Niko’s Eye

Chapter 80.

"I Need You."

Isis.

She was walking around the mine, drawn in by the pit that seemed to have taken her father’s life. She heard Aisha rambling on about how sorry she was for the things that she had done. But above all, she could hear her voice getting closer. And, in a bid to turn around and face her, everything went black...

It felt as if her lungs weren’t there as she tried to bring air in. Isis could feel her muscles straining and the thoughts in her head turning from fear to a dizzy confusion.

The dark room was like a place out of time, a place to rest without consequence. The darkness in that way was a sanctuary, a place that was almost like a place where you could escape and forget the things the world said had to be done. It wasn’t that Isis couldn’t or wouldn’t, but rather that she needed that sense of stepping out of the craziness for a while. So, in the darkness that stole even her own form, she was content to let the night pass and awake when daylight would stream in with its bold confidence.

Darkness came like the thick velvet curtains of the theatre. It was as if the daytime had been one part of a play and the rest was to come after this intermission of night. Isis just let her eyes wander the walls, the audience to the dramas played out in that room, to the highs and lows of emotions, and to the creepy crawlies that dwelt in that place. As usual, she wandered to the window to gaze at the stars, to peek into the universe;the spectacle that was given when all else was taken, as if commanding her to look and feel both her smallness and her oneness with something greater.

She felt the tight grip of the Velcro ropes around her wrists, tied behind her back. It was like once the rope had been canary yellow, not softly romantic, but instead a nineteen eighties angry neon. Either it was new a long time ago or it had been used for the dirtiest tasks imaginable. The outside was a sickly greenish brown, the only hits of the original colour shining through like poorly cleaned up glitter. Her mouth felt like it was glued with tree gum.

Her mother was gut less and dead inside, emotionally indifferent, and a side-kick to evil;that’s all she could ever be.

She saw her walk in with a man, and then they paused.

Aisha was resting against the wooden pillar with a face of utter nonchalance, as if she were merely waiting for a bus on a spring day, apple in hand. She isn’t slumped at all, her body is clearly too curvy for that, yet it is just as relaxed as her face. She’s almost smiling - smiling as if something good were about to happen. The world falls through my feet. Good for her is likely bad for me. Very bad.

I wonder where Alejandro is. In those days, he was always the one to come to my rescue.

That suggests that he’s not as bad as he’s made himself out to be. Maybe he deserves a chance to explain. After all, he’s not the one who had me glued to this chair with my mouth shut and my hands tied behind my back like this is some sort of 50 Shades of Grey freak show.

"I see you’re awake. It’s time for you to know why we’re where we are today. And then you can take this information with you, to your grave."

Is she really doing to go through with killing me?

Alejandro.

We soaked conkers in vinegar and baked them, hoping it would give us the edge in our conker battles. With a hole drilled through the middle they were the finest entertainment we could have on many a long autumnal day. Those times with my friends, focused on victory, are the best of childhood memories.

My father got a recycled plastic slide, one in the shape of a giant tube that snaked and turned. He fitted it to the wall of my bedroom so I all day I could run up the stairs, into my room and slide down into our tiny backyard. It didn’t matter that we lacked the acres others had, we were in the city after all, because it was so clever the way it twisted, and I’d pass through the insulating curtains that tickled. My mother would put drinks on the route up the stairs and often there would be a family picnic mid-day, outside in the dayshine and inside when it rained. Either way the teddy bears were invited and the food was wonderful. In ever daydream I’m back on that slide. It was such constant fun. At bed time I’d close the doors over the entrance, already looking forward to the sunrise and the chance to play all over again. They are the most wonderful childhood memories, all those simple days that seemed to go on forever. Mama’s apron was a staple of my childhood, patterned with all things Ethiopian, from teapots to the palace guards. When I think of it the aromas of her fresh baking come flooding in to my brain, my heart leaps and there is that moment of serenity. I see her in that apron, arms wide, a hug just a few steps away.

