The Void Between Hearts ~~ongoing~~

36. Ivan

The void between Time. . .
It doesn't heal wounds,
maybe it numbs the pain,
but the scars remain,
It's a terrible thing to wait, I know.
But do, time passes anyways.
~◇~◇~

Ivan had seen the day gradually come to an end. He watched solemnly as the sun danced across the sky from its scorching peak, to the west, where it now hung, low and warm, casting entrancing glows of sweet oranges and calm yellows.

He saw all the changes that occurred when the cool settling darkness of the approaching night sky, laced with clouds resembling burning red mountains on its far edges, replaced the meadow looking cloud of the bright blue afternoon.

This was the type of sunset that gave Boma hope, the same type of sunset he sketched her in when they came back to Port Harcourt a few weeks ago, the same one he sent to her a few days before, when he visited the park.

Now within the complex folds of his ravaged heart, and the swirling pieces of his broken soul, the only thing he could think about, was how much his life made no meaning without Boma in it.

How had he come to be so in love with her? Was it the depression of losing his father? The longing of needing a mother?

After Boma asked him to leave and never come back, he had spent the better part of the afternoon sitting under a roadside umbrella joint, where people, mostly loud and dirty gathered to buy bolè, a common dish made of roasted plantains, yams, occasionally, sweet potatoes, and fish served with a special spicy sauce made of peppers cooked in oil and salt. The owner of the umbrella was an elderly woman, whom he later came to know as Mama Zitere. She had offered him some bolè, after watching him for minutes where he stood at the hospital gate, looking dazed, and drained, as though all traces of hope had been wickedly snatched from him. He politely declined her offer until she got him a bottle of chilled water and offered him a seat under her umbrella.

As he sat there, he watched in fascination how the city seemed to evolve from a pivotal point of confusion, into one giant masterpiece of its own. He saw it in the way commercial buses plyed the streets, he saw it in the noisy highway, in the way people shuffled between body odours, sweating strangers, and lousy commuters, in the way it all seemed so alien to him.

You would think it was because he didn't want to go home, being that he had watched his phone ring a hundred times and that he had read the seemingly distraught text messages his mother had left him, or that he knew he couldn't go back to that same hotel, and the fact that he didn't really know his way around the city without his car and GPS, you could wonder how he was supposed to navigate the unforgiving streets of Portharcourt without security? He could get robbed, beaten, kidnapped or even worse sacrificed by ritualists. But as he sat there, none of that actually bothered him, he already felt beaten and broken and robbed and at the moment as far as he could think, he only saw Boma and the void left when she decided she was better off without him, when she decided what she felt was a mistake. All his life, she had always been the light at the end of the tunnel. The pot of gold where rainbows grew up from. Now at the end of the tunnel, he finds no light, no gold and no hope.

He had considered going back into the hospital, "maybe if her mother was there, she'd give me a chance."
"Maybe I should have taken the taxi driver's number." He thought in cycles.

"My pikin, e don late o. You no go reach house?" My child, it's late won't you go home? Mama Zitere asked him, concern spewing out of her body language.

"I don't have a house to go to. " he answered.

"you be ghost?" Are you a ghost? The woman replied, fright not too far from her tired red eyes.

He looked at her face, it was covered in soot, particles of charcoal and smoke and still had the funniest expression of fright he had ever seen. For the first time that day, Ivan laughed, and laughed, he laughed so hard that he couldn't stop. Like a spreading blaze, he began to cry and it felt like the laughter was an escape route for the dam building up behind his eyes.

Mama Zitere watched in amazement. In all her sixty seven years on earth, she had no experience of such behaviour, not even from her seven year old grandson Chizitere who had an overwhelming desire for mischief and unpredictable behaviours. It was when the crying took a turn into weeping that she reached out a hand and gave him series of soft pats on his back, speaking some words of sympathy in igbo.

As mama Zite belonged to the majority of Nigerians who believe that love and matters of the heart should be left for adults, she would have smacked him silly and sent him running out of her umbrella if she knew the reason why he cried so bitterly. In her heart, she resorted to the belief that his parents had died in the hospital and that was why he was so broken.

"You get where to sleep dis night?" Do you have a place to sleep tonight? She asked amidst his final sobs. He shook his head.

"You go follow me go my house?" Will you follow me to my house? she asked, "e no big but space dey wey you fit put head sleep. Then tomorrow you fit go your waka. As I see you so, you no suppose dey street and e dey pain me well well as e be say you come dey cry like dis." It's not very big but spacious enough for you to have a good rest. Tomorrow you can continue with your Journey. Because I don't think a young boy like you should be walking the streets in your condition. It really hurts me to watch you cry so bitterly. She explained.

Ivan at first didn't want to go with her, after all, she was just a kind stranger. But after a couple minutes of deliberation, he managed to convince himself that the home of a poor old woman would provide him with the motivation he needed to keep on living. In her house, at least he was guaranteed the next day. On his own, he was afraid of what he might do.

"Boma was just a girl, maybe a special one, but there are so many other special girls out there, she said it herself."

He agreed in his heart as he followed Mama Zitere home that he wasn't going to let himself brood anymore. He was going to give life another shot, all on his own, away from everything and everyone. But life is so complicated and so are emotions. Like addiction, he feels like withdrawal is something he can achieve at once. But is it?