When I Talk About Rainbows, I Mean the Flood
Precious Arinze
August 11, 2018
Lagos, Nigeria
I woke up to the world ending once again. I sighed and muttered curses at the meteorological annoyance that had stolen the sleep I bargained for just a few hours before. It was raining heavily outside, and the rain had forced its way in through the open window, wetting the floor and my legs. I tried to feel the ground for my phone; power was out, as usual and I needed the flashlight to properly chart my way to the window without stepping on anything that might cost me money to fix or replace later.
The glare of my lock screen showed 4:05am. I had only gotten two hours of sleep, and it wasn’t the kind that left you feeling rejuvenated. It was the kind you fell into reluctantly, as a final resort. I dragged myself off the bed to the side of the room where the window was. One of the bolts was missing so it refused to shut completely. It was a quaint contraption, the sort made with wooden boards that spread out like a book when opened. It hinted at a time I was unfamiliar with. I wondered if any of the previous occupants had stood by it, with layers of sadness clamped to their body like a wet cloth. Had their eyes roamed the age-worn lines and thick dust on the boards, searching for a sliver of beauty they could rent off this world in exchange for being here, while their whole life screamed?
I did not bother trying to return to sleep.
The rain started to lose its intensity like a weeping child that realised no one was coming to console it. The city began to crawl out of its shell. Somewhere in the distance, a preacher preached about the end times, trouser-wearing women, and other terrible sinners. Soon, he was joined by bus drivers and conductors that parked at the junction next to the house, inviting commuters going to “Mile 2, Oshodi” to board, while warning — threatening — them to only do so if they had change.
As the morning ripened, the women who hawked raw and cooked pap gave their share to the growing racket. Motorcycle riders sounded their horns, people shouted greetings in varied dialects, as if the hearing of the person they were addressing had not fully woken up. I did not need to look at my phone to know what time it was; the sounds made it very clear that I would soon have to stop wallowing in my misery and join the restless day.
A set of determined knocks forced me to abandon the bed again. I pulled back the latch on the door, and there she was — the friend in whose house I had spent the night. We exchanged curt greetings, and I made way for her to enter the room. I wanted to ask if she slept well or at all. I wanted to grab her, hug her. I wanted to listen as she recounted every single aspect of her life that I had missed. I wanted to cry into her breasts, knowing that she would not require an explanation for such behaviour. But we were past that. Instead, I stood quietly and watched as she dragged a torchlight across the room in search of her journal.
The oddness of the moment widened a crack inside me. Suddenly, it hurt too much to be with her — this woman I once loved so thoroughly with body and heart — struggling to string together the smallest of conversations. I had never been one for talking, but we said so much to each other back in the days before I left her or I felt her leaving me. We do not agree on which came first; loss has no perspective. I followed her movements with my eyes, wondering if the problem wasn’t who left who, but that depression was a ravenous father, and the trepidation, the inability to know when he would be hungry again or what he would require that we serve up meant that neither of us could stay. Still, I was trying to make the effort to get us back to a time before the abandonment set in, as if the moments that had been squandered may be regained through persistence.
When she left the room, I began getting ready for work, hoping that each mundane task would distract me from my rotten mood. It took an hour to bathe and dress myself in jeans and a crumpled shirt. I gave off the appearance of a person clearly uninterested in doing life. I locked the door and walked stiffly to the other room to drop off the key.
“Hey babes, I’m off,” I announced to the back of her head, “I’ll see you when I see you.”
She wished me a great day, without turning away from her laptop screen.
I stopped the first bike that raced towards me as I stepped into the street.
“Where?” he asked.
“Junction,” I answered, and off we went. Even though it was barely 7:00am, I was not surprised to see a small crowd of people waiting for buses to their respective destinations. I paid the bike rider and crossed to the other side of the road to join them. A bus heading to Oyingbo came along a few minutes later and I jumped on it.
The bus driver, a highly unfortunate human being, stopped at a bus stop that had nothing to do with the destination we paid for, refusing to go any further because he didn’t want to get stuck in traffic. As the disgruntled passengers alighted, shouts and curses rained down on the him, some extending towards his generation and birth parents. I was too tired to contribute, so I began walking, stepping around potholes filled with dirty water. Fifteen minutes later, I arrived at the park where buses going to Lekki were lined up across the road.
