A
Sweet Departure
A short story
By
Abubakar
Sulaiman Muhd
His appearance was always white. Clad-in white garb,
white shoes, white wristwatrch, white beard and white whisker. Adding to his
white impression, his white teeth as white as snow and his fair-white intention
towards everyone. He was average in age, average in height and neither fat nor
skinny, mesomorph, which amounted to his good posture, physique.
As a time for marriage, that how boys are, they look
forward to finding a fine girl that will suit their fine houses. And that how
girls are, they look forward to finding a fine boy with a fine home to suit
their wishes. Having been born and brought up in a religious family, Sagir had
never willed at any cost to flout the religious principles. By virtue of this,
as for his wife; he found not only Queen Beauty but also smartest, nicest,
mildest, affable, well-educated, well-informed and well-brought up, the Aisha
of good mannerism and conduct. She was a peacock in appearance. She walked with
a beautiful rhythmic pattern of swinging her hip and when she spoke, it was so
sweet to ears as if she put honey and milk in her voice.
He became her and she him as they shared the same
feeling and cared for the same concern.
They were not just a couple but a soul mate. Distance didn’t separate them as
their mind was always together. Even at his office he felt her heart beat and
she his. If he was to go out, she chose from his clothes the most finely and
fitting matching to his cap and shoes, and then sprayed a perfume scented ivy
and lily smell.
On one occasion he said:
‘‘You seem to have a bun in your oven.” He observed.
‘‘Of course it is our baby I am carrying’’ Said she.
‘‘God marvelous!, I think I have to fetch a maid
that will help with the house chores.’’ He proposed courteously.
‘‘Goodness me, I can manage it.’’ She said,
releasing a dimple smile and letting the glitter of her teeth from the corner
of her mouth, caressing her protruding thing affectionately. He kissed her
good-by and left. She, closing the door behind him after a long safe-journey
wave.
Every time when he left office, he would go straight
home to meet his wife. This time he found her weary and bashful almost oblivion
of her around. He dropped his bag suddenly on the ground and bent down closer,
rubbing her face affectionately as he sat at her beside. Now he put his ear
closer to her tummy to detect the beat of the thing in her womb.
‘‘I offered to bring a maid or a sister to help but
you rejected it. I don’t want to always see you in this state.’’ He said
pleadingly with sign of tears in his eyes.
‘‘No,’’ she said, ‘‘all the house chores are my duty
and for me to please you they seem not hurting at all.” She replied and
continued. ‘‘To cook food for you and tidy the home are my part of concerns and
I have to do it. I believe you love me the way I do to you. For my rest, I
recommend you should bring in second wife so that she would act as a wife not a
maid and as a friend to me so that she would give her helping hand willingly in
maintaining the house.’’ She spoke with sobs and pauses as if it was her last
words. He kissed her I-love-you style on her cheeks and lay beside her.
‘‘You know I cannot be just between you and any
other woman, and even if you died, the void of your place will never be filled
forever.’’ He concluded.
The kicking and hitting in her stomach grew irritating,
and the dull screech made her numb and cold all over her throughout the night.
Both, they had restless and sleepless night. In the morning, the poor Aisha was
taken to a clinic for deliverance. An hour past, two past. A minute seemed to
elongate to an hour as he grew restless and expectant to hear something about
her. Standing at the foot of the bed where she was lying, he became sympathetic
with her situation. Tears formed in his eyes and then rolling down his cheeks.
He kept battling within himself with this thought and that. Jumping from one
hard emotional situation to another, knitting in his mind how was he to cope with the situation if she died.
What about the baby, who would take her care? Immediately beads of perspiration
formed on his brow out of weariness and mental suffering. He grew lugubrious
and worn-out from exhaustion. Cheeks cupped and pensive. A nurse rushed in and
pushed the stretcher which she was lying on, in
to a next room. Waiting restlessly
for about half an hour, then he heard a scream of a newly-born baby which took
into the whole atmosphere of the room and awakened him from his deep inner
somnolent thought. Then after a while, another nurse came to him sad and solemn.
‘‘She delivers a baby girl.’’ She paused like
someone devoid of words, thinking in her mind on how to break the ice. Nobody
dared to tell him about the death because from their short-while stay in the
clinic, everybody around had understood how fond they were of one another and
how worried he was about her condition.
‘‘Tell me what happens?’’ He cried wearily and
emoted with feeling.
‘‘She is dead.’’ As she said this, the nurse became intimidated
with anger and sadness within herself. Before you say Jack Robinson, Sagir
collapsed down on to the floor like a tattered rag.
Afterwards, about seven days when the day of her
birth returned; the baby was named Aisha and after she started growing, she
reflected her mother in manner and assumed her character. When her father
stared squarely in her face, as he usually did to solace his sorrows, he saw
the image of his beloved departed wife. The intimacy, fondness and closeness
between him and his wife and the image of her in the baby made him to remain
widower for life. There and then, all his love and care were shifted to his
daughter as she always remained a constant remainder to him of his wife. And he
composed a dirge in her memoriam:
Her giggle
Her smile
Her adorable face.
Her love
Her kiss
And her cuddle,
Her charm
And her warmth reflect
In this charming bebe.
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