FICTION

Ezioma Kalu

                             CREDITS: FUBIZ 

 TO ALL THE LETTERS I NEVER SEND… PS; I'LL STILL WRITE THEM ANYWAY

Dear X,

First of all, I’m sorry for addressing you as X like you are a math problem, but I don’t trust myself not to come undone if I scribble down your name. There’s something it does to me, your name, something I’m yet to fathom. It’s in the way it’s written; the way the consonant follows the vowel and paves way for the next vowel. It’s in the way it sounds; the way those sweet letters hum a melody that would linger in my subconscious, way after I’ve heard it. It’s in the way it makes me feel; the way my breath halts in my lungs, the way my stomach feels like a shaken can of soda, the way I push through the sound of my heart pounding in my ears, just to keep hearing the reverberations of your name, long after it’s mentioned.  Do you now understand why I’m choosing my sanity, why I’m addressing you as X?

Kedu? 

It’s been 94,694,400 seconds since our last kiss. You don’t know I was counting, do you? You always called me a psycho, that I loved doing things that didn’t matter, that wasting my time on trivial things gave me vitamin K… You’re not wrong sha. I’m still a psycho, and I still do unnecessary things, like counting the seconds since our last kiss. 

There are a lot of other unnecessary things I’ve done and am still doing since then, like writing you tons of letters, stocking them in a pile and burning them afterwards, when they become too many. And visiting your old flat every month on our anniversary… Each time I visit your compound, I pray the building doesn’t collapse and fall on the tenants, because with the way it’s going, we won’t have to wait long to hear the tragic news of the Bernard Street building collapse. You used to say it was quarter to collapsing, my dear; it’s now hanging on a weak thread that’s on the verge of snapping. 

But that your Landlord get mind sha… How can he not renovate that house? I don’t know if it’s me, but the last time I visited, the roofing sheet was dancing like a malnourished JSS1 student being forced to dance by wicked seniors. It was dancing because there’s no more vigor; no more will to keep doing the drab task of acting like a protective cover from the harsh rays of the sun, and violent rush of the rain. It does so much to provide shelter for the tenants, but your landlord doesn’t give two fucks about its well being, and now it’s protesting. 

That your Landlord sha, he own too dey him body. He’s too stingy for my liking biko… With that his acne-plagued face that is so rumpled, so anyhow. Tufia! Women dey chop shit sha… Someone will still look at that his face like Smeagle and kiss those worn out tyres that are his lips. He cannot even take care of himself with all the money he garners from extorting his tenants. I wonder when he will finally realize that that roof needs maintenance, when he will finally take pity on the poor tenants and do something about that building’s condition.

 Do you know your room is now leaking, like serious leaking o? The last time I went there, it rained, and the new tenant allowed me to sit on a plastic chair and wait till it stopped. Chai, you need to see what this person has turned your room to. The beautiful paradise that was once your room, our room, now looks like a haunted house, the perfect home for those pigheaded families in horror movies. 

Not only is it void of any aesthetic material, it is also empty. And I’m thinking the new occupant is a sadist, or a Psychopath, or both. Because why can’t you have a single piece of furniture that’s appealing to the eyes? There are no curtains, no wallpaper, nothing. Just an ugly 2020 calendar, a rickety plastic chair and a slice of bread that he calls a mattress… And on top of all that sleaziness, the roof is also leaking, dripping water like a menstruating teenager. Guy, your room is now a mess, you can’t even imagine.

 Shey it’s crazy for me to keep going back to your flat even after you’ve moved out? Omo that new guy go dun swear for me die… The first time I went there after you left, I didn’t know if it was vacant, didn’t know why I went there. I just hailed a cab from New Market and endured a boring drive to Abakpa, Olivia Rodrigo’s Drivers license blasting in my subconscious. 

“…Cause you said forever, now I drive alone past your street…”

I wasn’t expecting to see you, wasn’t expecting to see anyone, but something in me dragged me, willed me to wear my clothes and leave my flat, to hail a cab and drive to your former home. It’s that same melody; that familiar tone that echoes in my ears whenever I hear your name, whenever I see it written on a paper, on Facebook, anywhere.

I don’t know why I always go back to that house, if I should continue going back there, but everything in me wants to feel you again, and to keep feeling you forever, and that is why I still go there, will keep going there. Even if it’s for another second, another minute, I want to be in that same space where we shared the most beautiful moments. Because I can’t unlove you, even after we said our goodbyes, even after we packed our baggage and went our separate ways, even after knowing that leaving, that bone-piercingly difficult action is permanent. 

