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| By Zadok Kwame Gyesi (Ghana's Achebe) |
“Hmm”, Afful shouted as he stretched his arms after waking up from the big sofa in the hall. “Oh it’s almost 6:30am. I will be late for school today”, he said in a sober manner. He sat down on the sofa again and yawned audibly. After some minutes of relaxation in the sofa, where he had been sleeping for some months, he got up again to put on his shirt. “Eh! It’s not easy. The distance I cover to school every day is making me grow lean. I need a hostel around the school”, he said sharply. He walked towards the centre table to pick up his tooth brush. His leg hit the iron he had placed under the table. “Gosh!” He exclaimed. He picked it and poured some water into a cup after he had spread some tooth paste on the brush.
When he was about to leave for school, he remembered he hasn’t done his assignment. He came back to the room to look for the book he had written the assignment in it. Afful had forgotten where he kept the piece of paper he wrote the question on it. He always writes his assignments on pieces of paper. He scattered the heap of books he had arranged on his desk top table in search of the assignment paper. Luckily enough for him, he found the piece of paper in one of his voluminous Philip Kotler’s Principles of Marketing book.
“Eh! Eh! Eh!” he screamed. He found an old love letter he wrote to his girl friend when he was in secondary school. That was his first love letter to his first love, Ama Serwaah. He remembered the weeks he spent on this letter before he finally posted it. The first paragraph of the letter took him almost three weeks to write after wasting ten official papers as a result of spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and transliterations. The letter recapitulated his past days in secondary school. He smiled and shook his head several times. He sat on the floor to read the first paragraph quietly in his mind. It reads:
“My dear sweet heart, Ama Serwaa, I couldn’t have afforded to enjoy the merits of my mattress this night. I looked at my clock and realized that it was almost 12:00am, the same time I first proposed to you on the phone. Your lovely face keeps panting in my mind. Honey…it’s been a very long time when we saw ourselves. But I can promise you on authority that I haven’t forgotten the good times we spent under that big tree. As the philosophical saying goes, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’. Y
He called tears into his eyes after reading the first paragraph of the three page letter dated some five years ago.
“Life is full of surprises”, he said painfully.
She was Afful’s eye. She was the heart beat of Afful when they were in secondary school. Irrespective of the fact that they were not in the same secondary school, the use of phone and letters rubbed off the distance between them. He remembered some of the nice times he spent with her. They are no more staying together as lovers. He recalled some of the factors that brought their separation.
“This break up was unnecessary”, he lamented.
He was so effusive that tears rolled down his cheeks. He picked his handkerchief from his left pocked to wipe off the flowing tears. His heart was heavy with sorrow. He wished he could turn the hand of fate.
He looked at his outdated love letter again and shook his head.
“Hmm”, he sighed painfully. “My love has slipped off my hands”
He threw his assignment paper on the floor and screamed loudly.
“Oh my God! What have I done? Where are you Ama?”
He got up from the floor and moved to where he had plucked his phone to electricity. He wanted to call Ama. He had stopped communicating with her for almost four years. Fear clamped him down. Afful scrolled through his contacts and came to Ama’s number. He dialed it and quickly cut it. He dialed it one more time and cut it again. He puts the phone down and took a deep sigh.
He hit his phone with a pillow. Afful picked the phone to read some of the old messages he had exchanged with Ama. The first message he saw was the message he sent her a day after their break up. It was of few words due to his anger at the time.
“Call you back”, the messages read.
He checked the message which she also sent him before this reply. The message read: “My dear one, let nothing separates our relationship. Remember the promises you made to me on that day. The day, I felt the beauty of nature. The day, I realized the true reflection of your love. The day, I felt the reality of womanhood and praised the amazing strings of love melodies. I believe that you will reconsider your decision to part me, my dear one. As I write you this message, I am on the island of grief. I see the future with regret. But whatever might be the case, I know, only time will tell the true story of our relationship…I love you Afful, the man of my heart”.
This message weakened his appetite. He scanned through the message inbox to read more of her messages. He couldn’t afford to bruise his emotional pains with any of her messages. Ama writes like a romantic poet.
He dialed Ama’s number again. Unfortunately for him, the voice machine picked and said, “This number is temporally unavailable”. He was shocked to the marrow extremities. He decided to dial the number once more. The response was different this time round. “This number is not in existence”, the voice machine said. Ama had stopped using the line Afful used to call her on. He lost control over his emotions. He was sweating all over irrespective of the early cold breeze in his room.
He opened the photo gallery on his phone to look for Ama’s picture. Upon seeing the picture, he covered his face with his palm. He brought the phone closer to his mouth to kiss the picture.
“My love, forgive me”
He looked at the clock on the wall and realized it was getting to 7:00am. He folded the letter and kept it in one of the pockets in his jacket which hangs on the wall.
He quickly booted his desktop computer and started to type his assignment. While typing, he was still remembering some portions of his dated love letter. He turned the computer off after he had finished typing and printed the soft copy out.
He put the hard copy of his assignment in the black rubber file he picked on the centre table. He locked his room and left for the bus station to pick a car to school. Because it was Monday, he stood at the bus station for almost half an hour before getting a vehicle. Many people came to the bus station to board cars to their various destinations as well. He struggled with the passengers over cars at the bus station before he finally got some dilapidated Benz bus.
In the bus, he sat close to the driver’s conductor affectionately called “mate”. When the mate was collecting fares from the passengers and it got to Afful’s turn, he put his hand into his pocket and picked some paper money. He gave the mate money without looking at it.
“Hey! The mate shouted. “Are you alright? Look at what you have given me?” he said angrily.
When Afful looked, it was the piece of paper he wrote the assignment on it.
“Oh sorry, I didn’t see it”
“Sorry for yourself. What at all are you thinking about this early morning?” the mate replied him loudly.
Afful took his wallet and gave the mate real money. All the passengers on board were looking at him while some were smiling intermittently. He felt embarrassed.
When he got to campus, his colleagues have already submitted their assignment and the lecturer too had threatened not to accept any late submission of work. Due to Afful’s humility and good relationship with the lecturer, he accepted his work.
Afful wasn’t in his usual mood in class that day.
“What is it, Afful?” Akua, his close friend asked him.
“There is no problem, ok”, he said softly.
“No. You don’t look happy; tell me if there is a problem. Your worries are my worries. Please, let me know”, she said passionately.
“I will tell you but not now; let’s make it after lectures”
“Ok I hear”, she nodded her head.
He sat quietly on the seat Akua had reserved for him. He was still thinking about Ama Serwaa. His mind was out of the class. Akua touched him on the shoulder when the lecturer asked him a question. He didn’t even know he was the one that the lecturer was talking to.
our absence in my life has created unfilled vacuum of sadness in my heart. But the word which you left for me has always been my solace. I remember you telling me that ‘out of sight does not mean out of mind’. Although we are separated by geographical distance, but I strongly believe that the web of love will keep us under one roof. Ama, tell me to run and you will see me flying. Dear, tell me to hope and you will see me jumping. Your lovely face is my pride. Your name is the sweetest song I have ever heard. How lovely it comforts my soul when I am in distress. I have inscribed your name on my heart. Ama, the epitome of beauty and fountain of love, ‘Obibini broni, ah medo na wo wa hei?’ Sweet heart, this is just the opening of my letter. Before you even take time to read the full length of this lovely couched letter, I humbly ask you to give it a kiss. Kissing my letter means kissing me. … Ama Serwaa, the queen of beauty, ‘Obaa sima, medo wo papa’”, Afful completed the first paragraph.
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