Simps will see dust 04_Valentine Special

Had I been keen, I might have seen how her eyes lighted up anytime she looked at me, which was many times. Instead, having resigned myself to the silent moans of desperation of a heart sick with love, I had been wallowing in the thoughts of my incapacity and unworthiness as to be able to win the heart of a lady I adored so much, with a kind of fervency that seemed to border on the extremes of insanity. Phrases I had rehearsed over and over in my room, the exact words that I intended would direct my discourse if fortune honored me with her presence, became nothing but incoherent and embarrassing grunts that left me bashful and discomfited. For several times, my obviously irritating buffoonery had proved me to be an intolerable nincompoop. That consciousness of my inferiority, in contrast to Brenda’s apparent impeccability, found its way into everyone of my conversations for which she was a part of. I would be gnawed within by a kind of strange and inexplicable wretchedness that made me miserable and uneasy in her presence.

While her beauty was endless, with everything about her being large and intense in that manner that it was impossible to disregard or overlook, it was in fact her irresistible stately mien and statuesque deportment that made everything about her both appealing and maddening. Even the mischievous boys of Mavine’s ilk who seemed to be always caught up in some vain expostulation and unnecessary altercation regarding which lady happened to be the prettiest in the whole of med school, were clearly awed by the thought of Brenda’s graciousness. She seemed to transcend every requisite of comparison that my male counterparts occasionally instituted to guide their judgments when it came to beauty. Simply put, she snapped the scales. The mere mention of her name caused a distinct hush among them, reminding them of their impertinence and galvanizing them back to reason. 

For almost a year, I had trained myself to be harsh and to loath her with such intense vehemence that went against everything I preached and believed in when it came to love. To me, it was so demeaning to have someone so good as a table mate. How was I to stand out when she was stealing all my light with her unmatchably sharp wit and incomparably lofty brains. There was always something about how she thought and reasoned that asserted her intelligence and declared her insanely robust abilities. As I walked outside the examination hall that afternoon, with Brenda beside me, I rued those days when I had chosen to be rude to a lady who never had any intentions to shame or paint me in a lesser light. The thought that I had been insensitive enough to deliberately come to the decision of being discourteous to such an angel of a person made my intestine fill with cold broth. I wanted to turn back the hands of time, and grow myself emotionally as to not feel insecure and threatened by someone else’s greatness. 

Rather unfortunately, what I was oblivious of was that even in my current remorse, I was still holding on to the same delusion that had dictated my immature and shameful behaviour in the earlier days of our acquaintance. Until then, I had been unable to see my impassionate loathing for what it really was, a coping mechanism for a crush I was battling with every ounce of energy in me. Beneath the veneer of my belligerence was the silent and helpless wail of a battle I was losing. The battle of love. I hadn’t been wise enough to understand that it wasn’t with indifference nor impoliteness that love was repressed, in fact, if anything, I was activating a domino effect that would only leave me miserable in the years to come when I would be properly and thoroughly enamored by my infatuation. What was so heartbreaking was the idea that Brenda would never love me as I loved her. Yet this was only but a theory I had crafted for myself, and lacking the cojones to face my fears and confess my love, I had strove to convince myself that my love was the most ridiculous and irrational thing.

 As I was busy whining over the pains of unrequited love, I forgot to see the passion that burned in Brenda’s eyes with such intense coruscation every time her gaze settled on me; I didn’t hear the implicit excitement that was in her voice anytime she addressed me; I quickly dispensed with her piquant and dazzling smile that had always been meant for no one else but me. I even forgot that she probably had a hundred better people to walk besides, but to her, I was a better than all those hundreds or else she would be somewhere else. Had I been keen enough, I would have realized that she had waited to see me finish my paper, so that she would steal a minute of my company as I was wont to avoid her, which was largely because of the pain I attributed to my unfortunate love.

The prospect of the following day being 14th of February, Valentine’s day, was one that excited many of the students who were gladly and briskly walking out of the examination hall. Tomorrow they would have opportunity to rid themselves of all the anxiety and trepidation that the Pathology paper had instilled in them, except if they were unfortunate when it came to love as I was. And because I was unable to lift myself from my prostration, to master the necessary machismo and speak out my love; I would never know the desperation with which Brenda expected my proposal; how she waited patiently for me to ask her out; the longing desire she had for me to take her hands in mine. I would only get to know of that after my intern posting, four years later, when it was too late and we now had to part ways. She had been posted in Mombasa, I in Kisumu. May be I had been wrong to regard Jitu’s quote as some dumb philosophical cant when he said, “a man who stays silent around a beautiful lady ends up fetching water on her wedding day.”