PUBLISH’D AFRIKA Magazine Facebook Short Story Competition – April 2023 Leg/ Isaac Tlaka

THEME: KNOCK YOURSELF OUT

TITLE: Grasping At Petals

Written by Isaac Tlaka

I know some of you wonder why it’s hard for me to move on and forget about her. The truth of the matter is that like the sky, my love for her is endless.

I met her at Jane Furse Library. She had come to borrow some fictional books. With her index finger rested on her lower lip as if thinking, she was standing still at a fiction bookshelf, her attention captured by neatly shelved books in front of her. I then fought and triumphed over my hesitancy to approach her. Out of courage, this word came out of my mouth, “Gorgeous.”

She turned and frowned at me, as though what I had just uttered was a total insult to her. Nevertheless, I introduced myself to her.

“I’m Lebadi.”

“What can I do for you, Lebadi?” she said rudely and switched her attention back to the books on the shelf.

“Which book grabs your interest on this shelf?” I asked politely.

“Brother, give me some space so that I can pick the book that grabs my interest in peace,” she said acidly, without looking at me.

My heart throbbed at what she had just said to me, yet I pushed on, “May I have your phone number?”

She looked at me and said, “You don’t give up, do you?”

“I don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “More especially when I want to acquire something in which I see value in.”

“I don’t get you.”

“In the ladies like you, who love books, I find value. To me, you are all equivalent to the diamond that reflects even when the darkness prevails. But you,” I patted her on the shoulder, “remain the lady I choose. The diamond I want to possess till the end of time.”

My words triggered her smile, and then I saw a ray of hope to win her heart. For a moment, she looked into my face, and her smile lingered a little longer. Then her whole face suddenly lit up, as if a sudden realisation had dawned on her.

“Wait! Are you the author of TRAVELLING TO THE MOON?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “How did you know?”

“‘Equivalent to the diamond that reflects even when the darkness prevails’,” she quoted. “That’s what you have written on the title page of the book you signed for my friend who bought it a year ago,” she added.

She was right; there was a lady from Facebook who bought my book. Believe it or not, that lady was the only Facebook friend of mine who bought my book. I remember writing these words on the title page of that book before I signed it and sent it to her: ‘A book lover is equivalent to the diamond that reflects even when the darkness prevails.’ 

“Oh! I didn’t know that lady is your friend.”

“She is. She said she saw you promoting your book on Facebook, it grabbed her interest that she decided to buy it,” she told me.

“So, did she lend it to you so that you could absorb its content as well?”

Laughing a bit, she said, “No, she refused to lend it to me, saying I should buy my own copy. When she told me how impressive that book was, I suffered from FOMO. You know, Fear Of Missing Out? Lacking money to buy it compelled me to look for it at the very same library, and I was lucky enough to find it.”

Indeed, the copies of my book were shelved in both Jane Furse and Tshehlwaneng libraries.

“I didn’t know you have read my book,” I said, delighted.

 “Dude, you hit that romantic novel out of the park.”

“Thank you for your kind words, my sister.”

“My name is Palesa,” she said, her face now having loosened up.

“I’m quite pleased to know you, Palesa.”

“Not as pleased as I am, Lebadi Manamelela, a gentleman, who wrote an engaging romantic novel.”

She mentioned my name and surname exactly the way they are printed on the front cover of my book. I grinned, hoping she was into me now, and she raised my hopes high when she gave me her phone number, without me asking for it again.

Because her phone number was what I was eager to acquire, I said this as I was about to leave her at the fiction bookshelf, “Thank you, Palesa. I’ll phone you later today.”                                                 

“So, you want to tell me that you are parting with me now? Come on, Mr Author, I still need your company,” she said with a smile accompanied by a wink. Winking back, I inched closer to her. She picked up two books from a fiction shelf, which were BLACK DIAMOND and WAYS OF DYING, both by Zakes Mda.

“I want to borrow these books,” she showed the books to me.

“You won’t regret because they are both interesting,” I assured her.

“Oh! You’ve read them?”

“Yes,” I nodded confidently, “a while ago.”

Laughing weakly, she gently hit her forehead with the palm of her hand and said, “Why did I have to ask, because it’s obvious that a fine writer is an avid reader?”

Without anything to say, I just flashed a smile.

“Are you also here to borrow books?” she asked.

“No, I’m here to return books I have borrowed from this library almost a month ago,” I said, opening a backpack which was in my hand, took out three books and showed them to her. All of them were novels: Mongane Wally Serote’s TO EVERY BIRTH ITS BLOOD, Ahmadou Kourouma’s ALLAH IS NOT OBLIGED and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s THE WIZARD OF THE CROW.

She told me that amongst the books, she had only read TO EVERY BIRTH ITS BLOOD. But I said nothing, rather looked seriously in her angelic face. Surprised, she asked if she had said something to upset me.

“No,” I shook my head quickly. “I’m just imagining the perfect couple we are going to make. The couple that shares the same interests,” I didn’t know where the courage to say this came from.

