Things happen

Things happen

PROLOGUE

My wife thinks I am useless...Well, she does not only think so, she says so. In fact, she told me so, straight in my face! What insolence, what a package of nerves! I mean, me, a whole former Intelligence operative, a trusted former custodian of State and National secrets? Military Taekwondo trained? An awe inspiring former kickboxer? Useless...?

What of my B.Sc. Honours Engineering degree? Useless that too? Is it a woman thing or is it her, typical uncorrupted? Twenty two years of marriage and that is how she sees me? Could it be I really am useless? What I really understand in real time is I have considerably lost all requisite self esteem. I just wonder around perplexed, lost in oblivion, barely aware of myself. Useless...

Our darling first daughter, her replica in terms of behaviour, character, deportment, comportment, whichever may be considered the best to describe her, is really congruent to her! Well, secretly, right from the core of my inner man, I feel, more than believe, she also thinks I am useless. Crazy, crazy world, believe me. The fruit of my flesh? Me, useless? And she still calls me "daddy," a useless daddy? She has not told me so, no, they are so much think-alikes. If only God would answer my prayer, but soon and real soon...

In the meantime consider me dead, buried somewhere within the confines of oblivion, obviously oblivious, there but not there. Seen unseen, unfelt, forgotten, written off. I cannot even be qualified to be a ghost, apparition, phantom or even some petty spirit laden with every quality of insignificance! I do not inspire any awe in any platform, awe instead inspires awe in me given the cruelty of this world we live in to my person! I have been sacrificed to fate, doom, am serving a jail term for a major guilt, innocence. I am indeed guilty for being innocent and, for that I have been treated like one led to the gallows and is being kept painfully apprehensive as to wether or not he would be hanged, when it would be done, how it would feel and staring at that dreadful noose all day! It is such an eerie feeling. For my children's mother it is "business as usual," she is so unconcerned, carefree. I recoil to my solitary world of gloom never really lonely though. The art in me keeps me afloat especially in such circumstances, and, of course, my Lord and my God.

I am still at pains to accept and acknowledge this could really be my Shanelli, my art beat, yes you heard me right, not heart beat. I am all art. I think art, breathe art, live art, see art. Art is me, it is in me. Mine is the heart-of-art, and my art, the art-of-heart. Well that is how it is with me. There is a real fine line between my heart and my art! This very ground, fertile with creative beauty and sensitivity is where my "wife" Shanelli relentlessly and carelessly trod on for a whole two decades and more, puffed up with an exaggerated and unwarranted degree of self esteem and wanton pride wrapped in a suffocating blanket of vain cruelty and abuse of a warmly tendered and innocent love, the love in my art! I made her, at the commencement of our relationship, when it was still love then, at least on my part, unilaterally I suppose, beautiful romantic cards from right there in my art, wrote her fine poetry elevating her, eulogizing her, now this...

Had I imagined it, had I at least suspected it much earlier when our love was still budding, I could simply have backed off there and then. Indeed if I had known she hated my art, my songs, my music, the poetry or even my drawings and designs, me, I would have let go, I would not have sacrificed my heart! Now, with four children sired with her, twenty two years down the line, to come face to face with this reality she had so expertly concealed over the years. My heart is in shambles, believe me, devastated, wasted. Now what? There is still a life to live ahead till the earth do us part, mother earth and all her mankind with both their human as well as their inhumane nature, the lies, slander, scorn, hypocrisy, jealousy, gossip and all such malevolence and malice. The Lord my God and all hosts of Good bear testimony to the imminent demise of an otherwise divine amorous dispensation. Is this really going to work? What is love?

I have this whirlwind and barrage of unanswered questions inflaming my brain. But, was it not Shanelli was love, my one and only, my best friend? Where did she migrate to? This legion of demons possessing the body of a once amicable life partner has made me see hell prematurely.

The other day she bragged about being attracted to other men, that she was lustful of them! She said it with such an air of indifference, so satisfied with her declaration and really at home with such daggers of statements. Am I a man? Or is it I am not human? Injured and humiliated by such heartless assertion, I humbly inquired and sort clarity with her, just to be sure of how tomorrow was going to be, if she now had a boyfriend. I quizzed her. She was neither taken aback nor worried, instead, she was pompous, arrogant and more confrontational than anything else and she curtly responded that wether she had one or not, it was nothing of my concern, non of my business, it was her personal life! We are very married, she is my legal spouse, once my wife. She does really see me useless. I am her definition of useless...