My first close friend was a caramel-skinned, quiet girl. They were our neighbours, separated by a “ng’ombe” fence, rusted iron sheets and a feeble, tall lemon tree which never bore fruits. Her father was a tall, big-eyed man who rarely met eye-to-eye with people. I don’t remember his voice. Even though he had a big stature, it was quite difficult to catch him speaking. He walked around in a greasy faded blue apron the colour of a lake. He worked at a garage in town; fixing cars was his passion. Her mother was the complimentary opposite, a loud woman, a fruit vendor and a stern disciplinarian. She had small eyes that reflected what you felt while looking at them. She was also one of my mum’s friends; one of the many we picked along the way by virtue of being neighbours.
I got into a fight with my friend once. I remember pushing her into a poodle along the sparse non-tarmacked driveway which led directly to the iron sheet gated entrance of our plot. We were outside playing, hoping the rain would not fall. I stood just across the poodle at a dry spot and watched her try to get up, angry and crying. Her clothes were soaked in muddy water and maybe the thought of her mother scolding her made her angrier. Try as I would, I can’t remember why we fought but it was the start of a friendship punctuated by a lot of poodles that would eventually wash away our bond.
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We became friends quickly as we started school together. She was the bubbly one. The one who smiled and fit into groups. The one who could speak for herself, be cheeky and still get away with her mischief. I was the quiet, almost weird kid who never got to even join a girls’ group. Class four was our last school year together. I still recall that closing day, which would also be the last time I saw most of my classmates. I was only learning the art of saying goodbye. In our giddy moods, congratulating and wishing each other a merry Christmas, we should have known that we would become strangers years later. I was excited to leave for boarding school after the new year. There, I nurtured friendships; some were fickle, ending in outbursts and silence, yet others continued to date.
My childhood best friend and I grew apart. It was inevitable. We saw and talked a little with each other awkwardly. Time passed quickly to after our fourth form, eight years in, and we had become shreds of our pasts. We no longer shared a fence. They had already moved to a new home on the other side of town, in the suburbs dressed in greenery and enclosed mansions whose gate you’d peep through to gape at the expansive grounds. We met often though. It was always an eventuality that we’d never avoid in such a small town.
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She was now working at a cyber cafe, clipping papers, photocopying, helping old folks keep up with simple technology and doing what cyber people do. Those eyes. A chipped upper jaw incisor. Neck-length, soot-black, blow-dried hair. Two piercings on each ear. A nose ring. Low hellos. Exchange of pretentious pleasantries with ten years’ worth of changes. There wasn’t much we could talk about anyway. She didn’t ask me if I was done with university or my course. I didn’t ask her if she was attending one too. We didn’t ask each other about our dreams, whether either of us achieved any, whether we were happy with how life had happened so fast to us and if we even missed our friendship. Ten years was a long time to look back on the details that slipped away at a cyber counter. The last time we said happy birthday. The last time we had a good laugh. The last time we shared a snack. The last time she visited my home. The last time I saw her off and the last time we said goodbye albeit unknowingly.
She was also heavy with child, one whom I remembered as a child too; adulthood, time and the impossibility of something everlasting. I got other friends along the way. Overnight friends and overnight strangers again. I remember their birthdays, their laughs, their cries; I remember how sad they got and the expressions of disdain, joy, exhaustion, and childhood oblivion. “Do you remember how close we were?” “Sure.” “What happened?” The cliche. “Life happened.” All through social media looking up old friends. Anniversaries of love, parenting, achievements and life and all that has happened without me. Life moved on. Schism. Dancing and gyrating with people in clubs, drinking glasses of cheap liquor, humming to songs, outbursts of emotions, confessions, exchange of secrets, silent stares, innocent touches, sips, hysteria, drunkenness, a myriad of neon lights, blurriness and heavy sleep.
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Prayers, combined grief, late night calls, anxiety, malls and pizza, click-click of cameras, friendship albums, exchanged music, cheerleaders. Friends. Close friends. Random chats, slow chats, once-a-day chats, scattered calls, little hangouts, less time, world problems, big issues, cancelled dates, postponed meetups, rushed goodbyes, forgotten birthday wishes, late congratulations, solo panic attacks, new people, new places, growing distances and extensive boundaries. Faded friendships. One year, job offers, promotions, bigger apartments, a title deed, a house, loss of love, silent sobs, loneliness, large space, irreversible choices, a new city, a different career, burning passion, love and lovers, a chain of heartbreaks; two years, booze, midnight cigarettes, homesickness, longing for snippets of the past and a once-was friendship. Forever. The past. Life moves on. Friends don’t stay.
This Creative Nonfiction was published in the December 2022 edition of the WSA magazine.
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