You left me physically, but it didn’t seem as if you moved an inch, because you’re still deep rooted in the home yo made in my heart, still occupying that space like you’re an eternal tenant, and I, the Landlord have waived the rent for you. You’re still ever present in everything I do, everywhere I go. Do you know I soaked my pillow cases and bed sheets in hot water and bleach, and washed and washed, so I’d wash off your scent, your essence? But I haven’t seen a horrible attempt at anything like that fiasco. I can never get your scent out of the pillowcases, because you’re still very much here, you didn’t leave; you’re here and will never leave. 

I tried to comb you off my hair, but you are stubborn, tangled. You won’t leave. I tried not to walk down that street, that buka, that bookshop we always visited. But when it comes to you, I become weak in my knees; they start to feel like jelly, and I can’t do anything but follow that melody to wherever it leads me. And it always leads me to you, to the paths we trailed, to the songs we listened to, to the cinemas we visited. I couldn’t wean myself off of you, even if I tried.

So that day, as I knocked on the door of what used to be your home, my blood pulsating in my eyelids, a wave of nausea swelling inside me, I said a quick prayer. Those two minutes I waited at the other side of the door, I prayed for a miracle. For someone to get the door, for you to gently slide the lock open like you always did, and kiss me on my forehead and tell me I’m late, that I nearly met you well, that you’ve already finished your meal.

 I know I always shoved you and told you to keep quiet that you talked too much, but that day, I was craving to hear the sound of your voice, how gravelly it sounded in the mornings, and how it morphed to huskiness in the afternoons. I was desperately craving to hear you call me ‘Ocha ka omaka,’ even though I always eyed you whenever you called me that, and told you to fuck off, that you were an annoying imbecile.

But the door opened, and just when I thought the Lord who answered prayers in mysterious ways had begun to smile down on me, I saw a face that I’d be damned to mistake for yours. Nothing could have made me turn back to behold that kind of face, if I passed him on the road. His, was a deep-set pair of brown eyes, nothing like the bloodshot, bulgy eyes that were yours. He had a little mole on his cheek, maybe a scar that remained from Chicken pox, or just a mole, I don’t know. He didn’t kiss my forehead or smell of talcum powder. He wasn’t even fair; he was dark, darker than all the shades of black I’d seen. If he was curious that an unfamiliar young lady who jerked as if she had seen a spider when he opened the door, was outside his home, refusing to talk or engage in any form of introductory activity, he didn’t show it. He just stood, gaping at me like we were in a sort of staring competition and he was determined to win. 

The silence was unnerving, and after what seemed like an eon, I said; “Ehm good morning, I’m sorry to creep up on you like this.”

“It doesn’t seem that way. You look quite shaken, like you’re seeing a ghost or something close to that,” he said, with the most nonchalant voice I’d ever heard, still gripping me with his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” I began again, apologizing like I did something terrible. That’s my problem, I’m always thinking I’m at fault, always apologizing, always looking for ways to make amends, even when there’s really no need for those. “Please can I come in?”

“No, you can’t… Not until you give me convincing reasons to allow you into my home.” The way he said ‘my home’ ehn, you’ll think you’re visiting Akeem’s Zamunda palace in Coming to America. Odikwa egwu… My home, like it wasn’t that spooky house I’d still be shocked to enter. Omo that guy was too proud for someone who didn’t have a single piece of furniture, well except for the slice of mattress and plastic chair. I suppose it’s still a home sha, after all, he pays his rent and is living comfortably. Only that his comfortably is too poor for comfort.

“My boyfriend used to live here. We broke up, but I miss him, so I just want to be in this flat for some minutes, to inhale the air, to…” The inside of my head ludicrously turned into a lacuna and I didn’t know what else to say. Was I even making sense? I thought he’d get angry, and call me a freak, and ask me to leave. But he didn’t do any of those. Instead, he smiled his gap-toothed smile and nodded for me to continue.

“To…” he said, still making no attempt to leave the door and let me in.

“I just want to feel him, that’s all.”

“Why not try calling him?”

“I can’t... He won’t pick.”

