LIFE, AS NEVER PROMISED: Pawners Paper

A short story, fiction that narrates the story of a lover that sacrificed himself because of love

                       

        

LIFE, AS NEVER PROMISED

As we both sat on the edge of the familiar cliff, gazing around and wondering how much nature has adored the earth with her stretches. She caressed my right ear lobe as she had always done

 " that's my little way of tricking your wandering mind toward me..." She had always said. But she was right, I was a person with a never stagnant mind. She drew her face closer to mine and whispered succinctly to my ear like a lad revealing to his mate the peak of his Royal pranks

" What do you see when you close your eyes whenever fate has us alone to itself, my seer?"

I took a glance at her beautiful face as everything around us seem numb and absent; starting from her huge crystal green eyes, her puffy red cheeks, her perfectly round crafted nose which likened her to a funny-no nonsense dame, her Blondie ponytail repeatedly fluttered by the mountain breeze to her succulent lips carved almost in oval shape coupled with her vanilla et strawberry cologne momentarily savoured by my starved nose- all these endowed on her hazel skin tone face, and there, I wondered deep inside my crowded mind " What a blissful dusk to be alive!"

 

I let myself loose in the moment and let the feathery wings of memory fly me into time by feeding my hungry predatory eyes to my eyelids which were contemplating on how to feast on an adorable prey. With eyes closed, my mind read through the chapters of the moment we've spent, days we scorn the sky for its darkness and days we worshipped it like a god for its dazzling clustered light, days we witnessed a golden butterfly fighting out of a cocoon and days we sailed on the blue sea and mounted castles with the sand beach, spitting each other of which was the better castle, days i read through the alphabet of your soul lifting laughter and... Until the moment journeyed me to a warrior in a glittering silvery armour speaking of his won glory beside a daisy, wondering and weighing what's of the utmost desire... 'The double edged sword or the innocent colorful daisy!'

She poked my cheeks to jolt me out from the jaunt. With bulging excited eyes she asked while waiting for a reply " what do you see?"

I hesitated for a sec and wondered of the effects of the words about to be released by my lips. I heaved a sigh and stared right into her eyes, "I saw me, a pretty damsel seated beside me with her head rested on my right shoulder, a girl in a barbie dress on my laps and a dog with waggling tail at the front of a cottage..."

Right there, her face lit up with excitement like the impact of two sparkling fireworks with her lips stretched sideways depicting her enjoyment of the moment I painted . Unmindful of what came next would be perfectly referenced to the mating of two atomic bombs on a rain forest. "Bu-u-uttt... you weren't there". I ended with quivering lips and heart braced up for the bad, a slap probably. But to my surprise...

She drew back at the words with her face reddened, hurt and it looked lost like a dream tossed into the realm of nightmares. She stared at my face with quivering lips as if words were going to come out of them, but they never did. Instead, a tear trickled down her cheek.

WEEKS LATER

I sat Alone at the edge of the cliff ; listening to the moans of the wind, watching the dark golden sun drew farther into the barren puff of clouds, listening to the roaring voice of the sea, the laughter of those at the nearby beach and the howling sound of a coyote...all an intermix of my emotion but the coyote expressed better of the sadness. Right at the moment, my mind could picture her haunted face when I said the words and how she left without saying a word or looking back... that...that? Would haunt me for eternity and that I couldn't live with.

I looked around the cliff as it dawned on me the place holds the foundation of our memories right from our teens', our first kiss with our lips swiftly parting while panting and laughing at the same time, our shared yet unmade faces of our future, the night we first made love with none to watch except the moon and stars, our first word of the four- lettered words, including the promise of conjugal rings made but I couldn't fulfil. All rushing in with regret.

"I had to do it!" The words I used to console myself of the decision made, but truly, I had to. Of what would love be if I decided to be the uncleaned mistake in her unblemished life? What would love say of me? I'm a sinful creature, a disease to the heart, a ravaging wind on her calm sea. "They'll surely come back for me. They'll never forgive what I've done" I thought and heaved a sigh. 

"Hope my last letter sent through the mail man would reveal the reasons I had to do it, do all these" I wondered

I gazed up at the sky as sheet of darkness spread on the face of the earth along with some dazzling clustered stars and therein, whispered to the travelling wind " Take care of her for me, would you?" The wind moaned in return.

Unsteadily, I stood up so close to the end of the cliff, had my eyes closed and imagined her face for the last time; not as a heartbroken damsel but as Lady with the mood as of the shining sun. I moved closer to the end of the cliff with hands stretched like a hovering bird and with quivering lips and misty eyes, I soliloquize "I love you, Tessa!"

Then fell off the cliff with an afterthought, wishing life could give another chance. I hope as I journeyed alone to the unending end, with no money, golds but the unblemished memories of her

Scribbler's Thought: "Opportunity are just like the dew, they never stay too long before they fade away!"

Written by: Adedeji Rapheal

ARE LOVERS LOSERS?

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