And then I see her, before you my soul was a flower bud, afraid of the light. Now I open in your presence. You are my light. You are my warmth. I am only my true self with you. In this life, this kind of trust comes only once. Everything else before or after can only be an imitation of this. I love you. I love you always.

I never lived a moment of my life, before meeting you. You can’t be separated from me! This heart was angry when I was without you. And that today I met you once more, this heart says that it is colored in your colors! I am yours. Be mine. Nothing in me is mine; it’s all yours. I’ve fallen in your charm; make me yours. This unusual feeling- it aches my heart, sweetheart. How long? I can’t wait! And when your heart came across minein it’s path, every beat was celebrated, by your grace. I have risen to meet you; hidden in your heart. The moment you are with me- I rejoice life in that mini-second. Getting you was all I wanted; I have no more wishes. Christ has done his deeds for me! I am made from you, and I am needless without you. Be with me; make me yours. This feeling, that I can’t explain; I will just be brave enough to admit that I’m falling for you.

Falling in love with you was the easy part; it’s admitting to myself that it happened that’s hard. You see I’ve had these very efficient defences for so long and you didn’t even notice them. How rude. The true enemy of love is when emotional indifference takes command of logic; for only when love takes command of logic can good choices be made. Indeed, love in command of both our higher logic and our primitive drive is humanity’s hero-mode. I guess they were meant for others and you had your own door. I could ask why, but what’s the point? You’re here and I’m so glad, even if I’m sometimes hiding, imagining a distance instead of seeing you right there.

She is a perfect blend of everything pure. I need to be with her.

In this hospital bed my medicine is my memories, the good times we shared. My peace is our love, that which connects us always. You, the one who holds my heart as if it were a precious gem; you are my doctor. So though I am here, you are still the one who keeps me strong.

Isis.

That was all he could think of.

He just wanted to rip off all of the drips he was connected to and go and find her. He didn’t even know what he was doing lying in bed when Isis could be dead.

There was a quiet kind of "cheerful," the soft kind that comes as a quiet river on a sunny day. It is a way of being that allows others a positive space to open up into, a space that is ready to support their emotions and needs. There is of course a time and place for the loud kind of cheerful, yet there, in the hospital it can have the effect of closing people down - after all it is challenging to express sad feelings to a person who appears so far removed from those emotions.

Her amnesia couldn’t stop him from loving her.

With that, he flung his eyes wide open and jumped off of the hospital bed.

"Deception."

Isis.

Isis confidently walked through the gate of her home, singing church hymns.

She got inside and swung her backpack onto the coat hanger that was next to the door and casually strolled to the kitchen as she smelt the aromas.

"What’s for dinner Mami," she asked, planting a kiss on her grandmother’s cheeks and at the same time, placing her fingers into the skillet of beef stew.

There was a potatoe salad, chicken, a bean stew, creamed spinach, fried rice and butternut, amongst Isis’ favorite foods.

Isis’ grandmother hit her hand with a wooden spoon and shoo’ed her away.

Isis broke out laughing hysterically and her grandmother turned to look at her.

"Wait a minute. What exactly are you laughing at?", said her Mami inquisitively.

Isis blushed and then shrugged.

Her grandmother pointed the wooden spoon at her, "After dinner, pillow talk. Now go. Dinner’s ready in 15."

Isis nodded knowingly and ran up the stairs.

She immediately stripped once she got into her room and shut the door behind her.

She opened the water in the shower while she tied up her hair and scoped her body in the mirror.

"I need to trim my v****a, who knows?" she said,laughingly.

She tried to see what could have possibly made Alex ask her to call him.

And she also wondered how many girls he’s randomly bought dresses for. This made her frown and she sat on her toilet to think about it, even if she didn’t need to urinate or anything.

Suddenly, urine began to flow.

"Oh for crying out loud!"

She rolled her eyes and waited for her urinary tract to empty itself.

