Abbra

It wasn't immediate. It took some time before I realized that I was on a bus. My soul felt cheated. All the anticipation. The sleepless nights. Packing. The simplest thing on earth to do. When you're twenty-two -- with back home with the mom, grandma and little baby niece being your only guaranteed shelter and three meals one-stop pitstop for the mid-year holiday -- it's not rocket science to pack a suitcase. It's common knowledge. Fill it with laundry, and brace yourself. I'm braced. I'm going to get home. My grandmother Anna -- a true woman of the earth, bless her -- is going to throw a fit as usual. It happens every year. I don't mind it. I wouldn't be half the person I am today were it not for 'Banana', as my cousin Freddy and I call her. She has taught me a lot about love. My grandfather Charles was a violent man. I have two memories from my childhood. The first being the day when I saw Banana backing away. I was standing in the bathroom. A small, square box. A bathtub. A basin. A door. A white-tiled passage corridor beyond the door. My grandmother backing away. My mom backing away right in front of her with her arms stretched out, shielding her from what approached. My grandfather was advancing on the pair holding a steak knife quite menacingly. Thinking back, it was quite a comical scene. Like something out of a lame slasher film, with cheesey screeching sounds wailing in the background. Only, it wasn't a film. It was my reality. The second is when he kicked us out. I watched for the first time as my mom broke down. She wept. I stood there in her bedroom - seven, eight, I don't know - and I watched my mommy cry. And my heart broke for the very first time that night. We slept over at my aunt's. That's as much as I remember of that night. But the memory of my mommy crying is imprinted at the back of my mind. Thinking back, I simply didn't understand. My grandfather was not a bad person. Banana would have never married a bad person. He, a Gemini. She, an Aquarius. Their union was written in the stars. I can almost imagine a young Anna dazzling young Charles with fun, quirky facts about everything under her sun, him going off on tangents about everything from the apartheid government to jazz and underground musicians. I can almost imagine their first date: perhaps a short, late-evening stroll through the kraal. He'd hold her hand and tell her she's beautiful. She'd blush. More dates. A kiss. Soccer games. Basketball games. Passion. My aunt is born. Lethabo. A Tswana name meaning 'happy'. Happy.
Surely they must have been happy once. Surely he wasn't a monster. Surely there was another place in space and time where he was truly everything a little boy would ever wish for in a grandfather. A man who wouldn't beat on his wife and daughter while his grandchildren watched on. A man who didn't break windows. Surely my grandfather was not always simply a man who would wake up every single morning, go get wasted with deadbeat friends, come home and vent on his family. That is the man I knew, but surely he wasn't my grandfather? I never knew my grandfather, but Banana did. And she loved him until the day he died because she stayed. She didn't try to fix him. She simply prayed for him, and prayed that he come to his senses. Banana knew Charles, and that is enough for me. She was with him when he died. She says he smiled. She didn't look upset that day. I swear I saw her smile. But it wasn't a vengeful, malicious smile. Something happened between them as the light faded from his eyes. Banana's smile, thinking back, was one of having found closure - peace. She knew he had gone to a better place, because she had prayed for him. In those last moments, young Anna and Charles met one last time - and I can only imagine how magical that moment must have been. Because I too have loved.

