unedited)

Chapter 6: Mon amour

If there’s anything that I hate in books, it is love-well, the cheesy romance you find in books. Girl and boy are friends in the initial four chapters, which is already screaming at me that they will end up together before I reached the epilogue. Gosh, it’s all crap-but it’s crap that sells. It sells because, well, it’s based on the truth and the truth doesn’t change no matter what the circumstances are. If the romantic formula for making money didn’t work, then we would have some other formula to live by, but for the time being, and time gone, life is based on love and that is true.

It had been a couple of days since I saw Helga go supernova, I needed the break. Being the unsocial type, I never gave a damn about who liked me or, for that matter, hated me. I was cool being me. A new nalitu, girl, named Ngi, moved into town and well, I didn’t rely give a damn. In my mind she was the same as the other nalitux on the planet. They were innocent until they realized how beautiful they were, then they’d treat you like the dog they presumed you to be. Ngi, on the other hand, was more than beautiful in my Helga-enlightened eyes. Yes,  she had braids which, when let loose, swept the floors of Mercury, an angelic face, and the suppleness of a thousand supple women, but, it was her soul that spoke the most. Helga had taught me to find the soul in people, and in Ngi there was plenty of soul: humble, delicate, and inspiring.

I recall the day she came over to me, on the banks of the river Oua. Her stunning body was screaming at mine to take her right there and then, so curvaceous, delicious. I was in the middle of my jog when her voice summoned me to conversation.

‘Hey! I’m Ngi,’ she said; her voice soft and cool.

‘Yeah... hey,’ said I, before I returned the courtesy by giving her my name, ‘you’re new here. Welcome,’ I continued.

By that time, for a guy like me, it was a miracle that someone like her had come over to converse with someone like me, but hey, when you’re blessed; you’re blessed. If she had come over to me, that meant I had something, a quality which was attractive in her serine eyes. What could it have been?  In all that bliss my ego was elevated to the mountains and I basically felt like a wrestler fighting a blind opponent- I just could not lose.

‘Care to walk with me?’ I arrogantly insisted.

‘Yeah. I’m down,’ she returned, taking my arm and swaying herself in the rhythm of our walk.

I won’t go on and give you a novel of my love life. Our walk was heavenly. We hit of the right notes. Walking became our activity. Being antisocial, the toughest part of our relationship was actually establishing our relationship. You see, I am a man of principles and one of those principles is, ‘Never build a romantic relationship on the same foundation that you build friendship on.’ Because, if/when the relationship crumbles then friendship unnecessarily comes tumbling down as well. Yes, there are similar characteristics in romantic relationships and friendship, for example humour and respect, but that, in no manner, makes the two the same. I told my mother a joke and I also respect the other day, but that doesn’t mean that I should go and whip out the engagement ring!  Anyway, I liked Ngi-a lot, but the problem was that she had resorted to calling me her friend in every possible manner: ‘friend’, ‘buddy’, ‘mon ami’ etc., and that just made me all the more anxious. I was friend-zoned to the depths of Hell and I knew of no man that had recovered from those ‘friendly’ pits. When I consulted Helga, she told me that she’d seen both of us together and believed that we complimented each other immensely, ‘She’s yours kiddo,’ is what she said in a relaxed tone. My mother said the same thing in the exact tone. I felt more anxious in their ocean of calm; a player taking the final penalty in a soccer game. Don’t get me wrong, my anxiety made me look like a punk, but for a guy who was usually in solitude when not in the fires of Helga, I was a happy punk.  The funny thing is that I liked her and I knew that she also liked me- it was logical, but why she couldn’t initiate the relationship made her a torturer in my eyes. Eventually our happiness turned into silence and the silence lasted a while until it, eventually, spoke louder than words. Sleep transformed into insomnia, appetite into fasting, and thoughts into obsession. I couldn’t bear being a diamond miner being so close to the best thing in the world, but knowing that it is not officially mine. Whenever I saw her, my mouth was dry, but the blood in my heart was flooding for me to say something, do something, something something...

In the end, I cam e to the resolution that I was  nothing before her and that if she left I’d be nothing that’s lost the best thing, and so I manned up, summoned all of my strengths, and masked my fears, telling her how I felt about her. It turned out that, although my heart was flooded with emotion, the words, ‘I love you,’ were sufficient. These three words summed up my season, a bulletin for the heart of the woman that I had strong affection for. Luckily she felt the same and now ‘mon ami’ has transformed into the most affectionate of ‘mon amour.’