MR. ALMOST

Courtesy:chobirdokan

I was woken up by the soft splattering  sound of the morning rain and his warm masculine hands holding my fingers above my head."I love your nails" he murmured in something that sounded like a drunken voice.I love his voice in the morning. It's just the perfect way to wake up.It's something between a croak and a husk and it could wake you up from any sweet dream.

Several minutes later I was standing in the middle of the cast iron roofless bathroom that so gracefully stands behind his grass-thatched house.As I scooped the lukewarm water that he'd so dutifully boiled using his three-stoned fireplace and poured it on my back, several things crisscrossed my mind.I had known him for years, yet I knew nothing about him, save his name.What made him happy?My nails perhaps. Just my nails?

I kept wondering if he was real, if he was psycho, or if he was a keeper.I knew he loved me, but I couldn't quite place that love.I was there, right in that bathroom in flesh, but my mind had left me, my soul and my heart had conspired to leave, to explore the possibility of understanding him.

As I stepped out of the bathroom, he was standing right outside with an old tired towel that appeared like it had wiped more bodies than a mortuary attendant's hands had.I looked at his rather cold face and was met with his ever smiley eyes and for the very first time, I noticed how clean cut his facial features were. Eyes that could see right through you and a jawline that said: "I am he".We were both stuck in a moment of awe; I can't exactly explain what got him staring, but I can tell you what got me staring.

I briskly walked back into the hut, avoiding eye contact with his eyes and voila!just like magic, breakfast was served, stir-fried sweet potatoes and African tea spiced with some rosemary and lemon grass.I didn't know so much about him but I sure knew he had a good taste in the fine things this life has to offer.I included.*wink

We ate in silence and no one said anything about the previous night.Perhaps the tea was that good.Good enough to just make you want to gulp it and do nothing else.Even so, more thoughts flooded my mind. I wondered if he had any aspirations, about what kind of future he wanted, if he was just an average man or if he wanted to be extra. Amidst all these thoughts, I saw a bright future, that maybe one day he'll build a better house, that one day he'll be able to pipe some water into that house, that one day his bathroom will have a roof, and that his spring metal bed will be a thing of the past 

.

He suddenly opened his mouth to say something when I was rudely interrupted by a call from the chomelea guy asking me to go pick my basin.