THE JACKAL

Hi Friends
Something inside of me is getting really tired. In short, my enthusiasm for the community is whittling away bit by bit. And you know how the saying goes, it might take forever for a tree to die, but it doesn't take too long for a leaf to wither. Hence, I need your support big time on this one.

Ok, that said, this story is one of my very personal stories so far and it is meant to try and understand those with cruel physical and mental health conditions. When it comes to health and the whole idea of being whole, there is a lot of distortions; a lot of give and take; a lot of variables that never add up to one thing. This story tries to understand just one of the many variables. And when you finally get through to it, you have to tell me if it successfully fulfils its task.

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Image Source: The Huffington Post

The Jackal

I wouldn’t like to call your world Earth, and no, it’s not an alien territory either. It has too much peace in it to be called Uranus or Saturn (planets of wordy combinations that suggest fire and fear). Yet, there is too much indifference and oblivion in it for it to qualify as Venus or Mars.

Your world is a moving train of fading clouds, picking pace softly, yet hurriedly stepping in line with the rhythm of the hovering grey sky. It’s not an easy trek for these clouds; they must pay too much attention to the fettering freeze of the icy sky, yet they must act as a companionable chorus to the dull dialogues between the charring chandelier and the creamy candlelight lording the sky.

The clouds are only useful as couriers of virulent vapours,

And indeed, yours is a servant’s world.

As it is meant to be, your amorphous face tames the message of sparkles that tint your eyes, and makes a man avoid looking at you twice.

It’s an unattractive face.

It would have been sufferable to look upon for a while, but for the puffy round cheeks that redden and crackle and hiss, not because they bear healthy pores, but because underneath the dermis, lies a tong of fire heated in the pit of your tongue. Sometimes, this fire will roil so violently till it produces burning iron of convulsions that makes you tremble terribly with strange spasms of electrocutions and lifts you to the ground till you become a wounded snake that bites at its bruised skin in agony, not caring it is going to die of its own device.

It is these epileptic fits that have rendered the whole of your left hemisphere useless, turning your right arm into a stump; a withered branch merely dangling to the soul sound of solitude. The white of your right eye overshadows the black, giving it the stunning appearance of a speck of dot on a big, blank, white sheet.

This unattractiveness of yours finds consolation in knowing that your unthinking self is not aware of its decaying state. Others bear this knowledge for you. I, for one, carry this knowledge like a burden, and like a loaf of bread dipped into the ocean, I slouch under the responsibility of carrying your warped face in my memory. However, unlike others, I do not nod my head in pity when I see you, I only watch intently with the attention one pays to a movie in black and white.

I see how you walk with graceless aimlessness through the neighbourhood, scouring the jungle of our floral ghetto, picking empty Coke bottles and filling them with sand. I hear how, with a wobbly vocal, you call everyone Uncle and Aunty, even Ayomide who has barely started talking, but whose childish depravity takes in the content of your unbecoming courtesy with obvious relish. I watch your parents look the other way when they see you approaching, yet you speak of them with such godly charity. I hear you, near the running tap, screaming your testament into the ear drums of people who are trying to fill their water drums,

My Mummy likes me,
My Daddy too, I know he likes me,
Everybody likes me because I am too… much...

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This story ends tomorrow and after that, I do hope I would have written the one story I have been thinking about all week so I can share with you.

But this story right here, it needs your upvotes, comments, your love.

Thanks to everyone who has always extended their 'hats' of support. It means a lot not just to me, but to many more people like myself.