Niko’s Eye

Chapter 84.

Aisha.

She tossed and turned around in her uncomfortable bunk bed, her mind too busy to rest.

These legs keep asking me to rest, to find somewhere warm and cozy, to simply enjoy the sunshine and stay right there. This brain feels as if it’s been on a treadmill and it wants so much to press stop. This body needs to feel another body, to cuddle, to feel safe, to feel the warmth of a lover. Everything about me, from the muscular aches to the emotional pull toward lethargy, this fatigue, overwhelms - yet this is a world that has no empathy for such matters. All that appears to count is how much we got paid more than the actual work done or feats achieved. If you got a lot of money clearly you worked hard, if not, no matter how much work you did, clearly you’re lazy. My body, my brain, my tired tired soul, can testify that I’ve worked at full tilt for so very very long. The truth is, in this state, in terms of my biological capacity and energy stores, I can’t afford to care about all the things I have been caring so very deeply about. It isn’t kind to run a horse into the ground and it isn’t kind to do it to a human either.

She forced herself to sleep and awoke at the break of dawn. The sun harshly hitting her eyelids.

Today the sunshine is in our bones, its heat radiating outwards into the bright day. It’s as if the people outside are glowing, but I know better, their aura so unhappy on these summer days.

She peered outside of the tiny window and saw her cellmate sitting underneath the tree in the prison yard.

Atleast we got trees here.

Oscar rests in the shade, her eyes on the foliage above, on each green leaf in that vast canopy. I watch her reclined in that dappled shade, a book resting on her raised knees, her eyes following the text as if it were the soft call of a lover. Before I’ve quite chosen what to do, my feet have taken me under that same tree, perhaps they longed to feel the coolness of the grass around her. And as she reads, I dream and the moments stretch out into a medicinal ambiance, made all the stronger for the heat, the brilliant light and the blessing of such company. Maybe prison isn’t so bad. If only I can look at the bright side of things. Besides seeking revenge, I have to stop and smell the roses on my way.

She watched Oscar while she thought about her plan. She didn’t have any evidence against Sergio. But she had to make him believe that she did, so that she would be able to play with his mind and get into his head. That way, he would be able to do whatever she asked of him.

Brilliant.

Alejandro.

He hadn’t gotten enough time to himself so he could think about what Isis had said to him, concerning Aisha’s request.

A toxic culture is one where people make their better natures subordinate to wealth accumulation because not to do so means they can’t survive. It is a culture where the most pure souls are viewed with suspicion, of course, they must have an ulterior motive. It is one where nice guys finish last and the sociopaths win, to hell with environmental damage. It is one where a few rich dominate and the rest are treated as disposable people. It is a society where what matters is making money, taking part in the rigged game of finance for digits that have no real meaning.

A toxic culture is one in which we feel our physical appearance determines our self worth, rather than our good deeds and our kindness. A toxic culture lets advertisements spread overconsumption by invoking greed, envy and feelings of entitlement. It encourages people to be selfish, to hoard rather than to help. It disrespects other cultures and nations, making their citizens appear less than human, undesirable, unworthy and fearsome. But most of all a toxic culture misinforms people how to be truly happy, pointing them toward vanity and lust instead of self-improvement and true love. Working hard and loving fully are the keys to happiness, build something wonderful and be loyal, faithful, honest, kind. That’s where happiness lies, that’s how to beat the toxins.

He had learnt so much ever since Isis had stepped into his life and he would never stop thanking her for helping him open his eyes to see the reality of things.

People can grow strong enough to whisper at the iron bars that hold them and see them bend out of their way, like the most crazy magic. That’s what love can do: fix souls, fix brains, cure us all. I wish I could have mastered that way, but it’s hard when you’ve been starving for so long. You can sit and call for help. You can act like there is no cage, wear a mask of coping and normality. You can rage against the bars. Yet what love makes simple, no other thing can solve. There is another escape route, yet it is one into another great pain. It is possible to be so emotionally starved that you slip through the bars, no longer bound but with your soul crumbling. That was my way out. What followed was endless emotional marathons on bleeding knees. I learned how to hide the pain, how to look normal. I understand why some go cold inside to escape the pain of isolation, why they let their empathy wither and die: numbness over feeling, mental anesthesia. I refuse. The thing is, regardless of the pain, I believe that living with an incomplete soul is a form of death, and I’d rather be a humane human in pain than a zombie needing to bite others to feed.

He thought about how he wouldn’t want his children to grow up the way he did. He always kept his childhood in locks. He never wanted to revisit the past or dwell on the thought of his family.

In that culture the women were property and their lives held in the balance by the men. They lived in fear, policed and taught to be ashamed of their bodies and sensual natures. Love was cast out, unable to thrive when given so many conditions. The women died inside, depression robbing them of the ability to fully love their children. Their children grew without knowing the true power of love and afraid of the emotion. And so generation after generation the society was only able to function on negative emotion - power, manipulation, control. Every action was viewed for its impact on the family standing and not as an opportunity to understand their kin better. Murder was preferable to dishonour. With life so hellish who wouldn’t put all their effort into achieving an afterlife with no price to high to pay?

His mind was cluttered and he immediately got out of his seat and strolled to the windows, looking at the foliage of the town.

Maybe it’s time Isis knew who Alejandro really was.

Belvia.

The old woman sat in her rocking chair, sipping on a Mimosa.

Does the rich man pray for his own salvation while his workers toil in hell? Does he push the myth that all can succeed in a pyramidal system, knowing that for everyone who is a victor there must be ten losers or more? Whom then is his God? Who would listen to the greedy and powerful and help them to abuse all the more and teach their ways that to eat and live is a luxury earned and not a free right given by their creator?

For some reason, Belvia began to wonder about Alejandro. She eyed the details of the space she was in and thought about what he does for a living, for him to be able to live so lavishly. The feeling had come over her for a few days and she couldn’t explain why. But her Mexican side, that was really spiritual, had sort of enticed her into that direction. She never ignored her intuition and she made it a point to ask Isis about Alejandro, in depth.

But he’s a good man. That I know. Salvation lives in the way we love. It is in the kindness we give freely, and in being mindful for the wellbeing of one another and Mother Earth. It is in hurting when another hurts, in empathy over judgement. It is in sharing resources, in joy and in the kind of laughter born of pure spirit. Salvation may be a road discovered by only a few, but it is one made for all, one we may only walk together as one world. The future rests not on the authority of the empowered, but upon the forgiveness of the abused and enslaved. It is the capacity of their hearts to embrace those who wielded power and accept the free help they rightly offer to heal and move forwards that is the salvation of all.

"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.