"Mum! Dad! He... eeey! How come? Eerhm! I mean .... you are back! Don't get me wrong but you guys are not supposed to be back anytime soon; was the communication, so am a bit surprised. Needn't I forget, this house is yours and you can choose to come in and go as you like. 'I added.
And that's me trying so hard not to give them the "You not needed impression" Yet failing miserably with my awkward behavior and fumbled expressions alongside the dissertation if they were the cause Naana had to run out on me.
"what's the urgency in reporting home asap anyways? Hope am safe? "
"Keana come here. Come have a sit with me." Proposed my mother calmly with a sad uncomfortable face which I refrained in suspicion.
"What's up Mrs. Thendi? Hope all is well?" I inquired audibly still maintaining my position cause, it was weird. She is not about to give me a lecture on an unforeseen omission or berate me right? I hope not, but if so? I might as well just take it Standing and what's with the melancholic demeanor though. I examined indifferently.
"Baby come here." My dad called to me, disrupting my suspicious thoughts with his raspy tone.
"Why are you guys acting kind of bizarre?" I mean, this is not the first time they were returning from a trip so suddenly? Forgive my initial manners anyways ... Although, this was in record timing, so much so, it is to discuss anything with me standing or locomotive. Besides, sometimes or many times than I can remember being on the move alongside talks was a common practice in this household; where us three here is concerned; So?
'I calculated in my hyper active ass skull antagonistically waiting for a response without moving a muscle. I needed to know why they broke their schedule, why I was rushed out of work; most of all, why they were being extremely extra nicely calm; lined with a heavy melancholic air. I could swear! I was choking on the weight! I hope I am not going to be shipped off to a rich rotten kid in an arranged marriage. I would surely disown them this time around if they dared.
"Baby girl, stop being stubborn and come have a seat, let's talk." My dad called me out of my overriding anxious thoughts again. 'Well! it couldn't be that bad?' I surmised deciding to go pin my tail down though, not near any of them rather a free sofa which faced theirs giving them a platform to clear my doubts first. cautious! is the word! when my mother burst out in pitiful sobs to my disassembling. Great timing mom! 'Oh! shoot! Did I cause that? I mean, what have I done now? Is it me or she just being utterly dramatic again?' i dont know which is which but that's the old man's last delicate button. I didn't want to wait for his reaction. I run to her side instantly sort of remorseful of what happened muttering in statics ....
"Sor-rry m-o-ther! Sorry! Sorry! " as well as ignorant of how to console her. Whether to hug, tap or rob her back; I didn't know. Nerdy and Stupid! Right? Yeah! I mean, she was my mom but I was just too confused to know what to do! Thanks to the professional kind of relationship i had with her instead of the warm cooing mother-daughter thing. Plus she caught me off guard. 'The seemingly delicate thing.' Oh! please, be not fooled by her antics. Consoling was Grandma's specialty anyways, not mine! I thought my conserved earlier behavior got to her that much ... So yeah! now you know. I switched sides as swiftly as I could to my dad's side to ask for assistance in calming her down cause she was inconsolable surprisingly, as well as make him know It was not deliberate.
"Did I do that?" I whispered as well as gesticulated out of order to my dad in anxiety, feeling worse. He shut his eyes solemnly, hands balled up, jaws clenched with a stressful strain on his face. 'Shit! Am dead!' I concluded because, I knew he was pissed. My daddy loved my mom to nuts! And the last thing he'd want to see is anybody making her drop a tear talk less of showers. 'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!' I kept reiterating in my useless coconut, I carried as a head. I need help! Yes! i did! I need an advocate and fast! if not? am a goner! Yet there is no one in sight! I am doomed. Unfortunately, the best person who could have succeeded left a day earlier.
'Oh! grandma! thy haste destroyeth me! what do I do? what do I do?'
I continued to run over and over in my heard fidgeting in craze. I hardly noticed Mr. Thendi had opened his eyes and was more calm now. He addressed me ...
"Your Grandma..." He choked on the name, which was taken by an overdriven desperate soul like me for good tidings.An overly hasty squirrel was I, I must admit. 'Good graces!' I memorized not waiting for the complete sentence, as I flew pass the both of them headed to her room wording....
" I knew she couldn't keep her adamant front with me forever! I knew she would cave in at a point but didn't know it would be when I needed her most! Great timing! which better time could she come to my rescue than this? impeccable timing grans. She is a genius!' I jubilated psychologically. I needed her to come adjudicate asap! If not? I will be a lost soul. "Grandma!" I shouted bursting her door open; only to halt in my tracks as an empty room welcomed me to my devastation.
The room was just as the day she departed. I turned around weakly to head back when the thought crossed my mind ... "She could be in the bathroom." I listened first, without getting any sound from there then decided better sure than in suspense. The door creeks open at the turning of it handle by me, making way slowly to a room as dry as the harmattan season. "Grandma?" I beseeched out wearily again, only to receive echoes of my voice back in response.