“Nawa o… Oya come in,” he finally said, and a wide smile crept out from wherever, and spread on my face. But omo, I nearly screamed in horror when I entered there, because what was all that shabbiness for? I almost asked him if he had no sense of beauty, or was outright indifferent to the things that pleased the eyes, because ike gwuru... I’ve never seen such unorganized fellow in my life. Do you know he tore those beautiful wallpapers we spent all night fixing? What did he not do? He made the place uninhabitable and I almost pleaded with him to open the door and let me out, because nothing in that hellhole reminded me of you. Even the kind air I wanted to breathe wasn’t fresh; it was stale and stank like a pig’s early morning breath. 

How can a human be so unconcerned about hygiene, so unconcerned about arrangement? I wanted to leave, to thank him for allowing me into that dungeon, to curse him under my breath for bragging with such a place, till my eyes fell on the ceiling and I squirted a tear. Do you remember the day we almost had a fight, the day you virtually got mad at me for going on my doing-unnecessary-things streak? It was the day I took a candle and engraved our names on the ceiling. I had bought the candle at Afia Abakpa the previous day, and when you asked me what it was for, I lied it was for church. So when you saw me climbing on the table, raising my candle high to the ceiling, and inscribing our names on it with the aid of the candle smoke, you said I was crazy, always looking for unnecessary things to do.

I wish you were there that day; I would have loved to stick out my tongue and tell you ‘ntorrh, I told you, didn’t I?’ Because that act wasn’t unnecessary at all; in fact, I was grateful that I emblazoned ‘us’ there, somewhere it can never be erased. At least something still remembers there was an ‘us;' the ‘us’ that was hopelessly in love, the ‘us’ that was all that mattered. For a moment I blanched, stiffened. 

For a moment, I had an out-of-the-body experience, because I wanted you to be there with me, to behold that unnecessary mark I made, to tell me once more that it was unnecessary, that I shouldn’t have made a dent on the poor ceiling… I wanted to hear you whine once more, to watch the sides of your eyes furrow, like they always did when you were uncomfortable about something. But I knew I was wishing for the impossible sha, because we’re done for good; and forever too.

My Love… Can I still call you that? I guess I can. You won’t be reading this letter anyway, because I won’t send it, can’t send it. 

I read somewhere on Twitter that the inside of your stomach turns bright red when you blush, and I’m staring at that red jotter you gave me on my 22nd birthday, and wondering if it’s the exact color of my stomach now. I don’t even know the original color of my stomach, if it has any color at all. But I’m imagining it does have, black to be precise, and it’s morphing into red. Because I’m blushing silly and I think the redness of my stomach might even be redder than all the red crayons I’ve seen in my life. I’m blushing because I remember how hard you loved me, how passionate your eyes were, how smooth, almost translucent your skin was. 

I remember the first day I received a rejection mail. I was in your arms, caressing your beards, staring into your eyes, when the email came in and ruined our beautiful amatory moment. It was from a literary magazine, I can’t remember which one now, but I still remember the exact content of the mail, and the words you said afterwards. 

“Dear Akuagwu Izunwanne,

Though we enjoyed your story, we’re sorry not to give it a home at this time. Please do consider to send us another, sometime in the future. Thanks.”

I remember tossing my phone on the floor, thankfully, it didn’t break, and yammering on why they wouldn’t accept my story.

I said, “Why are they telling me they enjoyed the story, ehn? Asi m what good will it do to know they enjoyed it? Like if you enjoyed it, then accept it, it’s not that difficult.” And you threw your head backwards and guffawed, till your stomach ached and you held it to ease the pain. 

You said, “Baby calm down. Don’t take it to heart abeg, it’s not that deep.”

“I will o, because why are they telling me they enjoyed it, when they didn’t? They shouldn’t patronize me abeg. And the one that’s even paining me the most is that I wrote this story specifically for them; like I targeted their submission window and submitted, only for them to serve me this cold breakfast…”

But you kissed me on the lips, and said these words I’d never forget in this lifetime, because they keep me sane whenever I’m second guessing my sanity and ability. They make me strong, whenever I feel my strength fizzling away, whenever I feel I cannot go on. 

“Baby, you’re the most amazing writer I know. You write so well, that I brag to all my friends about how smart and intelligent you are. You write so well that sometimes I think I don’t deserve this genius as my girlfriend. But not everybody has the ability to see the light that you are, and that’s okay. Not everybody can handle the greatness that you are, but that doesn’t make you less light, less great. It means your work hasn’t gotten to the right hands yet. Because even if you’re so good and end up in the wrong hands; they won’t know what to do with all that goodness, all that awesomeness…. You’re a star and I hope one day you’ll realize how proud of you I am. This story will be accepted by a bigger and better literary magazine, you’ll see.”

