If I Died Today, You’ll Probably Never Know”

“If I died today, you’ll probably never know”

His text message read. Two ticks on the bottom right corner of the message indicated the message was sent. Whether she read the message or not, he will not know. Eyes were red, puffy with pain of wanting to be seen by the woman he gave his heart to.

That was the 5^th message he sent that day alone. His heart was drowning in his own tears. The world buried him in the pits of despair and anguish. The deep emotional and mental anguish was translating itself into the physical. He desperately needed her.

That’s the problem with giving someone your heart. You relinquish the ability to care for it yourself. And as a man, he was not allowed to have emotions. The sheep that his unknown ancestors said resembled a man had no emotions. Even with a blade to its neck, a sheep doesn’t cry.

It can kick; it can muster all its bodily strength to fight the imminent end of its life. But it cannot cry. When faced with death, the sheep would rather embarrass itself. It defecates and releases any liquids that remain in its bladder. But it will not cry. Even after the knife slits its throat, blood squirting in its grave, the sheep will not cry.

But he could not stop himself. His heart that he gave to this woman was returned broken. Pieces forever lost in late-night I love yous and in secrets shared in confidence. Love for him was taught as a safe place. A haven for lovers to be free. A sanctuary for one’s emotions in a world that is cruel and riddled with evil spirits.

Isn’t God love? At that moment, he realised that God isn’t the beautiful love captured in poetry. No. In that moment, he realised that God is the love that could not forgive Eve for eating the apple. He realised that God is the love that is so selfishly ruthless, that it watched His only Son become tortured and die in a slow, wretched, mortifying death.

She meant everything to him. The world, stars and galaxies. But he meant nothing to her. An hour later, he looked at his phone. Hoping that her name will be at the top of the screen. Anything, any word from her would be a deliverance from the dejection he was feeling. Two hours later, still nothing.

He began to wonder, how is it possible? In a world where our phones are living extensions of ourselves, how was it possible for a person to blatantly ignore you?

In life, we only ignore that which annoys us. We only ignore that which has no significance to ourselves. We can walk into a grocery store, pass the homeless man outside, buy a cart full of food and get out of the grocery store with the cart full of food without sharing any with the homeless person.

But if this homeless person is a friend or a family member who, because of awful decisions they made, when we buy the full cart of food, we will leave some with them. We will try to convince him that he doesn’t have to live that way. We will remind him that he has a home and the door for him to return is always open.

This is the story of the prodigal son. If we love someone, no matter how far off the path they may go, we will always be ready to welcome them with warm arms. They exist in our lives because they still carry a great deal of significance in it.

Sitting at the edge of the bed, waiting for anything from the woman he loved, he realised that he no longer had significance in her life. He realised our true his text was starting to become. He could die at that moment, and she would never know. Nor would she even care.

6 hours later, after sending the 9^th text asking to be seen, he gave up. He rolled himself the sweet leaf. The tonic he had bought 2 hours earlier, to enjoy his Henny with, when the anguish from being ignored was starting to gain strength, had cooled to the right temperature. He pulled out his phone, hoping to see her name on his screen. Nothing.

The pain started to mature in his heart. It felt like a lump of acidic emotional cement hardening. This lump seeping into his airways. He came to the realisation that he was no longer loved. More accurately, he was loved as an idea, not as a person.

Seeing how he was going to spend the rest of his night, he ordered two large burgers for himself. He rolled another sweet leaf, this time thicker than the first one. With the two blunts in his hand, he went to the outside bench of the guestroom he had booked for him and her.

It was just him. He had not seen her in a year. He was the only one excited about the excursion. For every 5 texts he sent her, she sent nothing. For every morning and goodnight he sent in a month, she sent the equivalent of a weekend. The reality was starting to set in.

He lit the first blunt. The natural herb that Moses saw on the mountaintop elevated his mood. The feeling of meeting his Creator evaporated with each puff of smoke he blew. In no time, the sharpness of the happy leaf had become blunt. He lit the second one.

With each smoke of the thicker and fuller leaf, the acidic cement in his heart, blocking his airways, began to loosen. He felt the heavy emotion lift away with the smoke. By the time he was done, his heart was lighter. But the coarseness of the harsh acidic feeling had torn the walls of his emotional chamber.

Gingerly, he walked back to his room in the guesthouse. He thought of eating the first burger. But he could feel that the leaf of relief was still at work. So he decided to open the fridge to take his tonic. He opened the fridge, the invisible dam that contained his tears broke.

