Shriek
On those little things that hurt us
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Dear Bolu,
News that the end of the weekend is the beginning of a public holiday is music to your ears as there is no respite more coveted by the salaryman than a paid labour-free day. You’re getting two of such days, so the music is twice as triumphal, and your feet can’t wait to dance to it. The wish of many men, women and children, expressed ever so often on Sunday evenings when they gaze upon the looming visage of nightmarish Monday mornings—that ungranted dreamy wish that the weekend was longer has now, for the next few days, been granted you. Four days of express enjoyment. Enough sunrises to tour the city and sample her finest restaurants. Way too many nightfalls to sink into a delectably indecent dress and grace the dance floor. A lot could be done in the coming days, and time is on your side.
Time is on your side, so you’re not in a hurry to leave the office. Your work here is complete, and nothing keeps you, but you remain comfortably seated in the company of several empty seats and black blank screens. Everyone else has left as if to get a headstart on the weekend, but you choose to bide your time till half-past six. As is customary, you pick out what you’ll listen to on your way home. Music. Podcasts. It’s one or the other, but you want your choice to be long-running and good enough to last you the entire journey, which takes about an hour on a good day. A 10-minute walk on either side of an uncomfortable cab ride is the bare minimum required to get you home, and you’d like to keep your phone pocketed for the most part of the trip. You’ve learnt the hard way that items can be easily snatched through the open window of a moving vehicle, and that’s not an experience you’d like to relive. So unless it’s necessary or you’re confident that your phone can’t be snatched from any angle, you’d rather let it rest in the confines of your pockets, purse, or bag. It’s a cold city, this one, and the only way to keep warm is to shine ya eyes. Wasteland, Baby! would do for today, of course. It’s an hour-long album, and there is comfort in the quaking of the Irishman’s preternatural voice layered over soft drums and an acoustic guitar. You take leave of the office with Hozier crying power through the speakers of your Bluetooth headphones and begin the commute home.
The commute home is pleasant. There are no queues at the cab spots, and you don’t have to wait before the vehicle fills up with passengers. Also, you get the front seat both times of asking, so you’re not one of the four unfortunate souls sandwiched in the back of the car. It’s just you, Sunlight in your ears though there’s mostly darkness before your eyes, a worn seat belt, and the evening breeze as the car travels swiftly without obstructions. Though cold, the city is still beautiful, and you take it all in with the fullness of your heart. You get home to find the gates locked from outside, which isn’t unusual. As is often the case, you’re the last to return, and it’s convenient for all the parties involved for you to let yourself in. You do so with the keys in your bag, and you walk in.
You walk into the onrush of your dog, Sheila. She's happy to see you—she always is, but you've not seemed happy to see her in a long time. Before you got a job three months ago, you were practically her best friend as far as inter-species relationships go. With the job came more demand for your time. You leave home in a hurry and are fagged out when you return. Your life is not entirely yours anymore. Perhaps it never was—it wasn't when you were a kid as you didn't have control of your time, and in a lot of ways, you still don't. Like the many new initiates into adulthood, you've quickly become a champion of the sentiment that adulthood is a scam. “Oh Sheila, what wouldn't I give to be as carefree and happy as you are?”, you often say but not today. Today is a good day. You're happy. Perhaps it's the prospect of the long weekend. Perhaps it's the sweet music playing in your head. You're happy and welcoming of her. You squat to pat and rub on her, and she laps up the love. She has missed these moments. She has missed you. And quite frankly, you have missed her as well. The romance ensues for a few seconds, but it’s interrupted when Sheila shrieks. It’s loud and shocking. It’s something you’ve never heard.
You’ve never heard her let out this sound. It’s very different from a bark, growl or howl. It’s neither aggressive nor harsh. It’s just scary. It’s sad. It’s pain. She pulls away from you immediately after and makes a break for her kennel. You observe as she moves that she’s running on only three legs. Weird. Why is she limping? Her right hindlimb is suspended as she scurries for her shelter. If she was a circus act, she’d have been treated to a rapturous round of applause for this show. After all, it’s not every day you see a tripedal animal. Yet, something about the whole display seems off. She is clearly in a lot of pain, and you have no idea why. Unable to understand what has happened, you head into the house to wash off the day’s troubles. The reception inside is warm. Welcome. How was work today? There’s some rice in the kitchen. You greet your folks, answer their questions and express your gratitude as you make your way to the room. Once inside, you’re slow to take off your clothes as if they weigh the weight of the world. There’s the sound of your back breaking as you twist and turn and stretch, but it’s okaay. Your spine has seen worse days. You try to catch some sleep after a cold shower, but it eludes you. And with eyes wide shut, you lay still on the bed.