Charles died at the age of seventy-two. Banana's still alive. Beautiful hearts live long. And she has lived to see me become not simply a well-rounded man, but a successful one too. And every single year, for the past four years, I have come home to the exact same narrative. She opens my suitcase, yells bloody murder when she discovers - as she probably expected - that I just shoved my laundry in there and brought it home, and washes it regardless. It's adorable. I imagine it isn't her bliss that I'm lazy, and very against doing anything that requires something mundane being done; but she does my laundry regardless. She does it with love. And so I'm on my way home for the first time in six months with a suitcase filled with an array of dirty garments. Banana will yell. I accepted this as my best friend Matthe and I trudged up the hill to the bus stop sharing a cigarette. Matthe's always been good company, bless him. He always lets me think I'm smarter than what he is. It's a curious relationship him and I have. He simply lets me be. He once gave me the best piece of advice on women that I fully recommend all males learn how to use.
"Be random," he said. I got it. Cyndi Lauper was right: girls really do just want to have fun. Especially now in our twenties. But here's where all females go wrong, according to me. They don't realize that we - the good guys - are brought up as princes. I, for one, was brought up as a prince. I was a sickly baby, in and out of hospital. I've been a chronic asthmatic all my life. In short, I was really pampered. Not spoiled, simply faffed over. The slightest cough warrented a visit to the doctor. My diet was special. I was showered with plenty of affection. When I was in hospital, I imagine I turned on my charm tenfold so as to attract all those nurses, mothers and daughters. I imagine my younger self grew addicted to being in hospital because this is where he got the most affection from an early age. I can imagine nurses fawning over me as a child, remarking on how beautiful I am and always wanting to feed me because I would never say no to a good meal. I imagine my younger self craved love so much that he subconsciously made himself sick, so as to be special. We all want to be special. As I grew, I learned that special came at a heavy price. Somewhere down the line, I also grew to realize that Death is inevitable. And my asthma seemed an excuse more than an ailment. I mean, it didn't stop me from smoking. I already knew I would become a smoker by the time I was in grade 7. I remember telling my friend Stacey that I would buy my first box of cigarettes when I turned sixteen. It happened three years later. Regardless, it happened. And it was truly one of the best choices I've ever made. Sure, I won't be saying that if I'm dying of cancer on my deathbed when I'm fifty years old, they tell me. I say, I'm not fifty yet. I'm twenty-two. And death by cancer isn't how I'm going. You forget who I Am. People tend to miss life by worrying too much about the future. Live now. I should not be alive today. I should have died as an infant. I should have succumbed to my asthma and died. But I didn't. I should have died in that car-crash back in grade three, but I didn't. I should have been drawn into the wrong crowd, filled the stereotype of black South African male from the township who amounts to nothing and turns to crime, and been shot and killed in a melodramatic stand-off with Five-O, but I didn't. And it is all because Banana loved Charles, and they went on to have two more daughters after Nthabiseng. My aunt Henrietta, and my mother Hanna. Young Anna and Charles must have seen bright futures for these two daughters, because they gave them rather English names. English has been quiet the nasty little thorn in my side. The ideology, perpetuated by the language itself, is an oppressive figure. Oh, the culture is beautiful. I've always aspired to being a part of the English society. England was, for the longest of whiles, my key destination. If past-lives existed, I would definately like to think that I would have been an Englishman. A knight, perhaps. Or a Lady. It doesn't really matter. I imagine I would be an amazing person regardless. It's not narcissism, I imagine. Surely to imagine the best for oneself is all right. Surely the very best of us lies behind the material. Surely behind the make-up, and the labels, and the bling and the smokey mirrors there lies a beautiful smile which only wants to be seen. Material is a really easy cheat code to the good life. But that good life is an illusion. Heaven is right here on earth. The streets are paved with potential which is turned into reality with mere thoughts. Providence will provide. You simply have to believe in the best fantasy character there is in all of existence: YOU.
I'm not fighting English. It allows me to be as expressive as I dare. English lets me bury my truths in aesthetically pleasing turns of phrases and a multiverse of emotions. I don't need to fight it. I'm only twenty two. On a bus across South Africa for the very first time. A prince who has always flown. I simply played on my asthma as a means of avoiding fourteen hours of roadtime. But I don't wish to fly on machines anymore. My power is Love, and it is your power too. I have simply come to it before you. But it's lonely being the only one. Hear me. Realize that you are hearing me as you see these words. Realize that the voice you are hearing saying all of this to you is your own. Realize that as surely as I was on a bus back home. As surely as I am wherever I am right now, the only place I exist right now for certain, is in your head. My voice is your voice. Now look in the mirror, and realize that you are the very best of Love.
I once knew love. It came from one whom I wanted, but couldn't have. It simply wasn't written. Oh, how she brought out the very best in me. As surely, she brought out the worst. Her power was great. When in her presence, time would become fluid - almost eternal. She and I can get lost in moments so deep and passionate, and escape all notions of anything else. When we kiss, I melt. Her hands are small. She's small. On earth there's a saying: 'Dynamite comes in small packages'. Oh, how explosive her love was. I remember her kiss. Soft, small lips. She'd kiss slow. Tenderly. Long. I feel her love course through my veins. It was only this morning that I woke up to her incredible face. I wrapped my arm around her, and she kissed me. Again, time stood still as we made out. It was the most humbling experience of my life. She brought me to my knees. She will always be the one who taught me love. It is from her breasts that I learned of intimacy. It is from her tongue that my own learned to form the magical words of her beautiful name. I will always love her. And it is because she loved me so, that she freed me that I may love again. And so will she. We will love again. I will love again, and I will bless all who wish to do nothing but love me with the very best of me in return. But the only way to believing the best of me comes in believing it of yourself first. Only through the power of Love will any truly be worthy of the very best of me.

I realize I didn't explain what I mean by Love. It seems I must. Love is God. Simple as that. God is Love. All that is good. All that is pure. All that is beautiful. All that is. I came to this understanding of God through Marianne Williamson, whose book "Return to Love" synchronistically fell into my lap. But this isn't the story of Love. This is a story about the boy who took a bus for the very first time. In this story, the boy tells the story of how you are the very best of Love. The boy isn't trying to get famous. The boy wasn't trying to make money. The boy simply wished to tell you that the bus was blue. The boy was lonely, and so he wrote. He wrote of love; the love of lonely traveler through this world of potential, searching for a friend. Until She who sings Love and writes Joy and Sunshine in his heart and him meet.