I have been waiting for the afterlife to welcome me. Today is the day I hoped for my time on earth to come to an end. Soft music radiates gently from the living room woofers. I am familiar with the Whitney Houston ballads that cascade gently out of the electronic machine. The melodies are soothing and yet still squeeze tears out of my eyes. I gnash my teeth. Crying is not what I want on my death day. I want joy. I want to be happy to finally let loose of the yoke that lies on my shoulder like an imaginary sack laden with stones.

There is darkness everywhere. Cars hoot about noisily across the road. Mingling with the screeching and yells of motorcycles. It is the price I have come to endure since I moved in this apartment with my lover three years ago. We were both young and newbies to the world of adulthood. Yet, we believed that we could survive the worst of storms if we had each other.

 “The views are beautiful. We get to admire the dazzling beauty of the night from here.” We were standing at the window of our one-bedroom apartment situated on a four storied building. We had been given a room on the third floor. My love was right, even though I had been complaining about the dinginess and shabbiness of the neighborhood, there was always beauty to be found in the worst of crevices. All the best lessons I ever got, were inspired by the love I shared with my lover.

I stood beside my lover taking in the glorious view of the night. A picturesque heavenly site of the stars glowing like a thousand lanterns and lighting up the night. This spectacular beauty covered away the obnoxious site of our neighborhood during day; the repugnant stenches of pollution, the gaping trenches stuffed with sewage and rubbish, the slums that littered everywhere with insanitary conditions. I was usually grumpy during the day.  In the night, this loathsome sight seemed to diminish in the bleakness of dark like a magician had wiped it all away with a magic paint brush.

  “I need to paint this. It is so glorious.”

My lover was always the artist. Always finding inspiration from anything that touched the earth. When we moved in together, my lover’s belongings took up most of the room. Our tiny one-bedroom apartment was crumpled up to hold artwork from my lover’s years as a dedicated artist. I have always detested messes and thought I would never adjust to the crowdedness of the room. I thought I would never adjust to the miserly situation of our new lives. We were surviving on a budget from the meagre rewards we made as artists. I hoped things would get better and we would move into a bigger space and better suburb. Years of sharing a roof with my lover were to quickly digest the grievances I had about our new life. Rather, I came to cherish the beauty of every moment I had with my lover underneath the roof of our tiny space. We made standing at the balcony of our apartment a routine. We watched the dazzling beauty of night that swallowed away the obnoxious of day. My lover usually liked to paint this sight while I watched quietly and tried to conjure up inspiration for my own art. These memories were to remain embedded beneath my skin like an extra cell and make it difficult for me to let go of the space we shared after my lover’s demise.

I still have the clothes covered with my lover’s blood tucked underneath my bed. I requested for them at the hospital that took care of my lover when the accident happened. Mama and everyone say that I have become a slave of grief. That hoarding onto the past is vile for my soul.  How can I make her and everyone else understand the emptiness that grief rips from the soul? 

Mama is older than I am. I know she has seen more funerals than I have. Yet, I feel like she can never understand what it means to watch someone you love struggle on life support machines to see another day.

I have not been the same since the grotesque accident that stole my love. My life seemed to have stopped the day I was called to the hospital after my lover was squashed by a speeding truck. Mama has suggested I move back home because the apartment is painted with so many memories of my lover. She also recommended a therapist who keeps singing the same mantra; You need to move on. I am furious how easily they all seem to discard the word in my face like a cheap placard. Which is why I have shut down all of their pitiful faces. 

Today, I thought I would die and join my lover on the other side. I imagined how blissful life would be after our reunion. My head has been swimming with fantasies of my lover painting me with a wreath of flowers on my head while celestial beings awe at the artistic talents of my beloved. I took an overdose of pills I bought from the drugstore. I hoped that it would paralyze my anguished heart.  I have been laying wide awake in this gorge of darkness. I had a moment of a revelation after my aborted mission. I realize that everyone is right. I need to stop feeding this grief before I crush into the horns of insanity. Besides, my lover would have wanted me to find the beauty in the bleakness of this dreadful thing called grief; To be strong and spin something out of this horrid thing.

I drag myself from the floor. The pills churn in my stomach and clog my throat with nausea. I rush to the bathroom and throw up profusely in the sink. I step into the bathtub after retching the poison from the pit of my stomach. The warm water against my skin is rejuvenating. 

I step out of the bathtub naked with water running down my skin like shiny beards and move to the balcony of the apartment. The night is immaculate. I relish the fresh air on my naked skin. I think of my lover on the other side looking at me and smiling because I have finally found myself.