Darling Daisy

THE ROMANTIC DREAMER

  By

  Romeo D. Matshaba

  Copyright 2013 Romeo D. Matshaba

  All rights reserved.

  I kind-heartedly acknowledge this book to all the list of loves I’ve had the privilege to meet. This book is a timeless artifact of you.

  A romantic: A person with romantic beliefs, attitudes and thoughts.

  A dreamer: One who doesn’t think by physical boundaries, having ‘his head in the clouds’

  Chapter 1

  The Last Romantic

  Our second date. Was there a small feasibility that today would be as enchanting and delightful as that magical day before? But there was nothing in the laws of physics that denied me repeated marvelty. For I have always believed that the same laws which keep the planets in their orb are not dissimilar to those which govern and swivel our hearts.

  I waited anxiously for her call, akin to a boy just before Christmas. “A few minutes now,” I muttered to myself as I silently starred at the clock on the wall. Which seemed to take its precious time to arrive at 4 p.m.: procrastinating to reach there as if 4 was its fearsome foe. My eyes alternated between my mobile and that clock on the wall. My hair was tremendously combed and my breath was fresh. She had told me she would call and I believed she would call.

  Only in dreams do those creepy arms of the clock not reach 4p.m, but this, although it felt like one; was no dream. It was 4p.m. – finally I would see that rare beauty that only lives in a handful.

  However, mother had constantly warned me about how too much excitement always ends in rivers of tears. How could I have forgotten my basic teaching? Those creepy hands on the clock tick-tacked repeatedly until the sun went down.

  I stared at the falling sun by the window in my lonesome dark flat, “perhaps something had happened”, I thought to myself. But worse still, “perhaps nothing had happened”.

  Strange was how I felt, but stranger than this was the mere fact that I had only seen and known her for two days. But I was certain of it, just as I am certain that there lies beauty in the world. That I was madly and undeniably in love with her.

  My theory was that as we were being conceived, God was creating her lips so-sugary so-pleasant with mine in mind… just perfect for these lips of mine: so that when we kissed even stones would cry. This theory, that he was fashioning her heart with mine in mind, so when we touch our hearts would beat to craft music as flute.

  It was evening now, she still had not called. My senseless ego and Manish pride prohibited me from calling. But I owed it to myself and the one that beats within me to have the courage to my own romantic convictions.

  I hanged up a few times before I ultimately gained the strength and valor to let it ring. Her silky voice answered at the other end.

  “I wanted to call, I so desperately did.” she said.

  “Then why didn’t you?” I asked her.

  “You …” Her soothing breath filled her chest, “you wouldn’t understand …”

  “Then make me understand Fiona… what’s going on?” She paused for awhile then proceeded to say,

  “It was all a dream, a beautiful dream, but a dream nonetheless.” She was crying when she said this, I’m certain of it. There’s just something about a cry which you cannot miss. Before I could prolong my speech, a voice of another echoed, then the call was abruptly ended.

  I had hopes that calling would provide answers I was so desperately seeking in order to grasp, and comprehend, this elusive matter of the heart. But all that calling provided was a stream of questions which bombarded my already troubled head.

  These questions took me a few days back to the first time I ever set eyes on her. It began like any other day when something spectacular was about to transpire. As if nothing would ensue – I was sitting by the Arcadia Park, observing the world – a writer’s curse: the wind swayed from both sides of east and west, and subsequently Fiona came along. Blind men must have seen her that day for a sight of an angel walking on brown earth was exceptionally hard to miss: an angel that walked and breathed like us.

  She was as slender and tall as falling rain. Her hair was dark, long and her race was mixed. If only I alone possessed the sacred gift to see angels, but everyone around me was just as enchanted and captivated as I was. While walking in her high heels, she had that indescribable aura which leads men to flaunt as peacocks and make fool of themselves. She sat a few feet away from me on the opposite swing. She swung to and fro, to and fro, to listen to music.

  I admired her liberated free-spiritedness. The flaunting peacocks came one after the other. Those who thought were smooth-talkers recoiled with clumsiness and smooth-walkers went back staggering like old men. Man after man they came with inviting smiles on their face but with sadness when they left.

  When finally I glanced at her, I found her eyes addressed at me. Sideways I looked, there was nobody there. She smiled. Roses bloomed instantly on that faultless day. I hesitated to converse with her as I knew she burnt more than raging flame. I wished not to stagger like old men.

  But I knew that were my ears not to hear the sound of her voice that day, irrespective of their nature, I would have regretted it for all time coming.

  Like a brave little soldier going to war, I stood up and slowly walked towards her. On my reaching close, she stopped, smiled again. Violets followed to bloom.

  “How do you do”, I asked, while she took off the music from her ears.

  “I’ve been better, but then again I’ve been worse,” she said.

  “Do you have time?” when she glanced at her watch, I interrupted

  “Well Ms I meant do you have a lil’ time, to spend with me?”

  She blushed, I sat next to her. We conversated for hours, as if I knew her for years, but feeling as if not a ticking second had passed.

