God's Blue Earth

“Oh my word,” Mark exclaimed. “Do you remember that night we volunteered for that school event at the seafood restaurant?”  

“The one with the angry middle-aged dude,” Jenna answered.

“Yes!” he chuckled. “That other gent tripped and spilled his drink all over his shirt and he stood up and started screaming at him.”  

“And his head turned so red,” she added.

“Do you remember the joke you made?” he looked at her expectantly. 

“’You’ve got to be as white as a Panado, if your head turns as red as a tomato,” they said in unison.  

They burst into thunderous laughter. 

“I’m glad your ridiculously loud African Dad laughter wasn’t changed by your fancy Swiss university” she said. 

“First, you can take an African out of Africa, but you can’t take Africa out of an African,” he declared. “Second, I only have loud laughter because you’re my echo chamber!” 

They erupted into laughter a second time.  

“Ay” a seated customer shouted. “Could you guys stop making noise?” 

Jenna swivelled her head. “Watch your mouth you —"

“Woah now,” Mark restrained her. “We’ll leave and walk the promenade, sorry about that”. 

Mark led Jenna out of the seaside café. “I see you’re still ready to fight anybody, at any time, at any place.”

“Whatever.”

“And the subsequent post-rage coldness” he noted. “ ‘Whatever, whatever, whatever’ ” he mimicked.  

“Shut up,” she retorted.  

“I can see that smile coming”  

“Shut up,” she repeated as the corners of her mouth began to twitch. 

“It’s coming. . .” he whispered jovially then burst into laughter and she followed suit.  

He exhaled “God, it feels like nothing changed: not the smell of the ocean or me dragging you out of fights and laughing about it after.”

“But things did change. . .” she mumbled. 

“Well,” he paused. “He did get older.” 

“Sure, and some of us went off to foreign countries without saying their proper goodbyes.”  

“I wonder who those people were?” 

“You,” she roared. “You’re ‘some people’!” 

“What are talking about? I did say goodbye—”. 

 “We hugged at the end of final assembly for a millisecond and the next thing I hear about you, from a phone call picked up by your little sister of all people, is that you’ve run off to Switzerland.” 

“It wasn’t like that, the acceptance letter came in late and it works different there in Switzerland than here in South Africa so I had to—”

“Enough—” she commanded.  

 “Look Jenna, I know. . .“he faltered. “I know. . .“  

“What do you know Mark? What?”  

“Well. . . I thought I could just. . .you know. . . after you told me that you were leaving the province a few days before I left.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” she exclaimed.  

“It has to do with everything Jenna.” 

“Just. . .” 

“Just what Jenna?”  

“Okay, okay. . .” she slowed her breathing. “I’m just not sure whether to say I’m sorry or I’m happy to see you.”

“I feel the same”. 

“I guess it could be both?”  

“It feels like both”. 

“It does. . .”  

“I wrote you a letter,” Mark proclaimed. 

“A letter?”  

He fumbled aimlessly in his pockets. “Yeah, a letter. . ." 

“Is the letter in your pockets?”

“No, no.”

“Okay. . ." she faltered. “Was it a letter P or Q or maybe a J?”  

“No, I meant—” 

“Did you write it on a white paper or a blue paper—” 

“No man hold on—” 

“Did you write it in print or cursive and if it was cursive then did you write it right (oh that rhymes) because personally I get confused with how to write the J because it looks like the F and—” 

“Jenna let me speak,” he begged. 

“Oh, so now you want to speak?”  

He inhaled, then exhaled. “I wrote you one of those letters with words written on a white paper” 

“So it was a white paper?” she shouted. 

“Jenna!” 

“Mark,” she stared at him in shock. “I don’t recall you ever having a temper.”

“I don’t, I never have. . .it’s just. . .I just needed to get a word in.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” 

“No, don’t apologise, it’s just the way you are,” he reassured her. “You’ve always been the life of the party, the centre of attention.”

“What do you mean by that?” 

“Just that you always get what you want. . .” he muttered.

“Not all the time. . .” she paused. “So, what were you were saying about a letter?”  

“Yeah, I wrote you a letter in high school. . .” 

“Mark, we wrote a lot of letters to each other during classes and even got in trouble a few times—”

“No, I mean I wrote you another type of letter”.

“Oh, what type of letter? When?”  

He looked down to his sneakers “I wrote it on the last day of high school and put it in your schoolbag during second break. “

“Sure.”

“So you do remember the letter?”

“Sure.”

“And, obviously, I wrote about my—”

“But I don’t remember what you wrote.”

“What,” he halted “what do you mean you don’t remember?”

“Exactly that – I don’t remember.”

“How’s that. . .I wrote about my,” he struggled to find the words, “it was about. . .”

“Look Mark, “she interjected, “it’s been amazing catching up but I’ve got to start heading back home now.” 

“Oh,” he whispered, “we should. . .maybe. . .“

“I’ll see you again,” she turned to leave, “sometime.”

“Sometime,” he said to her back.  

“Hey Mark,” she turned back to face him.

“Yeah?” 

“You wrote, you wrote: ‘God’s Earth is blue, not green. I know this because before you I thought people could only walk on the Earth, but after you I learnt that with love, we can swim. So, come find me in our spot in the ocean. I will wait there for you and even if I drown in that spot waiting for you, I know that my love will float to the surface and mark that spot. And that will be our spot on God’s blue Earth – forever’. “

“You remembered,” he said with a smile broadening on his face.

“Then you left, so I don’t know what those words mean anymore”