My enemies seemed to be working overtime. While I waited for the roads to be safe enough for crossing, a car rode past, running over a nylon of watery shit that some sick person had conveniently left lying in the middle of the road. I looked down in horror at my sandals and toes that were now covered with the offending paste. A woman selling drinks out of a large cooler stuffed with broken lumps of ice felt sorry for me and offered sachets of water to wash my feet with, but what I really wanted was an amputation.
I considered returning to my friend’s house and never confronting Lagos again. Surely, it could not be the wish of my forefathers that I live like this, in such a wayward city. I washed my shit-splattered left foot with the right, making a mental note to not touch it until it has been soaked in Dettol and hot water, scrubbed with a pumice stone till the skin threatened to come off.
Thankfully, the bus I hopped on was almost full, and we were soon on our way. A very pregnant woman was seated next to me. By the gnashing of teeth and tightly squeezed hands, I deduced that she was in the early stages of labour. I spent the entire ride muttering consolations, and wondering where the man responsible for her condition was. I thought it might be rude to ask why she was unaccompanied, so I didn’t. I apologised instead, even though I had done her no wrong. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry we are both paying the price for the desires that were faulted into being. I’m sorry for how easily pain arrives at the body and how we are rendered powerless against it.
Through all my excessive reassurances and consolations, the woman said nothing, instead, she took my hand and held it. I nearly wept. It felt like intimacy, this moment between two strangers wanting to open up without opening up. How many times had I done the same thing: reached out to touch something or someone so I know I’m not alone and acknowledge that they aren’t too? This taking of hand in hand was something good, a way of being at once known and unknowable. An invitation into a house where there is no place for you to sit is still a gesture of goodwill. You are welcome here, it says, and no more. With time, there will be more doors to walk through. But this is all the room I have right now. Make do.
Time falls away like this, her hands seeking, her tongue unyielding. When I got to my bus stop, I wished her a safe delivery, and stepped off the bus. I think I heard her ask her god to bless me.
A meeting that should have been an email blast was already underway when I walked through the office doors. I found an empty seat, slipped quietly into it, and prayed no one asked my opinion on anything or noticed how vehemently I was blinking back tears. Giving in to the emotions hounding me in front of my colleagues would set spinning a tangled web of pity, confusion, a series of calculated insults and bias that would take far too long to undo. This work of conjuring calm and trying not to create more discomfort by coming undone in such a public setting was so draining that I barely completed any of my tasks. I spent more than my allotted hour of lunchtime weeping in the toilet while the lilting lyrics of Searching for a Feeling by Thirdstory travelled in and out of my ears. I wondered about the pregnant woman. Was she somewhere in a hospital ward trying to shake the anguish from her bones? When it’s done — if it is ever done — what will she be left with? How much joy is to be found in that which sews shut your longing if it sunders you to get here? My glasses did a lot to hide the puffy redness of my eyes afterwards. If any of my coworkers thought something curious was going on with my face, they were kind enough not to mention it.
Two friends sent money to cheer me up. Another dropped by the office to give me a bottle of wine because I tweeted about desperately needing a drink. The gestures though well appreciated and welcomed, did nothing to offset the stench of my rotten mood. Eventually, my empty stomach helped the alcohol hit twice as hard, dulling the sharpest of the emotions that rolled through me.
By the time closing hour announced itself, I felt somewhat bated. I hurried out of the building, relieved I would not be participating in what was sure to be a traffic-filled commute back to the mainland. I headed in the direction of the place I’ve called home for a couple of months, stopping by a supermarket to buy more wine, two bottles of rum, and lime. I was going to make neat glasses of caipirinha.
At home, I soaked and scrubbed my feet to get rid of the morning’s transgressions. Dinner was pasta tossed in tomato sauce, which paired excellently with the caipirinha. My lover, and temporary roommate called to let me know he was at the door and needed to be let in.
He teased me about the shit incident as he undressed, but I was not ready to joke about it yet. He narrated the events of his day while he ate. I forgot how to respond when he asked me how I was doing, how I was really doing. I simply stared at the wall to keep from crying again. This relationship too was complicated. It was still too early to tell who would leave who, but when he held out his hands, I moved towards him the only way I knew to. Words filled with gratitude and ache strangled in my throat. My body was eager to let him in with the grace of an unhinged door.
About the author: Precious Arinze writes poems and essays when she is not sitting in Lagos traffic, and contemplating the poor choices that led her to make a home in this city. Her works have appeared in Electric Literature, Brittle Paper, Edify Fiction, Mikrokosmos, and others.