 “I don’t want to entertain what you have just said, Lebadi,” she said, her face grim.

“You don’t have to entertain it right now. Take your time, My Flower. Surely the right time for you to entertain what I have just said to you will come, and I will know where I stand with you,” I said, looking straight into her eyes.

With a suppressed smile, she shook her head and said, “Let’s do what we have come here for and leave this place. We did exactly what she said.

Indeed, the right time for her to entertain what I had said to her came, and I became her boyfriend. This happened three days after I had met her. Her village is not far from mine. That’s why it was easy for us to meet for a drink at our nearby shopping centre.

 A week after our relationship began; I asked her out on a date. She agreed. Two days later we went out on a date. That’s when in our conversation I learnt that aside from being an avid reader, she had a degree in midwifery. “I’m currently looking for a job. It’s been years since I’ve acquired my degree, but hey, it’s tough out there. Jobs are scarce,” she further said.

“But you will eventually find it, My Flower,” I said, brushing her shoulder.

After she had asked me what else I was doing aside from writing, she couldn’t hide her disappointment when I sincerely replied to her that I was a university dropout.

Raising her eyebrow, she further asked, “You want to tell me that you don’t have either a degree or diploma?”

“Yes, my love.”

“What compelled you to drop out of university?”

“Financial issues,” I couldn’t hide the truth.

“I understand,” her nod was relaxed, and I could tell she was deep in thought.

As time went by the struggle of being an unsigned author got the best of me. I felt like that struggle was jeopardising my relationship with Palesa, as it was quite hard for me to meet her needs. Yes, I could try my best to make her happy, but I felt like that was not enough.                                                                         There were times when my novel, TRAVELLING TO THE MOON, didn’t sell. I would look at the copies with disappointment, which were gathering dust in my room and felt like I was failing as an indie author. As normal, my efforts to promote my novel on social media platforms were in vain.

My financial predicament as an author in whom Palesa had taken interest the first time we met seemed to weigh heavily on our relationship. She seemed to have been losing faith in me, judging by what she had shared on her WhatsApp status one evening. She had shared a photo of her friend who had gone on vacation with her boyfriend. That friend of hers had posed for that photo holding a bunch of flowers her boyfriend had probably bought her. ‘Unlike me, my friend is not dating Sahara Desert. She is in Wetland, where it rains on her whenever.’  This caption was affixed below the photo that Palesa had shared on her WhatsApp status to which I couldn’t reply, rather felt like I was a subject of comparison.

One midnight when I was wrestling with insomnia, Palesa sent me a WhatsApp text, asking if I really loved her.

“What kind of question is that, Palesa?” I asked, puzzled.

“I just don’t see our relationship making progress, Lebadi. It’s not like I don’t acknowledge the efforts you make to preserve this relationship, but I don’t see us going anywhere.”

“What can I do to convince you that I love you, Palesa?”

“I don’t know, Lebadi, I really don’t know. I mean, we have been dating for such a long time, but our relationship is stagnant. I’m just tired of this long courtship.”

“Look, Palesa, I’m currently trying to accumulate money, and soon I’ll send my uncles to your home go kgopela sego sa meetse (to officialise our relationship),” I was sincere, as I had just found a piece job, which would take me two weeks to complete.

“You better hurry up, because time is flying.”

“I promise, My Flower.”

She didn’t reply to this text.

The next day her cellphone was off, not until in the evening of that day when she phoned me, asking for a meet up the next day. We met at our nearby shopping centre as normal. But this time she showed no interest in entering the restaurant.

“I’m not here to stay. We can talk right here,” she said, pointing down to the veranda of the cellphone store on which we were standing.

“What do you want us to talk about right here, Palesa?” I asked curiously.

She gently held my hand and said softly, “Lebadi, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me–”

“Hold it right there, because that’s too cliché,” I cut her off, pulling my hand out of hers. “Just tell me why you are breaking up with me. I mean it’s quite plain that breaking up with me is what you have invited me here for.”

“Okay Lebadi!” she snapped at me, her eyes filled with tears. “Since I have realised that our relationship is not working, I suggest we stop wasting each other’s time and part ways.”                                                                 

I then regretted why I cut her off when she said I was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Had I given her a chance to speak further, perhaps she would have said something better than what she had just said to me, I thought to myself while my eyes were fixed on her as she walked away.                                                                                      Later that day I decided to block her on both my Facebook and WhatsApp accounts, feeling like keeping her would be nothing but torture to me. A month later, I threw myself into a rebound relationship.                                                                                       

A year after Palesa had broken up with me, she got married to a certain guy, whom I assumed she had been seeing while she was in a relationship with me. I, on the other hand, am still stuck here grasping petals of a flower that couldn’t stand firm against the wind.

_____________

PUBLISH’D AFRIKA Magazine Facebook Short Story Competition is funded by the National Arts Council, Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme 3