DARLING DAISY

By

Romeo D. Matshaba

Copyright 2013 Unison Publishers Smashwords edition All rights reserved.

I recall I was much younger than today, my father taught me to see beyond a smile or a frown or even a practiced countenance but most importantly, he taught me about the centrality of love. Walk away from your God and your Dog and your Mom, but never walk away from love. I was younger, more penetrable, and I idolized every word of wisdom which his artistic mouth crafted, but the same man left mother and I without a postcard or a soft kiss on the cheek. I never cried; albeit, I left the door open now and then hoping he would one day stumble upon our door. Now the years have rendered me older and less penetrable to miniscule episodes, but I still recall his words, never walk away from love. But yesterday, I did exactly that, I shut my eyes from sad beauty strolled away from beaming love. I can impart upon you a great deal about how sad beauty scrounged her last breath, but let me reveal to you instead how she laughed and how courageously she lived. Before I became a useless hawk that watched as she sank from her own tears, drown in an ocean of ancient ghosts and dark waters. The last thing she said was If humanity should elect for us the prime possessors of our hearts and souls, than what use is love what use is life? She was too wise or true free, but I cannot forget that first day I met the true vessel of my bright-beating-heart. As we moved in the still darkness of the forest with tremendous speed, while the beaming light of the car gave fleeting and short-lived illumination to what seemed to be an infinite road. The wordless night was the kind where ghosts strolled in slow motion along the night, but who

was she? I asked my own self. At the corner of my eye I noticed how the more her flawless long legs propelled us to move faster and faster, her skirt was slowly shrinking simultaneously. It was as if she found great sexual pleasure hidden in that odd shaped paddle between her legs. Could she have worn any less, spoke any softer or looked any more splendid? These among others were the questions which like the convertible ran through my mind as I stared at her bewildered. There were no colors in the night, no blue no green, just many blacks and a few whites here and there. But amid this colorless night were her lips, those stunning red painted lips not too far from these lips was her forest green eyes staring unblinking at the infinite road ahead. Her foot went on and on, caressing and pressing hard against the odd shaped accelerator, as if to say speed is not a foe dear paddle, but an exhilaration dear paddle. Her long velvet legs slowly began to move sideways, her short black skirt now almost just a strip of cloth surrounding the gorgeousness of her milky legs. Are you alright? she turned to ask. I the silent observer was convinced that she was the type who could fake it when her clothes touched the floor and her voice was reaching for the ceiling. If I knew that my body would be traversing the night at this atypical speed, would I have reconsidered leaping into the passenger seat after my car broke down, and waited for another Good Samaritan? Heleina, her name she said she was, before she insisted on seeing me the very next day.

In the morning fog, my eyes could not see very far but the red convertible that halted a few feet away was unmistakably hers. But as the fog leisurely cleared from her face, I did not recognize the gorgeousness that stared into the dark of my eye it was a different type of gorgeousness. Yes her lips and eyes were those of Heleina but every other detail of her was dissimilar. Her hair was long and white, her eyes still green and her slender tall body stood there as if a portrait or a beauty. From morning dawn till evening dark we enjoyed the company and the hands of each other. It was Halloween and everybody dressed in black and dressed in fright. The yellow pumpkins that never smiled and the short dwarfs with crooked teeth exposed them in the moonlight shine. In all this she was a white rose in the desert, an angel amid the darkness. It was evident how the day before we moved with terrific speed, today we moved slowly slow and gentle, as if to savor this walk. By night end I found her holding my hand as if to say hold me and never let go kiss me and never halt to breathe. Although in the morning after she came with a new name and a new personality to match. Today she called herself Cindy, I was unsure if I could have the tenacity to keep up with her changing ways. What was her real name? I could not say, Where did she come from? I still could not say but I could tell you how I felt among her presence, like a bee among fragrant flowers or portrait in golden frame. I felt in place. Although there were a lot of statistics around her and a lot of fingers pointing along her line of sight so much beauty for so little function and purpose, they would say

wasting her days being different appeals, different people. But I came to realize that they were just illadvised fools who misunderstood her sensitivity; a fragile soul in an abrasive and cruel world. In the laughs and the dreams we shared and the months that soon followed. I came to identify all the secrets her heart kept. Noticing her change, although slow, like the gentle sea or the loitering snail. I felt her true self emerging into light and all counterfeit characters fading into the darkness; only Daisy remained. A further day down south we met with spring that was furnished with a warm and temperate day beneath the giant but tender green leafed tree. Like a flower or a seed, Daisy bloomed for me, and as if a musical genius she composed melodic sins of pleasure. We then carved our names so they would one day remember us under the baobab tree. I was amazed and without words when she told me she carried my unborn. Once in my violent life I knew what peace meant. I met with her folks and they too extended their hand of serenity and great reception, her father seemed unusually tense having a certain countenance, an expression I could not put down to experience. All along as I watched her tummy grow, I hoped there was more to life than her, more to angelic beauty than just her face. But the truth my heart and I both knew that life in itself would be a sad and whimsical flaw without her. My Daisy and the seed that grew within her was all I valued, all that had consequence. In the visits I made to her house, Daisys father became more and more distressed and anxious when we spoke, as

if he had a ghastly secret about her that scratched his tired back. It was along this night, while we dined at the wooden table that the truth rose in the sea the truth which made no one smile or sigh or cheery. Daisys father, or should I say my long lost father looked like a man who had just swallowed a red chili or a mouthful of salt. I could not but resent his shadow or the ground that carried his feet. But when we all stopped to breathe and consider what this meant, Daisy was weeping rain by my side and I whimpered internally. Thinking that my Daisy among flowers was my sister, and the man I could not face sitting opposite me was my father, the man who taught me about love. The rage within me persuaded me to leap and squeeze all the air in his lungs. But Daisys hand on mine calmed my soul and I slowly departed from this family. On the door I wished I could turn and see her face once more, but I couldnt, I just couldnt. Back in the loneliness of my home I felt as if I had died, and was now just a wavering body a ghost among the living. If I even thought of claiming my happiness and being with her it would be morally erroneous and sinful on all echelons of human morality but I loved her still, I loved her to the deeps of my bones. The next day my Darling Daisy stood a breath away, and I could see that she had not slept from her eyes and her slender fingers on my face revealed that it hurt. They say I should never hold you, sing to you and beat for you. She smiled awhile But what is funny is that, I can change my hair color and the paint on my mouth, but I

cannot change my heart. I cannot change that you mean everything to me Daisy, Darling Daisy, their right we cant, not anymore she looked as if all rationale had slipped away, and nothing I said seemed to ease her pain. I have a scheme well find a place and when we do, we will loose ourselves in it and leave this world behind she tried to kiss me and I looked away, pretending that it did not plague me at the core. She gave me time but little did I know she had but very little to give. Daisy did all and beyond what any human could do to convince me to be with her, to be with my sister. With every lid that I shut and every extended hand that I did not embrace she was losing the frail thread of hope. She might then have believed that I had abandoned her, but I was there, among the shadows and the walls I was always there. I saw her leisurely transforming into a beautiful sad face; my loving sad beauty. A summit the peak of suffering was reached. I believe it was when her heart gave in the moment was unmistakable, although I were far and she was further still. There was no breeze, all wind suddenly stopped to move, all beauty followed to die. When sad beauty took her own life. I wish there was a great moral to these comings and goings, a great realization or at the very least a soothing thought to fill these tired voids while mending this wounded heart. I wish like a timepiece I could shatter its glass and unwind its arms to bring forth my darling in the infinite road and the blooming baobab tree. But all I have

are shadows of guilt, grief and a silver gun staring at the cave of my mouth.

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