Next to the tonic he bought, he forgot he had bought her favourite drink. Unopened, they sat slightly skewed alone in their shelf in the fridge. The sight of these cold pink drinks raptured every tear duct in his eyes. He launched himself on the queen-sized bed of the guestroom. His screams absorbed by the soft sheets he had hoped he would share her with after a year of not seeing her. Tears replacing the sweat that should have been there’s in the eternal dance of love and lust.

He pulled out his phone, hoping to see her name. Her name alone would save him from the ravenous emotional torture he was experiencing - still nothing. Hunger from the heavy emotional lifting of the two blunts distracted him. He pulled himself up to get the first burger.

Each bite was laced with tears that continued to trickle down his cheeks. Each bite, a concoction of pleasure and pain. A metaphor of how he was feeling. He still loved his woman. He still felt a well of appreciation from her. At that moment, a text, anything could save him from his life. Even though it was her who caused his pain.

He felt like Adam. Eve ate the fruit that kicked him out of Eden, a garden of paradise. But even outside of paradise, Adam continued to be with Eve. The weird and complex dichotomy of love. Love that will kill its own son but do so to save others.

Halfway through the burger, a thought arose in his mind. The previous week, he pretended to be someone else. And this someone else was able to communicate with his women with effortless ease. She was engaging the character. The character was explicit, fully transparent with his intentions. She continued talking with him anyway.

He broke character. Afterall she was not an idiot. She was able to see through the character. But she did not realise it was him. But the conversations revealed enough to make him believe he was of no significance to her anymore. She told the character that she desired a man with whom she could be vulnerable. Yet, when he encouraged her to trust her with her emotions, passions, hopes and dreams, he was met with pure silence.

In one conversation on one day, the whole afternoon, she was engaging with the character. Talking freely. While she ignored him. She would return to say that she was busy. But it was clear she was only busy for him, not the fictitious character that he embodied.

This reminded him of the old saying that all people have time. Just that people choose with whom or with what they spend their time. He, too, when he lost interest in a girl, would start to text her less, talk with her less and let time sever the connection between them.

The cool kids used to call it an adult breakup. But you see, with an adult breakup, you can see it a mile away. When it happens, it comes as no surprise. She was not initiating an adult breakup. She would ignore him for weeks on end and return like the girlfriend she was.

In a year, she only confessed to loving him on his birthday. 365 days, she said she loved him only on one day. And she did so over email. As cute as the gesture was, in his state of melancholy, he started asking himself why was that the case.

In the 30 days of a month, she would ignore him for 26 – 28 days. Communicate the equivalent of 2 days. But in those sparse and rare texts, she would communicate as the girlfriend she was. Such communication, some call it breadcrumbing.

Old pickup artists called it the pull and push technique, a classic manipulation technique to make a person like you. When he was younger, he thought this was good. The ability to make a woman madly obsessed with him gave him pleasure. He enjoyed the feeling. He enjoyed that a woman would want him and him only with a passion only second to Christ on the cross.

But the older he got, the more he realised that they did not make a typo when they described the technique as manipulative. Because that was exactly what it was. There is nothing romantic or desirable about making a person obsessed with you.

This obsession is what causes men to lash out violently at their partners. This obsession is what causes women to use their children as weapons in their relationships. Crimes of passion exist because the passion becomes an obsession.

With this in mind, a follow-up question arose. Is there someone else in the picture? His mind was lighter, slowly drifting back to Earth. The first burger of the two just tickled his belly. Before he got up to get the next burger, he reached for his phone. Whilst his tears dried, consuming the first burger, he had sent her more texts. 20 texts later, he accepted that she was not going to respond to him. So he downloaded a dating site to see if he would find her.

His mind was light. In that moment, he was operating within his subconscious self. His conscious self was too confused and conflicted to think clearly. The wisdom of the ancients began to be true on that day. The power of the subconscious manifested itself. Through operating in the subconscious, the universe conspired to produce the results he sought. It did not even take him an hour to find her on the site.

Any remnants of love, hope, and trust were completely shattered. What was a beautiful smile that lifted his mood even on the saddest of days, seeing the smile on the dating site was like the siren call that brought him doom. He felt his entire body just collapse helplessly on the queen-size bed that was meant to reinvigorate their love.

He was crushed. He was destroyed. He was lost in an endless, seamless void. In one of the questions that the site asked, the question asked her what would impress her. She wrote actions.

What actions was he not doing? Even when he was employed, he always found time for her. He tried to help her with every problem he could help her with. Having not seen her for over a year, he drove more than 300km in torrential rain to see her and yet, this was not enough for her.

