Forget me not...

A wave of loneliness hit her so hard she clutched the old door, her mind reeling down the memory lane of what was once her father’ s study room. Outside the large windows of the neglected and vacant ‘dream room’ still stood the indigenous fig tree planted by her forefathers, strong and unshaken from the winds of time. It must carry a myriad memories. It is from here where Malaika had watched a bevy of doves dance to the music of rapping wood peckers and singing weaver birds and robins. Papa understood the language of birds and whenever he took a break from punching his typewriter; he would open the windows and whistle the most complex vocalization of the birds’ repertoire. The tunes were sweet and sentimental. She would stand right under the tree and watch in wonder as the charm of hummingbirds gathered only to be scared away by a murder of crows.

Juxtaposed incongruously beside the garishly dust-jacketed water bottle was Papa’s brown beer bottle: a patent vessel he named ‘fuel for the mind and body’. It was always half full, yet she had never seen him refill or drink from it. A second bottle of yet another brand of beer sat on a nearby table, its seal still intact. She was not allowed to touch it either. “My thoughts are in there…they’ll get lost if you touch” Papa had joked every time she curiously stared at it with a raised eyebrow. “Come on now Papa,” she coaxed, “let me have a sip. Just one little taste… it looks harmless like brown ink and am sixteen.” She added, hugging his shoulders as he sat in his old inherited office chair. “Nope.” He simply declined. “You are still a child with nothing to think about. If you drink my thoughts, you’ll wither like those flowers under the tree.” He said, pointing outside the window. That would be the end of the discussion.



She remembered that night when they woke up to the unusual repeated mnemonics of an owl “Who cooks for you all.” Popular to the traditional beliefs that this was a bad omen, Papa had woken up, lit a small fire under the tree, and sprinkled salt into flames while uttering words she could barely understand. The ritualistic act had scared her, keeping her wide awake to the wee hours of the morning, wondering who the death angel would court.

“Papa you’ll die poor, just like”… “Grandpa?” he completed her sentence, laughing at the statement. His father had continuously echoed the same words whenever he found him painting on canvas. He had discouraged him from painting for a living and tutored him to write poetry and stories for publishing. “Type those words you sing while painting and sell them” He’d advised. So every night when Papa couldn’t paint, he downloaded his thoughts from his brown beer bottle by punching the typewriter’s keys to form the words that made little sense to her. If only this old machine had a memory…his poetry and stories had an inimitable style of humor that Malaika loved reading over the weekends when she was not in school.

“No Malaika, I am throwing poverty out this window this very moment” he responded, swinging his arms outside mimicking a motion of splashing water from an imaginary bucket. Malaika burst out laughing. Papa was the best.

So that morning after the owl saga, he sought to pack his pile of writings and tied them securely to his bicycle. He had plans to ride to the publishing company in the city and persuade the publishers to purchase his work and perhaps hire him for some kind of writing job. “This is your inheritance. I will be rich and famous and you can ride on my fame.”He joked, pointing at the typed papers, the old typewriter, the tired chair and the broken telephone. “It is all yours.” He took one last sip to 'fuel his mind and body' then hopped onto his bicycle to ride away.

For six hours, the harsh wind hit his exposed face, his gastrocnemii muscles protesting from the cycling motion. He kept going, whistling sweet bird songs as he swerved along the dusty roads to avoid being run over by rude drivers. He took his last swerve at a junction to join the road to the publishing house when in a flash of a second, a speeding truck with a drunk driver on the wheel swerved from the opposite direction, the humongous angel of death had its full lights on, hooting deafeningly and bang! It was too late. Papa rammed into the truck.

He returned home in a casket, with the one page that was salvaged from the accident scene. It simply read “Forget me not”. The wind had swirled and danced away with the rest of Papa’s unpublished work.

Malaika opened the sealed brown bottle; the smell stung her nostrils. It had been a year of agony and torment since Papa’s tragic demise. Life sucked. She took the first sip. She had something to think about. She needed to bury her thoughts and memories. Yak! Her tongue screamed out, as she closed her eyes and forced it down her throat. It tasted vile. How could anyone drink this? She sipped again, this time letting it settle a little longer for her taste buds to pick: Yak! She wished the alcohol could touch the pain she felt inside her heart and her soul: Just as it had for her father. The third went down well, followed by gulping until tears rolled down her cheeks. The beer could now feel her feelings. She smiled amidst tears. “Forget me not”… the words kept ringing in her head as she pushed the chair, slowly placing the almost empty bottle back to the table where she had picked it. She staggered out of the old room, the haunting words still ringing in her head “This is your inheritance… my thoughts are in there… forget me not…”