She heard her mother call her downstairs and she decided to run into the shower and pretend she had been taking a shower the entire time.

She heard her bedroom door open and she held her breath.

5 seconds later, her bedroom door closed and she waited, still, just in case the person hadn’t left yet.

"Mom? Mami?"

Silence.

She decided to hurry on with her shower and quickly get downstairs in time for dinner before her mother made her say bible verses out loud for 2 hours again.

She cringed at the thought.

It wasn’t that she did not enjoy the life of a Christian. She loved attending services. She loved being in the church choir. And she loved God, but she just wanted to live like a normal girl.

All she wanted was for her mother not to rush her faith because now she was living a double life and that was all because she was not allowed to grow in Christ, at her own pace.

She was practically forced to take on baptism at the tender age of 6 and started to sing in the church choir by the time she was 11. She had never known any other dimension of life except the one she was accustomed to since the day she was conceived.

She thought of her father, as he was always able to step in for her and put in a word against her mother’s iron fist and harsh upbringing. Sometimes she thought her dad stayed away from home on purpose so that he could get some time away from her mother.

She was a difficult lady. Always striving for perfection. Immune to mistakes and never allowing others to make their own.

Isis was suffocating and she desperately wanted a way out. Just for a little while. She’d come back to this lifestyle after living the life she was destined for if Christ hadn’t died for her. Hectic.

She got out of the shower, wrapped her dripping hair in a towel and put on her gown.

She got out of her bathroom and went straight to the door, so she could get downstairs for dinner. She saw something gleaming in the corner of her room, from the corner of her eye but she made a mental note to check it out later.

She did not want to repeat thousands of bible verses endlessly.

And she still wanted the time to check the business card given to her by Alex.

Her insides did a backflip every time she thought of him. What the hell.

Alejandro.

Alejandro was lounged shirtless on the sofa in his study, as his thoughts took him away once again.

He was nursing a glass of gin and tonic and thought of how he could not get his mind off of Isis, even as he was pumping into Zia earlier on.

He didn’t even feel alive. Goddamn it, he wasn’t even present.

She had kept asking him if he was okay because he wasn’t even reacting to any of her efforts in satisfying him. She nagged so much that he had ended up pulling out and coming home to bury himself with work, in a bid to stop thinking about Isis. But clearly, it was futile.

He gulped down his drink and stood up.

He walked over to his bar to pour himself another drink.

He decided to pour himself a triple distilled Scotch whiskey, totally ignoring his doctor’s orders.

Alejandro was suffering from gout, he just ate too much meat. It was all of that p***y he’d been munching on.

His doctor had ordered him to drink little amounts of alcohol and had strictly prohibited him mixing different types of alcohol in his system.

But Alejandro being Alejandro, he went in even harder. He had just had a whole buffet of different types of meat. Both figuratively and literally.

Complete with glasses of wine, gin and now whiskey.

He glanced at his watch. 8pm.

Why hasn’t she called, texted or emailed me?

He gritted his teeth and smashed the glass of whiskey onto the floor of his study.

He grabbed his shirt and stormed out of his study.

He hurried down the passage and through a door that led to the garage, graced with his many collectible vehicles.

All of the car keys to the cars had been neatly arranged, hanging up on the wall.

He barged into the garage and grabbed the first set of keys that he set his eyes on which were the keys to his black Porsche Cayenne.

To say the least, all of his cars were black. And all of them were heavily tinted.

When he requested for all of his car’s windows to be tinted, he primarily had the intention of concealing any s****l activity that would go on inside of his vehicles. The animal.

He pushed a button on the remote of the keys and got into the car.

He realized that the garage doors were closed and he had to get out and push the button next to the light switch so the doors could open.

He cursed fiercely as he did this.

As soon as he got back into the car, he started it and speedily reversed out into the street and sped down the road.

Isis.

Everyone around the table was dead quite.

