My pillow, my little friend, a lone knows my story as I do. We don’t talk, probably it’s stupid to think that one would talk to a pillow. But we have been intimate friends, like two dumb people who both know their stories. It has lost it’s original color; If you carefully observe it’s front part you will notice that It hast turned from white to cream, it’s beauty has been stained by my tear drops, like a pale rose lost to the scorching heat of sunlight.
I spend the day pretending everything is fine. I joke with my friends and laugh at their jokes. I go for evening walks. But when the sun retires, I go to my bed. There without the lights I quietly cry. Tears flow unnoticed to the world, there in the dark; only known to me and my bed. I spend the whole night picturing heaven and wondering if it exiests, and if it does, when I will visit it.
I crave for sleep but can’t find it, I close my eyes and squeeze the tears out, closing one darkness to another. Thoughts flood my mind. I try to shut them out but they won’t leave. They are ever here, like a woman forcing a broken relationship to work again. I hear voices and when I close my eyes, they enter my mind. I roll and roll. The nights are longer than usual.
Day breaks. I get up and dress up. I go to face the bright world and envy the smiles on people’s faces. I meet a couple kissing on the streets and curse them , calling them immoral youths with no shame. The truth is am jealous. I wonder why it is not me she loves. why it’s not me she kisses. why it is me who doesn’t have much of the luxuries of this life, why it’s me that the world is too busy to notice.
I steal off to the woods as usual. I listen to the birds sing me a pitying son. I sit under a tree and try to have a second of peace with the cool breeze. The thoughts come uninvited. I try fighting them. They keep laughing; making mockery of my efforts. They call me names; a nobody, a looser who doesn’t want to accept truth, a lonely ugly poor lad that every girl rejects, a university drop out, a useless life that’s better off some where in a pit.
I get up and run a way. Am ever on a chase though my chaser is invisible. I run to church and enter like one being chased by demons. Everyone looks at me. I ignore them and just sit.
The preaching is on. I wish I could make sense of the sermon. What does this man mean? That God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That his son died on the cross to save us from our original sin. Which sin? Why do we have to bare the Sins of the long lost past; a past that was before we were?
Perhaps if it is true Christ saved us, I guess if he did save us from our sins he forgot to save us from our selves; much of the pain we cause ourselves, the feelings of discontentment, desires that can barely be satisfied , our inability to forgive ourselves of ourselves.
The voices follow me. Where in this world will I be safe? They start talking. They say it’s a waste of time. They say there is no such a thing as God or his love,
“ If God exists and if he Is truly love as they say, why is he not here now that you need him? Where was he when everyone left? Why did he have to let all that happened to you happen?” The voices try to get me reasoning their way.
I silently walk out. I return home under the light of the fading sun, missing my favorite friend. I sit on my bed and light a candle. It’s long burnt down, I doubt if it will light long.
It’s been long since I last read from mum. I wonder where she is. Could she be in heaven as the pastors say? I don’t know. I pull out a diary she left me. She only wrote in it once, a few lines on the first page;
" for my beloved child yet to be born, one who will wander in this world alone when am gone. If he ever reads this, I want him to know that I love him and miss him. "
I call to mind a question pastor Mark asked me one-day; “what would you wish to do before your Demise?”
I pick a pen and paper, I write:
“ I would like to sleep before I finally sleep. “
With a rope tightly tied a round my neck and voices Saying “go on do it. There is nothing your living for,”
I am not sure if I should. But I quit.