Some people come into your life like lightning.Others....like morning light through closed curtains.You don't notice them until they're everywhere.
January arrived with silence thick as frost, laying itself over the world like a heavy quilt. The trees stood bare and brittle, limbs creaking like old bones under the weight of snow. Time felt frozen,held in place by breath turned to mist and windows etched with ice. Even the sky moved slower then, a pale grey canopy pressing low against the earth.
February came like a hesitant note in a quiet song. The snow began to retreat, not with grace, but with stubborn reluctance,melting in uneven patches along gutters and sidewalks. Icicles wept under uncertain sunlight. The air shifted slightly, carrying the scent of something soft and unseen,hope, maybe, or memory. Red paper hearts bloomed briefly in shop windows, a defiant warmth against the cold. But winter still lingered, lingering like an unfinished sentence.
March unfolded like a sigh,wet, muddied, unpredictable. Rain replaced snow, soaking into the thawed soil, pulling green shoots from the ground as though waking them from deep sleep. Winds changed direction. Trees trembled, not with cold, but with the promise of change. The sky no longer sat still. It rolled and cracked and moved with purpose. Storms came and went like moods. Petals began to brave the air.
Then April came like laughter returning to a quiet room.
The sun stretched longer fingers through the blinds. Shadows softened. The wind warmed. Children reappeared in the streets with chalk-stained fingers and knees scraped raw by adventure. Trees dressed themselves in green again,slowly, elegantly, without apology. And for the first time in months, windows opened. Air moved freely between inside and out, stirring the dust and something deeper,something sleeping in the soul.
Time did not announce its passing. It simply changed the color of the light, and waited to be noticed.
Nairobi, Kenya
April 3rd
I still do not understand why I went to that cafe.The cafe near campus. I ordered my long black coffee and waited for my order near the pick up counter.
I did a general scan of the room ,it was fairly full.
That's when I saw her.The girl whose face I have not seen since the previous year.
Maybe I was hallucinating?
Or not.
Because, there she was sitted at a corner table at almost the farthest part of the cafe.
I had my notebook as usual and I was itching to write.
Have no idea where the inspiration came from.I looked towards her direction and our eyes met. For five whole seconds.
I felt my heart almost jumping in my chest.
Was certain my heart skipped a beat.
I nodded in her direction.My face being as calm as I could keep myself.
I sat at the empty chairs as I wait for my order to be completed. I opened my notebook and wrote. I never really got used to using my left hand after my right hand was broken when I was young and I couldn't use it for a couple of weeks. But it was bearable.
"The days don't announce their change. They just slip past quietly, like strangers in a corridor."
"There's a softness in the air today. Almost like forgiveness."
"I saw her again,we locked eyes only for a moment. But it was enough to make the rain feel warm."
I look up and find her looking at me again.
Maybe she was looking past me. I write another sentence in my notebook:
"April is not loud, but it is kind."
I smiled at her but was met with a blank face.She didn't smile back.
Had I blown my chance of ever talking to her?
" D.K your long black." I heard my name for my order. Stood up and took my coffee .
Looked at it and told Njeri"If I ever disappear,tell people I went to look for flavor.I don't know why I always order this when I don't really enjoy it."
She let out a small laugh.Or maybe a perfectory laugh that she gives to all the customers.I have no way to tell.
I looked back as I scanned where to sit.
I wanted to take my chances.
I was not an outgoing or confident person but I could feel like she was going to become an important person in my life. At least I hoped.
I walked past all the window seats all the way to the back of the cafe. I sat at a table directly across, about three metres.
I heart was thumping in my chest. I tasted my coffee.....no flavor.Almost spat it out.
Why do I keep ordering this?
And I keep asking myself the same question every time.
I sneaker a peek.She looked depressed.
Lonely.
I wondered what she was going through.
As I was looking,she looked up and we locked eyes .No one moved.
At least I was frozen still.
Nobody talked.
Looking at her after a couple of months made me realize why I noticed her in the first place.
She looked serene.
Calm but also not calm.
As I watched she frowned,fiddled with her pen ,looked outside the cafe at a distance.
She seemed disturbed.
Should I ask her?
She doesn't look like she needs company .
In the end I was too scared to do anything.
So much for confidence.
I sat in the same position wondering whether I should tell my editor that I did want to finish the novel after all.
I could imagine the thrill on his face.
Then I saw her stand up.
I held my breath waiting for her to walk past me when she stopped at my table.
"Do you always sit across from strangers and say nothing?
She was talking to me?
I tried to contain my excitement.
She has the best voice I have ever heard.
An exaggeration,I know.
So I said." Only when they look like they want to be left alone but need someone not to leave."A very faint observation I had made.
She exhaled.
" What is your name?"
She was asking about my name.
If she could see the internal dialogue I had,my calm nature would scatter to all ends.
" D.K."That should keep the mystery?
Right?
" That's not a name....it's a riddle."
"I'll tell you eventually "I promised.
Then she left.
When I got to my apartment the only sentence I wrote in a blank page was:
There's a woman who writes like she's surviving something.I wonder if she knows she's beautiful in the way storms are.
Was this love?
Not yet.