Ọrọ

Actors and why I can't talk

Welcome!! If you’re yet to subscribe, kindly do so with this button. Also, remember to leave a like and a comment.

Photo by Ron Whitaker on Unsplash

Dear Bolu,

Mi o m’ọrọ sọ. I don’t know how to talk. No, it’s not a metaphor for impoliteness, disrespect, or insensitivity when speaking. I simply don’t know how to talk. I never learnt how to. When we are 2 years old, I suppose, we’re invited to a ceremony where each attendant is bestowed the requisite skills to communicate with other humans—how to write and speak. This ceremony, which requires the gift of imagination to remember, marks an essential milestone in life as it begins our journey towards the demystification of self. On the day I was to receive my gifts, as they were, I got to the venue late. I overslept, as I still habitually do, but don't fault me. Why would you blame a two-year-old for getting lots of sleep? Heck, most parents would take that anytime. I overslept, and I was last in the queue at the ceremony. Unfortunately, by the time it reached my turn, the bathing fluid for speech had been exhausted. I couldn’t complain to the conveners because, of course, I couldn’t speak. So I cried. And I cried a bit more. To compensate for the absence of speech fluid, I was immersed twice in the writing fluid. Bah! As if being doubly good at writing is recompense for anything at all. Now and again, I wonder how it happened that they ran out of fluid. How do you invite people to such a monumental event and not cater adequately to them? I don’t know. The best answer I’ve got is that if this could happen anywhere, it’d probably be this country. If you’ve lived here long enough, nothing would surprise you.

Awọn oṣere. Actors. I like the big screen, although I don’t have one. Cinema holds a special place in my heart because if done well, it’s a spectacle. I have enjoyed several actors and acts over the years, and that’s a trend that won’t go away anytime soon. When I watch actors speak sometimes, I wonder if real people speak like that. How do you always know exactly what to say? How are your rebuttals so hard-hitting? Did you just come up with that on your feet? How can you pull off such an incisive argument in the middle of a hot debate? I can’t. I couldn’t. And I admire anyone who can. I can’t win a war of words even if my opponent was handicapped or, perhaps more aptly, wordicapped and required to use words of only three syllables or less. In the middle of conversations, I wish sometimes that I could call a timeout when someone asks me a question. Please, give me eight-and-a-half minutes to gather my thoughts about why I think children shouldn’t be allowed to own phones. I’m fascinated by people who don’t need timeouts. I do, and because I never get one, I stutter through my response with the coherence of a 2-year-old. Bah! Perhaps someday, there’d be a movie where actors speak like I do—where they talk like people who don’t know what to say beforehand. One could argue that that’s what a reality show is, but the people in those shows know a camera is on and that bears its own influence. I’d like to see professional actors act like me. It’d be a box office flop.

Iwọ. You. For a while, I thought my inability to speak also resulted from my having nothing to say or not knowing what to say. I don’t think so anymore, not since that time we spoke—or at least tried to. I know for a fact that I could write a thousand words about your hair, and a thousand more about the lines that dance and shimmer around your eyes. Bah! Don’t ask me for proof, take my word for it. I could write these and more, yet during our conversation, it seemed I was auditioning for the role of a mute and somehow failing at it. This is my hardly subtle way of saying I am neither mute nor shy, I just don’t know how to talk. I’m sorry.  I know the words. I see them in the hangar above my head. They travel to my gut but get stuck in my throat on their way back out. Normally, it won’t bother me so much. I stay away from kids, so no one gets to ask me why there’s water inside a coconut or how rainbows manifest. Nothing about laying pipes or replacing broken spigots requires much talk either, so I get away with little speech in my day-to-day. But you—you make it bother me, and it’s not your fault. It’s mine. You make me want to talk and wish I didn’t sleep so much when I was two. There’s a lot to be said about you to you, and, sadly, I lack the means to, dear friend.

Fin.

---

Thanks for reading! I’m delighted you made it here. If you liked this issue of Dear Bolu, you could sign up here so that new letters get sent directly to your inbox.

If you really liked it, do tell a friend about it.

Also, remember to leave a like or a comment!

Write you soon, merci!

- Wolemercy