This reminded him of why the older men in his hometown used to say that never overstretch yourself for a woman. He thought he had learnt his lesson when he, in university, bought his then girlfriend a phone after she got mugged. Only to visit her and learn that the phone he bought her, she was sending explicit pictures and videos to a man who danced on top of tables in taverns.

Clearly, he had not learnt his lesson, and herein he was learning it again. But you see, the conversations with the fictional character he created and seeing her on the dating site were the bites of the Komodo Dragon when he hunts. The effect of the poison was only felt the following day.

The following day, he woke still fully dressed. He had no recollection of what happened the previous night. He only remembered seeing who he called the love of his life on the dating site, expressing how it would be fun to go to a strip club and throw some coins. Looking over the kitchen counter of the small guestroom, he saw empty bottles of the pink drinks and about half of his Henny left. Tonic untouched. The second burger had one massive bite on its side.

He was thankful he did not have a hangover because it was clear to him that he drunk himself to an extreme stupor the previous night. The remaining part of the burger he devoured while collecting his thoughts. Thoughts that his trip was in vain. Thoughts that the love of his love was no longer the love of hers. And thoughts of going home as soon as he checked out.

With the burger completed, he decided to check his phone before bathing. It dawned on him that his conscience had shut off sometime during the night. Inasmuch as he had no recollection of the previous night, besides seeing the love of his life on a dating site with an emoji of a woman in the arm when asked about herself, yet herself was learning to lack empathy about the world around her, he did not remember what happened afterwards.

It came to his attention that after he learnt that the queen of his heart was open to chat with any man on a dating site (in which she hid her relationship status), he had sent her an obscene amount of texts and VNs. He tried counting the texts. He lost count. Embarrassment showered him. Cringe withered him into a crippled creature.

He thought of perhaps deleting the messages. But then again, looking at the time, it was 10:35 am. The possibility was high that she had read them all. He decided to embrace the embarrassment. Like any emotion, if paid attention to, it has a lesson it is trying to teach.

The lesson came an hour after. In a way to gain closure, he called her before he went back home. He regretted the call. It was like speaking with a hardened criminal who is serving life with no possibility of parole. She showed no remorse. No remorse for not meeting up with him. No remorse for the pain that he felt because of her absence. No remorse for being on the dating site. No remorse whatsoever for the carnage she caused in him.

Everything, to her, was his fault. He was weak. He was trying too much. He was crazy. He was desperate. He was the fool. He was never asked to come see her. He was wrong for sharing his emotions. He was wrong for believing in love. He was the cause of the state of the relationship because of what he did at the beginning. He was paranoid. He was the one looking for someone open to chat on the dating site since he downloaded it. He was the mad one.  So mad he was that his coming to see her was a ploy for him to kill her.

Said the woman who he had not seen in a year. For a year, he was faithful. For a year, he had no interaction with a woman besides the casual hello, how are you, that occurred once in a red moon. She was indeed mastering the art of not giving a fuck, verbatim as she wrote it on the dating site.

The call came to an end. Like expensive perfume, love left that day but continued to linger in the air.

Surprisingly, as he was packing his things, a text message flashed on his phone. It was her. Perhaps she had cooled down as she wrote a lengthy apology. She gave her reasons for her actions. She tried to explain why she had been acting the way she had.

He saw the text. Somehow, the text soothed the scars left by the acidic emotional cement that remained the day before. Even though the text message did not address being found on a dating site, did not address her bluntly ignoring him and did not address why she showed no interest in seeing him when they hadn’t seen each other in a year, he accepted the apology.

You see, in his heart, he was seeing love the way it was: Cruel.

God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son. His only begotten Son was a sacrifice for humanity. Humanity that God destroyed numerous times with fire, salt and floods.

Love is not the beautiful petals that make the rose. That is the illusion, the Hollywood lie. Love is the thorns that prick your fingers when you try to pluck it.

Packing his things in the car, he realised that he needed the experience. He needed the pain he felt. Indeed, God destroyed the world with floods but rewarded the world with the beauty of the rainbow. Indeed, God sacrificed His only begotten Son, but through this sacrifice, even the most hardened criminal serving life with no possibility of parole might enter the gates of Heaven.

He accepted the events that transpired. Yes, she might never know the day that I died. Yes, she might never fully appreciate the pain that comes from ignoring a human soul that sees you as its everything. Indeed, love left a bitter taste in his mouth that will take time for it to wash away.

God is love. He realised that it was not a typo when the ancients wrote it.