"What is going on? Did the old guy just play a prank with my emotions now? Also at a time his wife was in tears? Unlike him." That was when the memory refreshment happened. The terminal wake up knock on my head abstractedly took effect. "Holy crap!" My mother was in tears and it was my fault! Worst of all, Grandma is not here as I expected to put in a plea for me! My saving grace gone with the wind. Done for was I! But I vividly heard him say "Grandma!" So what's up? What am I going to do? However, I can't give up, not yet. I need to save my neck.' I continued to dissect the facts, fiction and probabilities whiles heading back shoulder sagged in disappointment alongside praying for a miracle.
"Dad, Grandma is not in her room." I informed him with a microscopic watch on my tone respectfully, as I step out of the inner hall way. He had his wife in his arms for consolation whereas she buried her head in his chest adorably, though still crying. #My fuck up! 'They truly look good together. I couldn't help but adore. How I wish, I could reach this kind of love.' I thought, lost there for awhile admiringly. 'Snap! out of it! Gullible moron! You in a bind and still day dreaming?' My cowardly inner being deals me brutally.
"That is what I was trying to tell you baby girl." cut through the the disarming abuse of my lifetime nemesis. My awful narcissist conscience.
"What? But you said Grandma a while back."
"Yes! I did. Keana since you will not give up the hardness and sit? Am afraid, I have to do it your way." My way? As in how? What does the old guy mean? 'I panicked in my medulla, swallowing hard.'
"Brace yourself, sorry bunny .... Your Grandma is no longer with us. " He simply put while wiping his face.
"I know that Daddy." I said grudgingly , just to be faced with an extremely shocked, frozen couple. My dad composed himself , cleared his throat then pressed.
"When? How did you get to know? And are you okay?" My mother's cries looks to have been done away with by earlier answer. 'Yeey! I undid what I did. But she still maintains her surprised feature with a look of 'I am seeing an alien in my house right now.' All spread on her slightly puffy surface with red panda alike eyes now. 'Why the numerous questions plus the strange gawks?'
"like seriously guys? I was with her when she departed from here the day before guys. It is no news. 'I added disappointedly.' To think that I begged her wholeheartedly to reconsider her decision to return to no fruitfulness still hurts. So when you said Grandma a while ago, I thought she rescinded her decision and was here." I elaborated fussing but skeptically.
In a moment, it was as though a load was lifted off my parents shoulders as they heaved a weighty sigh of relief then the next second, they were back at it again. Reverse reset.
"Oh! Silly child." Mum audibly says as she returns to her sobs.Dad on the other hand has been shaking his bowed head bewilderedly since I explained myself and I simply don't know what exactly they wanted to hear. In fact! I am confused as at now.
"Keana honey, I am so sorry to tell you this but Naana gave up the ghost."
"What? " I rebuffed with an abnormally palpitating heart in my chest without trust of the choice of words I had just registered. "Come on dad! 'scoffs' Is that supposed to be some kinda joke? Well! it ain't funny. Mind you, we don't mess around with serious stuff such as a life! This is even not just anybody! This is Grandma we talking of here please." I debated almost in tears, disassociating myself from the hard reality. Begging in the end could literally be me pleading for the opposite of the truth. I only needed him to say it was a nasty unforgivable prank. I swear, I would fucking forgive him. He simply had to! Shitty denial was my state.
"Baby, I could never do that. Certainly not with grandma. I am telling the truth Naana is no more." He concluded solemnly, compounded by my mother's increase in wails.
"Naana! Is no more what? Coming to town, to see me or what .... dad?" I croaked defiantly crumbling inside still holding up the atheist wall as high as ever.
"Kea. Hon. Breath!" My father calmed.
"But I just saw her not long ago! How could this be possible? 'I challenged.' Did she encounter an accident? poor Grandma. Co- cau- se people don't just die?" I simply needed something to make this whole craze reasonable.
"Calm down baby girl." All this while my mother could not talk yet her cries only intensified. Grandma was her mother and fathers inlaw. Now my father was torn between convincing me as well as make me take it calmly and consoling my mother. He must have run in and out of the insane building mentally a dozen times to be the strong pillar for all of us this time. It is blending in now, this was why they returned in record time, called me out of work. Their awkward behavior. Even my mother's tears? It wasn't me as I had thought but the lose. Oh! oh! oh! Grandma. ' I lamented dejectedly within registering cracks further more. I can't and will not endorse this, I fought vehemently.
