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Stay: Chideziri POV
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Late into the night, Abe hijacks the home theatre, links it to his bluetooth and plays Cole's Stay.
I asked him to. The loud bass is sweet music to my ears. I look over the crowd and there she is smiling to the music, too. As if she understands, as if she hears me.Amanda taught me about J.Cole. Then she taught me about love. And now...now she's leaving me with all that new knowledge.
It's tragic. It's Jack and Rose's retelling without the giant ship or the iceberg. It's the curtains falling before we are ready to stop dancing. It's us.
And it's beautiful however you look at it.Related chapters
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AMANDAStay.It booms through the speakers, deafening and delicate at once. People groan and curse at whoever changed the song.I look up and I'm perplexed to see Abe at the speakers—he gives me a thumbs up—and Chideziri manoeuvring his way down the staircase, hands in his pocket.He's beautiful.Not handsome. Not rough-and-tough good looking.Beautiful."Hey.""Hey you." I reply. "They don't seem to agree with our taste in music.""I thought you might want to listen to some J.Cole," he answers. "I wanted to.""Fuck them." is what he's actually saying. He knows it and I know it. We share a conspiratory smile.Tell me how am I supposed to leave this.~ The lady prosecutor—the one who looked as if she had never before spent a day of her life in a cell filled with mosquitoes and grumpy cell mates—called you a monster.
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Ahmed is stuck at his mother's shop. But as always, he finds a way to vanish. Abe's on his way already. Pacal posted pictures of the places his family had been to today: cinema, swimming at a pool and Ferris wheeling. The mere sight of the Ferris wheel gave me vertigo.By the tone of his last text, he's down for a reunion. Although he's never been as good as Ahmed at vanishing, I know he'll be there. Chantelle gets there first, to our spot at the river. Her sister's nurse friends visited, and in her words, turned the house into a marketplace. Amanda arrives last. The sun has sunk below the horizon by then and mosquitoes are biting. "I come bearing gifts!" she bellows, stomping down the planks, her footsteps heavy with the weight of five paperbags she's clutching. "Since when did Amanda become Santa?" Abe says. Yet he grabs his gift bag when it's offered.&nbs
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The trees outside my window are almost naked now, burnt to figs by the ever angry sun. In the darkness of dawn, their branches resemble bones. I can't sleep, and being awake staring at the skeleton branches isn't helping, so I take Tobi's hoodie and leave the house. Outside is silent, much like everything else. So silent that when I pass the playround, I can hear the grass whistle. I walk. I walk by the tailors shop, to Close 4 and past. Past the hulking buildings and lonely trees. I walk till I get to the river. Elimgbu river has sunken so low that the stones underneath break its glassy surface. The first time we were here, it was full to its brim. Leaves floated on its surface. Pebbles lived under. It was beautiful. That is the thing about faded glory. It always starts out beautiful.
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She Belongs To The Sky Yultide: Chideziri POV
Ahmed is stuck at his mother's shop. But as always, he finds a way to vanish. Abe's on his way already. Pacal posted pictures of the places his family had been to today: cinema, swimming at a pool and Ferris wheeling. The mere sight of the Ferris wheel gave me vertigo.By the tone of his last text, he's down for a reunion. Although he's never been as good as Ahmed at vanishing, I know he'll be there. Chantelle gets there first, to our spot at the river. Her sister's nurse friends visited, and in her words, turned the house into a marketplace. Amanda arrives last. The sun has sunk below the horizon by then and mosquitoes are biting. "I come bearing gifts!" she bellows, stomping down the planks, her footsteps heavy with the weight of five paperbags she's clutching. "Since when did Amanda become Santa?" Abe says. Yet he grabs his gift bag when it's offered.&nbs
She Belongs To The Sky Yultide: Amanda POV
Christmas is explosive. Literally so. The number of fireworks produced in a single annum is alarming. But what is even more alarming is the fact that the effing hoodlums that deadbeat parents in my neighbourhood call their children seem to think that detonating all those fireworks in the street just beyond our gate is cool. On Christmas eve, after one "knock-out" landed on our roof, I reached the end of my thoroughly stretched patience. I stormed out to yelled at a couple of them loitering in the street. All of which I did barefooted.Don't blame me, I was spectacularly pissed.The twenty fifth—Christmas day itself—is spent out of our house and in Aunty Seedy's, with her and Ozo. Dad wanted us to go to Chicken Republic, or one of the many fancy restuarants he made it his business to locate in the area once we arrived, since neither of us can boil an egg.