And it did happen, the story was shortlisted for a short story prize and I won $200. You prophesied about this, but it’s sad you’re not here to see me living the dream.

They say unexpressed emotions come back to haunt us, and I can't concur less. Because I wish I didn’t cut our kisses short, when I was mad at you. I wish I lingered more in your arms when I had the opportunity to. I wish I didn’t wait for you to leave, to tell you how much I love and appreciate you.

Distance does something to love. It squeezes the life out of it. Strand by strand, it cuts out all the fibers, all the fragments and leaves it bare, drained. But that’s not true in our case. Distance has done nothing to break the love I have for you. Instead it makes my heart fonder, my love, stronger and I’m falling deeper.

Have you listened to Simi’s Naked Wire? What do you think of it? Whenever I listen to that song, I cry. I cry because you were the only one that could spark my naked wire, you were the only one that made a kiss to not be just a kiss, but a meal to be savored, relished. You made me realize there was a God in heaven and that he loved me, because he sent you to me to teach me how to live life, how to smile, how to love.

Do you still remember how we role played? I was Simi and you were AG Baby. Do you remember how we sang ‘Take me back’ one Sunday night under the rain, and your neighbors were peeping from their windows, nose sticking out, eyes twitching in envy? They always told us to calm down, no be us be first to love, but we laughed and told them na so our own dey shack us. We knew the lyrics to ‘Promise me,’ and ‘Stand by you,’ by heart. Weren’t we going to make our own baby Deja? Wasn’t I going to sing and dance to ‘Duduke?’ 

These days I wonder a lot. I wonder if you still dip bread in your tea… You ehhn, you did a lot of cringy stuff. Nyama! Why would any sane person dip bread in their tea, if they were not going through a lot? Remember how I always asked if you were going through a lot, if you needed to see a therapist, because by my books, dipping bread in tea was a symptom of a mental disorder. You always laughed and said yes, you were going through a lot because you were mad. Mad over me… I thought you were cheeky, always saying things I wanted to hear, always patronizing me, and making me feel like the only girl in the world. 

I wonder if you ever think of me, or you’ve picked an eraser and wiped me off your memory. We didn’t part as best of friends, so I’ll understand if you’re sticking with the latter, if you crumpled that piece of paper that had me in it, and threw it into the bottomless pit. I wonder if you hear a song and a random memory of me pops up in your brain, if you see me in every movie you watch, every book you read, just as I do, you. 

When we parted ways, I was like, “Okay, this phase is over, cheers to a new dispensation and bla bla bla…” But omo ehhn, I didn’t realize there were stages to this, stages to break-up. There are days when I’d wake up, and everything is fine. I log into twitter, drop a few nuggets here and there, drag celebrities, yab influencers, have a great laugh and steal a few memes. But there are days when I’d wake up and the first thing I see is you, lying next to me, clad in your blue pajamas, and when I reach out to touch you, you vaporize like the mathematical formulas evaporating from my brain during exams and tests. And then I realize you are not here; you are gone, gone for good.

There are days when I listen to Adele and Olivia Rodrigo and feel nothing, but there are days I’d listen to ‘Don’t you remember?’ and ‘Drivers License’ and feel a cage of pigeons open in my belly, then I’d crumble like a shriveled leaf in the dry season. 

Break-up does something to your heart. This minute, it’s beating in a lilt; gentle, normal. The next, it’s galloping like an enraged horse in a tough Polo match. Everyone tells me this is a phase, and it will pass, but I don’t think so. This bloodcurdlingly soreness I feel in my heart, this overwhelmingly disastrous feeling of regret, and guilt and grief, will continue to live with me, in me. 

My life will always be bland like that Jollof rice I cooked for you the first day I visited your home. It tasted like sawdust, but you pretended to enjoy it and even forced yourself to finish the plate of horrible concoction I prepared and served. Yes, that is how insipid my life is right now. Because you were the only flavor that made me whole, the ingredient that made me savory, the essence of my life.

I wish I can just have a minute with you again, so I will right all the wrongs, so I will tell you how much I miss you. I miss your smile, how your eyes appeared closing, how you barely showed your teeth, how your dimples sank deep inside your cheeks when you smiled. You had a face that was always ready to smile and a disposition that suited it, and that was what I loved the most about you, your ability to smile, your ability to light up the room with your presence, your aura.  

