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Coming of Age Black Friendship

Dumisani khumalo

Time lapsing put him on the spot like a choir boy ,, and time outside our own rhelm of time,froze all his intentions he had to find a juggernaut to fight his battles at his coming of age .

The way love is ,is nubbing ,you can not tell the difference between reality and truth unless you know what times you live in and want.

He had matured fast and she too fell into his paces at school ,that everyone found it fascinating they were becoming a couple ,and they stood in awesome watch as if to prove a point to them .It was however incongruous. The creeps came out at night to hound them ,and the their will's were as rhobust.

 Endless supply of  time ,no one has the tools to measure ,as Solomon tried and needed to calibrate from his own anxieties ,lookiing iinto his hand dial, he squinted at it and yawned again and again.

He saw the.clouds seem to drop on him on his rear view mirror of his car,and up ahead ,seem to commiserate with his angels, an incomprehensible.intangible,and typical day that was unmoved.Was this here the Alice in wonderland  phenomenon?

He engaged gears a throttle up ,gazing sideways for the sheer dainty desire for speed . Suzie's words trustingly came to  his ears like a cuddle with their curious mind ,and she had that one exclusive place in his heart .

The speed demon started whetting his appetite for another beer in his cooler box. The hands steadied themselves for the wheels alignment on the road.

The radio was crackling with samba music churned out like the thick emulsions of livers he had had in the morning with the eggs ,and moving back and forth in the kitchen , he danced out of the house to fix their problems, as he wanted to get the wedding done in time. The preparations were taking a toll on him. .Thats the way love is ,to kiss and tell,and marry the first one you know.

He enumerated things he had done ,and things he had not ,and started counting like a child learning his numbers for the first time , on his left fingers for the umpteenth time for major requirements needed at the wedding ,and they seemed not to add up .Thats when he moved a gear low ,when the car rattles started telling him how brute his notices were..They countered his invitations.

He was looking for someone or something that would tell him exactly what he needed to do and appreciate his coming of age .The organic throbs in him were like those of the engine rumbling with their own mind ,and they were world's apart from him, and with the rhyming feelings he had at the same time ,it was what nature had made ,He pulled himself together, and longed for her ways ,her independent self made reasoning,, as his subconscious mind grasped the up bringing and new host of dreams.

The telling signs and pointers to maturity were coming up with big magnifying glasses to him to see through it all, and the wedding was not different .

The beast of time stood up belligerentt as was a training day ,,and like a sentinel to the wedding , the knack ,to mark it's bounds with the reality to sink in and make out peace with the future ,was tearing up the past to shreds 

He took to a long look at things up ahead of time and like unanswered prayers kept thinking at what lay ahead.The love ,the girl he had proposed to on his knees,and the white wedding, the house he wanted .There were upsets of course on ,the down payment,the credits crunch,and the venue of the wedding, being over booked and the dates having to be readjusted ,to suit his guests and hers ,and the hosts, who would talk in his and her favor.

It was humane and realistic to measure up to the challenges and finding a neutral ground there when he wanted to grasp the changes .He stuck out his all ,and he was questioning his happiness again and again ,as he felt this was not childs play anymore.

Was there a kind of insurance he could get from his friends ,from the Banks dissapoibtments? He would not be offended as he had with the time on his side than on his brains and nerves ,and to slow down on the rumble of the engine up ahead it seemed.

The days were all coming and going in pursuit of the one good thing he wanted and the bad things he ignored ,and trying to separate them sandwiched them together as his subconscious mind ,which he had craved for a long time ,to become an adult so fast,and it was a dreary period as nothing seemed to move.

He had searched like a perching missile for those talked about upsets ,and brought them down,from his friendly critics , jealous friends ,hob nobing envious comments ,and save for the congratulatory ones ,from distant WhatsApp messages that made his day look brighter ,,and from his father and mother ,and in-laws.,they got their support.