On the bed, your mind wanders to Sheila and her shriek. What was that about? The sequence of events that culminated in her limp keeps repeating in your head like an iPod that is stuck on replay. You sense you had some role to play in the whole thing besides that of the shocked, stupefied, and concerned observer. Was it something I did? Oh my God. I’m such a fool. I stepped on her. I must have stepped on her as I tried to caress her. Oh, Sheila. You realise that you’re the architect of your friend’s pain. You stepped on her with the weight of the world still on your body, hence her cry and circus-esque limp. And this revelation makes you feel bad.
You feel bad for your friend because, well, you’re not a psychopath. It all makes you wonder about friends and friendships. Why do people sometimes assume that it’s obvious to us that we’ve hurt them and refuse to let us know they’re hurt? If we were actively trying to hurt them, we’d lookout for signs to confirm we succeeded. But we’re not seeking to cause them pain, so our deerstalker isn’t on our heads. We might be ignorantly doing this hurtful thing in an attempt to help or save them, and it’s hard to know otherwise if they don’t tell us. We don’t know that they’re limping because we stepped on their toes. We don’t know that they’re pulling away from us because we’ve hurt them. To answer the original question, you say it’s because there is some humbling and shedding of the ego involved when we admit to someone that they’ve hurt us. And sometimes, we’d rather not acknowledge that certain “trifling” things hurt us or that, in fact, we could possibly be hurt. I don’t like this word you used in the middle of our conversation. Whenever I tell you about my day, you just shrug and say “interesting”. You only hit me up when you need something. You always seem in a hurry to hang up the phone. You don’t say “thank you” when I help you with stuff, it’s always “nice nice”. You don’t ask to assist with the dishes or anything; even if it seems like I have it covered, at least ask. You don’t prostrate anymore when you greet me; you just gesticulate. You don’t sound excited when I share my wins; you simply say, “Good stuff…on to the next”. You don’t retweet or reshare my hustle. You don’t listen to the songs and podcasts I recommend. You don’t return the letters I write to you. You don’t hype the pictures and videos I send you. You don’t criticise the art I put out or provide feedback; you just always say, “Another banger”. You don’t show me off as much as you show off other people. Sometimes we don’t want to admit that these things bother us, so we shriek. We run away from our friends and loved ones, leaving them with unintelligible hints. We hide.
We hide like Sheila. We’re in pain, but we wait till the ignorant perpetrator acknowledges their faults after some gruelling detective work. If they fail to realise the obvious role they played in our limp because they lack eagle vision or possess mediocre deductive skills, we simply move on because the pain is tolerable. We move on, but we remember. Our body remembers, and our mind knows that it is owed an apology, some explanation, or a comforting embrace. And this debt will someday become wood to the fire that consumes our relationship and fuel to the feverish anger that burns us. Still unable to sleep, you dwell on these thoughts and a part of you worries about your friend. You owe her an apology—one she probably won’t understand—but you owe her one nonetheless. So you get up.
You get up and head for the kitchen. You treat yourself to the rice waiting for you. You take just enough servings to say that you had dinner—it’s a little anthill, but you’re pretty pleased with yourself. You save a piece of meat from your meal and let yourself out of the house. You’re surprised to see Sheila run out of her kennel as soon as you step onto the porch. She’s just as happy as she was when you returned from work. Wagging her tail like boughs of a willow tree, turning in circles like a pair of compasses; like a bird you cannot change, she’s free, and she lends herself to your warm caresses. It’s almost as if she’s forgotten you hurt her earlier. But you haven’t. It’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To apologise. You sit on the floor and let her eat the piece of meat out of your hand. She’s all over you, but you don’t mind her dirty paws; we’re all animals, after all. I’m sorry. It’s faint but true. So true it’s indelible.
Fin.
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Write you soon, merci!
- Wolemercy
Wow, this is so well written. Thank you for this beautiful piece... Plus, the transitions are outstanding