But it was no surprise to Isis. Her mother wasn’t very fond of chatter going on around the table so they sat and ate their dinner in silence.

Just like every other day.

But on this particular day, there was something eerie in the air.

Looks were being passed between herself and her mother. Her grandmother seemed oblivious to the events and she happily munched on her carrots.

Suddenly, Mrs Kasmira placed her cutlery down, wiped her mouth and spoke up.

"Isis. Could you explain to me how you came about to having two of the exact same dresses?"

Ahah, there it is.

Isis almost choked on her food. She widened her eyes and told herself not to panic.

She reached out for her glass of water and gulped it down before she could respond. This gave her enough time to come up with something.

"One of the dresses is mine and the other one is Zainab’s because she wanted us to be twinsies. Just like we have the same shoes and stuff." she shrugged and carried on eating.

Zainab was Isis’ best friend. They got separated after high school because they both got accepted at different universities so they lived in different cities, not too far from each other and would only visit each other on the weekends.

"How is it that the one I found in a plastic bag that I personally had brought into this house from the Save A Child Foundation, was lying on the pavement a few blocks from our house. And it so happens that, it smells like you. So that must have been yours. Now, my question is, why were you ’supposedly’ wearing your friend’s dress and what was that plastic bag doing lying out in the pavement a few blocks up from my house?"

Isis was defeated.

Luckily, her grandmother spoke up and defended her.

"Aisha, Isis wanted to surprise Zainab today by bringing her the dress because her birthday is coming up. She was going to meet her after school. But when she discovered that the dress must have fallen out of her bag somewhere, she came back home. And Zainab had specifically asked Isis for her own dress and then Isis could get a new one for herself, that is why it smells like her. That is also why she was a bit late today. Because she spent time trying to find where she could have dropped the plastic bag. Come now Aisha, you’re behaving like you’re older than me. Let the poor girl breathe. Isis dear, those vegetables won’t eat themselves." She winked at Isis and continued munching on her carrots.

Aisha’s mother fell silent for a long moment before finally speaking.

"Very well then mother."

She looked at Isis dead in the eye and said, "Don’t test my patience. And the next time you want to visit your little buddies, I will take you there myself. Understood?"

"Yes mam." Isis nodded and acknowledged that smooth move from her grandmother.

She silently thanked God and mouthed a ’thank you’ to her grandmother when her mother was not looking.

They had finished dining and Isis cleared the table.

After her mother had gone to bed, Isis remained in the kitchen, giving her Mami the scoop as she washed the dishes.

"And that is how I got the second dress Mami, can you believe it!" she said as she rinsed a glass.

Her grandmother laughed so hard, hitting and pushing Isis over every time she did so.

"He’s a Superman Mami, I don’t know what I would have done without him today."

"A Superman but don’t give him any Kryptonite okay?" she said warningly, with a finger pointed at Isis.

"I’m going to bed. I love you."

Isis kissed her grandmother goodnight and finished up in the kitchen.

She switched off all of the lights as soon as she was done and sprinted up the stairs because she had always been afraid of the dark.

As soon as she was in her room, she took down the towel that had wrapped her hair, and put it in two braids, forgetting all about whatever was gleaming in the corner of her room.

She walked over to her balcony and felt the cool breeze on her skin. She closed her eyes contently and took off her gown.

Alejandro.

He had been parked outside of Isis’ house for a good 45 minutes before he spotted her outside by her window. She looked like she was getting naked.

He sat up in his car and squinted his lazied eyes. At this point, he was intoxicated. And drunk on desire.

He grabbed his shirt from the backseat and put it on before getting out of his car. And walking to her gate, he wondered if they had any dogs.

Alejandro being Alejandro, jumped over their white picket fence nevertheless and casually strolled over their lawned grass as if he were in his father’s compound.

As he got closer to the house, he looked up at Isis’ room and it seemed like there were two silhouettes standing out on her balcony, having an argument.

He recognised the voice of...a man.

A man that he knew very well.