Yesterday, Cheluchi made a horrible mess straightening out my hair with that iron, the one you customized my name on. When I complained, she said I should contact you to do a perfect job, and not disturb her life. She said I would never be satisfied with anyone’s effort and sadly, it is true. They’re not you, they can never be you. You were the best, you were perfect. You straightened out my hair like an expert, deftly, passionately, like that was your calling, like that was the only thing that mattered to you.

Everyone tells me to go see a therapist; because they’re convinced I can’t move on on my own, and I think I’ll give it a shot. I have to wean myself off of you, at least for my sanity. Everyone tells me to call you, and beg you to take me back, that I can’t go on missing you on my own, that we should get back together. But it’s too late, because I can never reach you no matter how hard I try. No one knows what really happened between us, or where you moved to. And you will never be able to tell them your own side of the story, because dead men tell no tales.

 If I’d known you’d die that easily and your death will cause me so much pain and misery, if I had known things would never remain the same even after three years of your departure to the other side, then I would have contained my anger. You always said my anger will land me into ofe di oku, a pot of hot soup one day, but you were wrong. It landed me into oku mmuo; that terrible lake of fire the Bible always threatens sinners with. Because your demise murdered me as well, and sent me straight to hell. Because though I pretend to still be a human who roamed the earth, my spirit has long deserted me, because you dragged it with you to the afterlife, three years ago.

Now, I merely exist, waiting for the day this alive body of mine, will finally journey to the great beyond, to mingle with my spirit body. 

If I’d known your life was so feeble, then I would have controlled my temper that day; that dreadful day, when I caught you having a threesome with two married women, on the mattress I bought you the previous month, to mark our three years anniversary. You didn’t know I had visited; I was just outside your flat, when I heard the ridiculous moans and stupid gasps from you and those shameless women. My blood froze, my heart quickened.  So I decided to peep, to surreptitiously be a spectator of that insane activity going on, but I didn’t know how hurt felt, what it had in stock for me, till I felt it that day.

Hurt became a monster and squeezed my neck; my humanity dripping and petering out from all the pain and compression, willing me to become one with the monster. Hurt became a chain, and bound me hands and feet, immobilizing me, forcing me to be deep-rooted to that spot, to not move, to not speak, to just stand, paralyzed, and listening to those atrocious sounds that drove me to the cliff of insanity. Hurt became a gag, choking me, shoving my mouth down my throat. I struggled to retrieve it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak again, I didn’t know how to. 

Hurt messed me up, reducing me to a bundle of wreck. It became a trip-hammer and  smashed the walls of my chest. And in my stomach, it became something indescribable, something that kept furling and unfurling. I wanted to be calm, to breathe in and out, to think straight, but I couldn’t. The scene I witnessed wouldn’t let me; they had already been a tattoo in my brain, bold, permanent. 

I must have stayed at that clandestine corner for hours, I don’t quite remember how long, now. But the moment I heard the women leave, I scampered to your room, fury curling deep in my gut.

I didn’t want to hear anything, didn’t want to speak, or confirm, or believe. I didn’t even give you time to speak, to recollect your lines, and spew them. But maybe you didn’t even have any lines at all. How could you, when you weren’t expecting me? I will always remember that look in your eyes, how they spoke volumes of how shocked you were, of how sorry you were that I caught you, cheating on me with married women. Haa! Na that one burst my brain pass… Of all the shapes, sizes, age brackets and status of women to choose from, of all the variety of women that existed, you chose the most abominable. Why married women?

I didn’t even give you the room to explain, to babble the conventional “Babe it’s not what you think, I can explain…” Bold of you to assume I was even thinking at all... Bold of you to think I cared for your explanation. I had forgotten how to think, because I no longer possessed the capacity to do so. I told you I became one with that monster, and monsters don’t think, they just act. So, while you were garnering your thoughts and speech, I walked straight to your cupboard, where you hid that pistol, Jide’s pistol, the one that had a silencer, and picked it up. 

You wanted to stop me, but before you could move, I pulled the trigger twice, and watched your chest explode into a red shower. 

                                     

Ezioma Kalu is a fast rising Nigerian writer and author. In 2021 she self-published an E-book; ‘Weird Obsession and other stories.’ Her works have appeared on some online literary platforms like Kalahari Review, Writers Space Africa - Nigeria, Terror House Magazine, Libretto Magazine, Salamander Ink Magazine and Livina Press. She runs a book blog, where she writes amazing reviews on books. Kalu writes from Enugu, Nigeria, and looks forward to creating a niche for herself in the literary world.

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