Radiation & Reflections

The fan twirls slowly. Beside it, on the ceiling, are brown stains from past rains keen to leave behind souvenirs. But the air it is blowing is just about as hot as it feels outside. It is unusually hot.

Outside, the sun blinds our eyes as intensely as it hits our skins; like piercing needles. The heat radiates memories of childhood. The holidays that brought cousins together in one household, the sands that dirtied our feet, the waters that choked our throats, corns that left black ashes on our teeth, rains we bathed in, innocence we will never have again.

Our brothers cycled, racing, around the neighborhood. They played football in the rain, fought those who made them angry over small matters, sometimes they fought each other. They also had their names as abbreviations of titles. One, Jibril F Kandeh, claimed presidency for himself. Another, Nadeem Manneh, believed he was going to change the fate of his community. Pa Musa was the Prime Minister. Such great visions for themselves, such big dreams they had. Childhood truly is that phase where we believe the world can be encompassed in our hands.

As for our sisters, well they used to take the tin pots of milk and turn it into their cooking pots - cooking sand with leaves and unripe fruits and the likes. Corn covers, they took for doll hair and learnt the art of braiding. When they weren’t occupied with those, they took to clapping and throbbing the ground, mixing dust with noise and jubilating when their opponent set the wrong feet forward. Akara. They call it. There was another one or two; one where a ball is thrown in the air while everyone sings the theme song, then everyone runs for it - whoever caught it, tries to stone anyone they can. Or the one where one team moved between north and south within a box and another tried to hit them with a ball. Something like that, I can’t really remember how it goes now.

Soon, you grow up. And you notice how little the things of essence, the things that bring joy, are. It can come from drinking water on a long thirsty day, a biscuit from a brand you don’t even know that you got from the mini market by the gas station because its sugar tamed your hunger, the sight of children in the school uniform you wore as a child. Such little things.

You leave these things behind you. If you’re lucky, you have photographs, journal entries, souvenirs. Things you can touch or look at and instantly recollect the experiences. And sometimes, while at it, you are forced to face the reality of life with every day that passes.

Like Pa Musa, who has traveled through the Mediterranean where he discovered the meaning of disconsolate, desolate and despondent - without even having to know the words - only to stay in a foreign land that did not like the lightness of his clear brown skin as they did here for three years, only to return and have the very brothers he cycled with, the ones he helped win football matches in the rain when he made sure no ball passed through him, disdain his presence in theirs. Why? Because his hair was longer and thicker than they remembered. Why? Because the lightness of his brown skill has become dull? Why? Because he is a returnee. Why? Because even though he made it past the mediterranean, he did not make it past the very woes he was trying to escape.

They’ve forgotten how the plans for The Mediterranean were made by them all. That if Pa Musa mustered the courage to set sail, it was because of their uttered words, their own desires for the journey. He had simply wanted better for himself. Maybe, just maybe, for his family too. He believed that somehow, someway, life would readjust itself and his prime minister title wouldn’t be just an abbreviation of his names.

In the other end of the district, some of our sisters have built homes. We don’t see them as much anymore. One or two had three or four children - the high blessings of God. We run into one of them every now and then. We don’t hug, no. We may have grown up together but our individual processes of that stirred up apart. When we run into each other, we fill our faces with enthusiasm, happiness, while our minds are filled with curiosity.

‘I hope life is being kind to her’ even though we know that more often than not, life's benevolence serves as a prologue to its betrayal. You know, the balance of good and evil that makes life what it is.

But for now, we drive in our air conditioned cars past those like Pa Musa. We sympathize with them and even offer to help them. Maybe feed them proper meals for a week while we try to find them something sustainable. A job or a skill training center. It is because we remember him. We do for them what we now wish we could have done for our brother when he needed it, when he asked for it. When our ego had brushed over our judgements, bigotry creeping into our hearts.

Perhaps these things are not behind you. Perhaps they become a part of us, following us like a part of our shadows. And even in complete darkness, when there are no shadows, they nevertheless brush up against our skin. Perhaps…

The sound of the clucking hens sound like they are coming from inside my bedroom. Their call signifies the start of a new day. It is a new day today.

About an hour from now, the sun will overcome the darkness that pierces through my window. Then I will set forth. On another day, with another sight, another thought, to reflect on.