Love is you on your death bed; in your final hour, surrounded by flushed crying eyes of helpless loved ones. It’s that moment when your breaths are measured – each one drawing you close to your end. You sift through your words, delicately picking the important ones, for a dying man has none to waste.
You want to tell your wife that at your death, another woman will emerge with a child and claim to be her co-wife. You almost start to, but it requires a lot of words, words you don’t have, and how can you explain that it was out of love for her that you kept the mistress a secret?
You want to tell your son that the land he thought he would inherit was sold off by you secretly a few years ago. You are just about to, then you remember it’s hard to speak. You’re limited by the amount of air you can expend from your lungs, and you’re not sure if you have enough time left for explanations, so you let it slide.
You want to tell your daughter that she actually qualified for the university and her acceptance letter came, but you hid it because you loved her. No man in the village would have married a university girl. You think you should, it’s important she knows, but at most, you think you have only 5 words. And you have to save them.
Time is up, you can feel it. The breaths are more laboured and so you say words you have never said before, words you should have said more often. You look at them with emotional tear-filled eyes, summon up all your energy and say “I love you all”
Love is you dead.
Read Blank by Nanaaysha – A Flash Fiction by Shittu Aisha Adetoun, Nigeria
