MONOLOGUE: REGRETS

If you ask me, what death tastes like, I would tell you, with all the sadness I can muster in this world of agony, that it tastes like the sore plastic tube forced deep into my mouth.

I am surrounded by men and women I will never get a chance to know. They fight tirelessly for my life. The young nurse by my right-hand side watches in suspense. She reminds me of my daughter, Ada, who was always more concerned about my wellbeing than I was. She looked tired--they all looked tired. I wished I could aid their efforts but I'm too weak to even draw my own last breathe.

In these last moments of my life I travel through time to a place filled with the warmth of morning sun and the whispers of mango tree leafs; a place where the ground was was alive and creeping with insects, the sweet taste of yam and palm oil dripping from my tiny fingertips; a place I once called home. I think about my childhood and my humble beginning in my father's compound. His most priced treasured, I sat at the center of his heart. Those days life seemed like an unending bliss filled with laughter and games. I miss everything about the life I once knew and embraced in my tiny arms.

I think of my beautiful African queen, Nnema, whose beauty as at par with the river goddess. It's been a decade since I last found solace in her bosom or the warmth of her thighs. Some memories life cannot steal away from you no matter how it tries. I remember vividly her love and kindness towards. It pains me to think that I will never be able to fulfill my promise to her. If I had known that this journey will take me far away from her (for too long), never to see her again, I would have had second thoughts. How would she handle my passing? I should have never made a promise I would not keep.

My children. My wonderful children. The only people in the world I live for. It saddens me and breaks my heart in a thousand ways knowing I would have set my eyes on them again-- I will never see my boys become the men I hoped one day they would become. Is it possible I get another chance to make things right no matter how brief? I want to make things right before I... I want to live--more than anything in the world. This cannot be the end. Can life be this unfair? If someone had told me I would ever find myself here, on a hospital bed counting the last few of my life I would have shunned them sternly. It feels surreal--this moment, laying her almost lifeless, watching my life flash before my eyes.

The end is inevitable I suppose. A painful reality. It is closer than I ever thought it was. I can feel it creeping on my skin, swallowing me up slowly.

Oh, life! My wife and kids, what would become of them, dear lord? Who will love and protect them? Why has calamity befallen me that this point in my life? How can I rest in peace knowing my household is in disarray? It hurts in a way my dying heart cannot bear. It hurts deeply.

My life flashes before my eyes and now I'm consumed by a thick darkness and a silence that screams loudly in nothingness. I'm sorry, but I leave with regrets and with no hope of redress. My life flashes before my eyes and I drown in a pool of darkness and tears. This is how regret feels like. I will never come to terms with this great injustice life has shown me. Not in this life or the one after. At the same time, I hope nothing lies beyond the boundaries of life where I stand painfully still.

©nonswrites

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