  When it finally came time for her to leave, I grew quite sad and asked if I could see her again that following Saturday. It was a Thursday when I recall.

  “What will you be up to tomorrow?” she asked, “Cos I would love to see you tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday and…” She stood up and left; but then she turned around and smiled once more. All flowers followed to bloom.

  The day which followed, till today, I cannot possibly put in words. I was a dying breed; here in the capital of South Africa, the numbers of my kind had dwindled like water on desert sand; perhaps the very last of my kind – the last true romantic. But even for a writer, a romantic, not even in my dreams have I dreamed that such a day would exist. I kissed her beneath the stars, she held me tight and refused to let go beneath the stars. Ask the stars they will tell you, love happened beneath their eyes.

  Now here I was in the night, after the day, with those stars which were so kind so bright that yester day – dark this day. I repeatedly asked what she meant, what did she refer? How could a dream turn so quickly into a nightmare? But a man’s pride is a man’s pride and I would not subject myself to such torture from another being, even if this being caused my heart to beat like drum. So I did my best to put her off my mind.

  A couple of months had now passed since my hopeless affection. I had convinced myself that she was just another page in my life’s book: neither that graceful beginning nor that violent end.

  The life of the Arcadia flats was not for the weak and sensitive at heart. Here men exchanged concealed gifts which they called “cloud powder”: it could take you to the clouds. The majority of women wore tight clothes and worked at night. But it was an appropriate dwelling for a writer.

  Tired of the dinging sound of my typewriter – although at other times it was heavenly music to my ears – I strolled to the local supermarket which neighbored my apartment. Halfway there the earth stood still. As I gazed upon eyes which I never thought
I would catch a glimpse of again, they were enchanting as ever, as if she still lived in the sky.

  But there was something peculiarly different in the subject of her. Her make-up was overly redundant. She wore too little. Her hair color was too much, her company was worse, as they looked as if they went there and back again. She was too loud, how could she have changed in so little a time? Immediately on noticing me, her laugh evaporated like steam and simultaneously struck by a lightning of awe. The glass bottle she carried met with the floor; the acquaintance shattered the other into a thousand pieces of glass. We both froze like we were stuck in a timeless freezer, as round earth stood still for us. She was a working girl I was sure of it. Her company shook and woke her up. Without a word, I left; without a word, she left.

  Back in my lonesome flat, those rivers of questions and I rallied once more. But unlike the time before the time, there existed an evident disparity. This time I had responses to the questions as everything became lucid and clear as day. She sold her body for money. We both knew that a relationship was impossible and immoral. It was all a dream as she had earlier said.

  As days turned into cold nights, and nights into colder days, I yearned for the sound of her voice the feeling of her touch. It worsened each fleeting second as I thought, spoke and dreamed of her. What was I to do? It would be a sin to my reverends’ eyes, a shame and insult to my families’ pride. But I knew that were my ears not to hear her gentle voice once more I would have went deaf, were my eyes not see her once more, I would have gone blind. So I found her and accepted her past, embraced her present and told her that she was my future.

  Our relationship was of the strangest kind but we both did not seem to mind. Her folks had passed on. The only two people she could call family was her brother Vincent, and the addition of me. She paid the mortgage and all his fees at the University of Pretoria with the cold money she earned. He knew very little of what his sister did for a living. We kept it that way for all future times.

  She was as kind as a butterfly, yet every time she worked in those wintry streets, her essence and loving soul were slowly depleting. I kept her sane and showed her north. Now and again she would return with scars and bruises. It would bruise my heart each time. The challenges we faced were more than the leaves in the forest. But we kept strong like a rooted tree in the middle of that forest blown by a relentless and violent wind. Still, I remember our love overcoming the odds that were against us – at least momentarily.

  Weeks went passed and months followed. Together we found the joy of Eden, before the sins of men. Together we found pieces and scraps of bliss. On one strange day, I recall it like no other as it hurt like no other. Tears were filling her sea-blue eyes. She said her love for me was killing me. This could not have been true, how could she have said that? The reason I touch is to touch for her. But my love was leaving and I could tell her mind was made.

  “My being with you kills your dreams. You deserve more than this, more than me”, She said.

  “Promise me that you will meet someone normal, fall in love, grow old and have kids,” I had never seen her cry as much. She continued to speak,

  “Promise me, that you will neither wait for me nor try to find me, but to forever keep me in your dreams as I will always keep you in my heart,” placing my hand so gingerly on her chest. Although at the time I did not wish to admit it, she was as right as rain. I swore an oath as a token of my promise, an oath I kept for forever and a day.

  Today, just like all days following her miserable departure, I received an anonymous phone call. The person on the other end kept silent but I knew it was her – missing me as I do her. I have little knowledge of her whereabouts, however, wherever she may be I hope she found peace. At least she left me with her astounding memories; I needed something of hers to keep me company.

  Chapter 2

  The Lucy Rey Mystery