Scattered Fragments

Scattered Fragments

Sitting on the edge of a rock overlooking a gorge, about a thousand meters deep. At the bottom the river, a thin silvery snake, winding its path through to where,
the Indian ocean? I dont know. It cascades out of the side of the gorge, the waterfall hidden from view further up. The water is pristine crystal clear, sweeter than any bottled water, icy cold.

Across the other side of the gorge, I watch a leopard, through binoculars, sejeant
regally surveying all before her, in her realm.

African dawns and sunsets, literally dramatic breathtaking explosions, of kaleidascopic colors bursting on a giant canvas. The sun is climbing rapidly, urgently. Strange how its rising and setting always seems so short, yet its daily celestial traverse from east to west, so so slow.

This is the Africa I wish I could have shown your mother, which I have yearned to share with you. I have been coming to this gorge twenty one years, since I heard of your birth.

Your mother danced into my life, she really danced into it, in a drama lesson. She was there for dancing, I wanted to write. I was the introvert, she the extrovert. Two days off the plane from London,jumping right into activities. It took me two months to decide to join the course.

Had the streets been filled with roaring lions or screaming sirens, would I have stopped to heed the signs.

With all the gust and force of a Cape Town southeaster gale, we tore through a
relationship. I often wondered if it really happened, it was so damn fast.

The night she told me she was pregnant, I kissed her belly. In that kiss I tried to
transmit to you the love and joy I felt. The thought that I had a part in creating another human was overwhelming and empowering. I could have taken on the world,
the universe and all the planets - come one, come all.

Two days later arriving home after work, she greeted me with, "Me Dad says we moost go ome."

"You go ome, I stay."

Ever wished you could erase something you said the second you said it? Ever
used a gift to destroy or hurt? My gift is accents and mimicking people. The hurt in her eyes. The silence. We went to bed in silence, I left for work in silence. When I came home from work, to the silence, she was gone. She had flown back to London in silence.

I said earlier I would have taken on the world, that would have been easier than taking on the goverments of this world. I couldn't get a visa.

I want you to know I did try. I thought of walking all the way,jumping any border I couldn't cross legally. I tried becoming a stowaway, was caught and beaten up long before the ship left the harbour. I even thought of rowing all the way.

A defining premise of insanity is when you can't follow a thought from point A to a logical conclusion. Even if I had per chance managed to get any of those actions right, I still wouldn't have known where to go or look in London for your mother.

Slightly over eight months later, a telegram; as a passing light drizzle; with its
tantalising, taunting, featherlight caresses, teases the arid parched sands of the
karoo to vanish. So the telegram read: "Andrea born 3:30 am Feb 13th 1980."
No phone number, no address. Only the silence in the certainty of knowing that I
would never know you.

I retreated to the only sanctuary I knew, the bush. Which is why I return here every year, and every year I promise myself I will find you.

Somewhere in the old testament King David is in the desert, he expresses a desire
for a drink of water. His soldiers goes out into enemy territory and bring him water,
he pours out the water onto the desert sands as an oblation to God.

If I was told I could have one chance to hold you for one moment in time, but I would have to swap my past, present and future, I would gladly do it and still feel that I had the better part of the deal.

I will be leaving these scribbles with the others under the rock, my catharsis. The only thing I can say is "I have never stopped thinking of you, though I won't be coming back, I will be taking the memories of the times I have spent here thinking of you, that part of me reaching out to the part of me in you." And those nobody can take from me.

May you know that I do love you.