Time clicked on so slow he could see the distractions ,and searched deep and he did as he was told by his parents,he could not be alone ,and tried to see what he would do next.What would come first.

The wedding was the most central part to them both than the house ,,and more important to them was the love they had for each other, as was his well too careful wish to see that everything came out as planned ,as he wanted to please her ,.

That awkward tie ,cake without tiers ,cars to use ,the guests of honor to be invited from their homes and work places ,the right words they expected to hear ,the fear of something going wrong or something standing in their way,,were having the better of them than the honeymoon they wanted.The two saw the little things work on their courage ,the blood rising ,as Solomon learnt quick how to ignore them.

Insecurity and small minds played a chord ,as the thoughts took their time coming and getting them erased, and that was as becoming pale in the face and an adrenaline squid sitting on them and losing that kind word ,and at the tips of his friends taunting tongues,sound explanations played in like sitting for an exam ,and weighing the advices about age ,and about them ,,taking the vows  without the experiences ,and he was not taking any bait, offenses and diffenses,from them to prove a point.

They were obviously painting his lover with the proverbial brush .A house wife to sit on you so that you ignore your friends, ,some said a perker, others, a woman's lib dynasaur,, or a combination of what the city comes up with before a divorce court.A fight over tooth paste,,an eloper after the wedding ,and the mistrust and the dowry needed ,or the blue screen kind of altercation to come next.all played in at once for his age.

He was alone to pamper himself ,with a bottle of hooch,,far away from the halabaloo,when ,singing his own praises,and getting on with life ,was now a way out .

Self delegation was better than the pushing time ,which was again and again frozen ,with the bad demeanor's.

There was no time to tell ,as he sat still reminding himself about youth ,and the cursing insults he had gotten used to ,,the disrespect,dishonor ,fulminating language ,fights close to his chest with his friends, and at the periiuphery of adulthood,with it's responsibilities ,the quiet diplomacy, was needed, and as a cosher,to the love strains were better taken in and wallowed in ,as his nibbling on a candy bar called love in the lives that would be great ..

The whisperings of adults became greater and on a dangerous note on subjects he could not phantom at first,such as on erectile dysfunction, became the louder like warning sirens of the days wreckings to spoil the day ; the blood pressure ,,sugar ,stroke ,and he wondered what his worry was before his milk teeth came out . But it was put up ahead of him to see.

He drove to a halt to take a peek at the venue in the park.

Self delegation was better than relaying I on friends ,as that was what adulthood required of him as he looked at the combined friends he had , still quick on the tongue ,,and after all ,no one wanted to try for him,in any way , just that and their friendly critics and  friends with their own lives to live too.Was that not as time stopping? 

He saw through their half baked lies ,and the selective talk and succeeded with his parents advice better ," Suzie don't cry , cause I want to know why " he sang out of a whim he had ,alone ,trying to think clearly of the phones wiry calls and talk, and told himself too brilliantly that life was changing ,with the developments that were not coming to sit on him like the heavy build women at the market place ,,so that he could buy his days groceries without an Inquisition.

She took her time and how it was not like those dating days at all,and until he realised that he could have nothing out of of it if he ,did not do as he wanted ,life was not moving ,and every moment had to be savored and it's tomorrows remembered, ,with the ticking clock , unconsciously clicrking forth reminders ,the sweeter to the two was working wonders.

The end of fear was knowledge , and an unending list of things had to be bought ,and it came out from their parents purse.,and nothing would scatter their minds now.

June 25, 2021 08:04

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1 comment

Michael Lane
06:52 Jul 01, 2021

What has impressed me here is Dumisan's love of words. He puts them together , often with electricity, creating his own stream of consciousness world. Sometimes they evolve into his own private language but that is worth the experiment. I do think though that he needs to do a spell check and grammar check. The great ones at this- James Joyce, James Baldwin knew how to use the rules and chose differently. I would like to encourage Dumisan to 'shape the surface ' a little more, to reduce the risk of others dismissing his work as half formed. ...

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