I imagine you up there, cracking jokes, making the angels laugh until they cry.
I miss you.
Are you truly gone?
The last time I sat in one of these VIP buses, I was with you. The preacher man in the middle aisle kept moving back and forth between the rows, his black-brown Bible pressed firmly across his mouth with one hand, while the other gestured wildly with every word he spoke.
I only gave him a cedi after he was done because he said a prayer for us travelers, and he was sweating quite a lot.
I got the job we prayed for in the Volta Region. Compared to the city of Accra, it was pretty easy to find an apartment. The rent is good, and the landlady didn’t charge an exorbitant price like they do in the city.
Today, I journey alone into the quiet city we both wanted so badly.
There will be no shoulder to lay my head on.
There’s no one to walk up to the driver and ask him to stop so I can pee in the bushes by the roadside.
No hand to grab when the speed of the bus scares me.
Magava, there is nothing as boring as my life without you.
There is nothing as painful as starting over and moving on with this new life without you in it.
I got a tattoo on my wrist, the very place you held to feel my pulse the night we kissed. If I wasn’t sure of my love for you before that night, in the middle of the university park, when your lips touched mine, I knew I wanted to love you forever.
I remember your lips against mine. The silence. The huge trees stood still, as though they had paused to give us a moment. I can still recall the cold before the rain. You didn’t have a jacket like the men do in movies, but you kept your arms around my shoulders as the porter let us in. It was past 11 p.m., and males weren’t allowed, but he let you in. I thank the rain for holding us hostage in that sitting area; it was the most memorable silent moment of my life.
“Greetings, Magava.”
That’s all I let them write on my arm.
I got your message from the passenger who sat next to you in the front seat just before you died. I invited him to your requiem and asked him to replay the conversation you both had that night, just before the motor ran into your taxi. He agreed and told it all over again. The last sentence remains:
“Please give my regards to my wife, Mawusi.”
I’ve replayed it over and over. I’ve transcribed it. I’ve sent copies to my email. I cling to it as though it is the only thing I have left of you — proof of who you were and what I meant to you. I listened to it this morning before I left our room, our old apartment. I cried deep, soulful cries. Took long stares at the walls, the kitchen, the living room.
You weren’t there, Magava.
You are truly gone.
Today, I journey alone, Magava.
Magava, shall you return to me?