"This can not be true! I refuse to accept ! Listen, Naana will never do this to me! Never!" I screamed rebelliously as insubordinate tears rushed out my visual optics uncalled, whiles every piece of me began to break down in atoms. My sense of centeredness melted away slow stiflingly as the Antarctic mellow liquidation. Not in any way ready to take what was been said. "No! She couldn't possibly just leave me like this. No. She can't." I kept whispering pitifully in agony as the heartless dark doom of gloom in mind crept steadily on me. My once high notes lost their boost, lost in thoughts with eyes drained of life, out in the void like a schizophrenia victim, unconscious of my present world. Lost in recounts of memories, playbacks and resounding of these debilitating short yet felt verbose unwanted statement... "Naana has given up the ghost!" What happened to her? I mean she was energetic last I remember. Was she hiding something, like a terminal condition Frome me? Judging from her last reaction and interaction with me ... of course! She was weird but not deathly weird? If only I wasn't so much engrossed with myself; how could I have missed this? Oh! Grandma! I am so, so sorry! Forgive my selfishness. 'I sobbed bitterly, falling on my knees as the rip in my heart hit hardest depriving me of balance.' Somehow it begun to dawn on me with excruciating guilt as acceptance meandered it way into my conscience. My knees also buckled making me spread on the floor like a stroke patient and I balled up pitifully whimpering and clawing at the foreign customized tiles like a wounded game.
My parents were at my side before I knew it. My father tried to hold me up but I wrestled for freedom from him fiercely yet he would not let go in the end, I let loose all the pent up emotions in an ugly wail.
"Dad-dy, Gr-and-ma! I ..." I began then continued to stifle on the words as my glaring faux pas would not even blink , biting away chunks of my soul torturously and all he could do was crash me in his arms helplessly yet affectionately whiles waving back and forth with the consolatory words ...
"Come here baby! Hush now! Shush! shush! Baby you going to be fine . You are a strong and brave young woman and grandma knows this but you need to make her more proud by sailing this storm. Calm down. Daddy is here for you. Calm down baby. Daddy loves you. You need to breath honey." In a broken voice.
I felt drops of hot liquid on my neck every once in a while with sniffle sounds. Well, the rock I guess became vulnerable too, he cried looking at the devastated me.
For days to come, I was a shadow of myself, in emotional wreckage. I would hide from the world. Attending to myself was even out of the question talk less of work. Buried in my room, in self flagellation; with thoughts, what I could have done to better the situation, make this unburden-some or avert the disaster. Sleeplessness conjoined with Non stop tears were my daily dose of vitamin in repentance, whiles I sulk in mourning. All I saw was her face with a smiley on constantly when I shut my eyes ;which was a torment to my core.
Nothing could draw me out. Visits from my employees who wanted to come give me their condolences, witnessed my absence. My wretched state was best kept to me, in inside my four walled room.
Until it was time to go say my final good bye, for good to grandma. I had still not come to terms with the tragedy but my Naana conditions, better expressed 'wishes' were to be met and I was willing to give her that last respect plus honor. I never gave her nothing but took senselessly. She was always there for me whiles I was all about my fucking self! now I understand what she meant by
"It wasn't always going to be about me."
She wanted me in the village specifically as the master of ceremony to bury her. Even to the end, she was considerate of me! but in a cruel manner. She promised to call me to the rural area but I never thought it would be in such a heart wrenching mood. However, I can't disappointed her, even though it hurts as hell! Her wish was my command! How I wish she asked for something full of life. Never the less, I was going to do it for her spirit to rest well in peace.
******************************************
The death of her Grandma was the beginning to mystery unravel, an invitation to the full acceptance to the call of duty, the journey back in time to unfreeze the time snooze on the archaic unresolved past of herself; turning the tables around on the modern world where she was presently, putting it in a time snooze.
A step of her right foot on the invincible line marking the boundary's of the land from the present where she stepped down from the bus with her parents, few steps ahead from the bus and road, unleashed a binding magic of old. It made her eyes glow a dreamy turquoise blue rivaled by the fiery red beckoning forth a violent wind, sending a jolt of energy into the earth like a knock on mother earths door causing a vicious tremor through the ground, sending a fan of dust into the air as it bolts away from her.
"Whoa! Guys! can you see this?"
She couldn't believe what she saw, her mind was viscous, before she could turn around to seek explanation from her unresponsive parents, a refraction of what had run off came back in a whirl loop of a triad of two power sources of crimson red and sea blue spiral dancing violently yet synchronically then sucked her in.
"Father! mother! help!" She cried out sounding as if she was under water to receive no response. All she heard was her late grandma's voice.
"You are called home, it is time my priestess." The last view she had of her parents before she was finally zapped away by the current of the unknown was their wandering look in a statue state. They were paused in time. She lost consciousness trying to wrestle back in her already weak state. Her world became void without form and darkness welcomed her into it mysterious arms.
The beginning of the journey to unravel mysteries.