It all started with the stain of a single drop of blood in a half-empty bathtub.
You know what? I’m getting way ahead of myself; let me back up a few short
years so as to give you the whole, unadulterated picture.
Its 1985, Nelson Mandela rejects an offer of freedom from the ‘South
African’ ‘government’; blood tests for AIDS are approved; a volcanic eruption
in Columbia kills 25,000 people; VH-1 makes its broadcasting debut; 59 people
die as Egyptian forces storm a plane on Malta; and, Live Aid, a 17 hour rock
concert broadcasts worldwide from London and Philadelphia, raising $70 million
for starving Africans.
You know what? I don’t really need to go that far back, let me fast
forward to the juicy parts.
I had never thought I’d ever be in this position, in this place, in this
moment in time – I mean thinking about it is one thing, but the sobering
reality of the cold slice of the blade, the warmth of the oozing blood, the
staining of the clear cold water in the half-filled bathtub, is a magical
sight; it’s something to behold as it is both mesmerising and captivating, and,
in the right light, it adds the colour otherwise missing from most mundane
lives.
In that moment, in that instance, everything was clear and everything
made sense – I realised why each drop is life itself.
To fully appreciate this moment, you need to realise that I was never
keen on living, but do not mistake this as to mean that the eternal release
into the hereafter was an option either. Being raised a Catholic by loving
parents who went far and beyond their civil service paychecks to provide a lap
of luxury that left me needing for nothing but wanting for more, instilled in me
a strong sense of the foreboding as I was reminded on a daily basis that my
actions, whose consequences apparently yielded the comfort and luxury I’d enjoy
beyond the things that my hands can touch, were being closely watched by an
ever present Omniscience and a multitude of witnesses with nothing to do with
their eternal bliss but watch little boys take baths – and people judge the
Catholic Priests, and to them I say, “cast the first fucking stone!”
Therefore, this wholeness I feel in my heart – this transcending peace –
was not arrived at lightly.
However, if you understood my birth, you’d understand that I never
wanted this life that I’m living but made the best out of the many great
opportunities handed to me on a silver platter. Even Nature itself could not
force this life on me and, therefore, Science had to intervene and prevail
where Nature failed.
Ah that Science, the stain that has polluted and raped my land long
before lubricant was ever invented; our saviour, our messiah, our very own
personal Jesus.
But who said we needed saving? Maybe, just maybe, we were fine before You
showed up.
But, alas, Science saved me where Nature failed me. Nature, what a fucking joke. You give us everything but
You gave us nothing. Because for ten
months You tried to push me out and for ten
months I refused to be moved. For ten
months my parents joyfully waited my arrival but for ten I was the disappointment that I would become. For ten months, for ten whole months, I stood my ground. Because in those ten months, I was a man and as a man I stood
firm. For the first ten months before
my life started, I was a man. Even before I took my first breath I knew how it
felt to smoke a cigarette next to a spent beautiful woman whose name I will
never remember.
Now that you know the context, let’s proceed with the story.
Getting out of the bathtub felt effortless. Maybe it was because I was
being carried out of it. Or maybe it was because for the first time in my life
I had allowed someone else to be strong for me, to help me where I had failed
to succeed, to lead me beyond the path that I saw before me.
Standing besides the empty bathtub I realised that even the toughest
stain can be removed with time.
Standing besides the empty bathtub, I realised that she wasn’t breathing
anymore. She had died before I could help her, before I could reach her, before
I could tell her that I loved her, and now all I have is time but she isn’t
here to hear all the things I have hidden from this world in our special place.
Living feels like an eternity without someone to love you.
So I let her go.
THE END
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