WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

I stopped in my tracks when I spotted him. He’d already seen me from where he was sitting on the edge of the street. He had his characteristic smile on his face. I stared at him with my mouth wide open and my eyes wide in shock as I decided between believing my eyes were deceiving me and believing what my heart was telling me.

His death had had a big impact on my family. We’d searched for him for weeks without so much as a clue as to what happened to him. He was my best friend, and I was determined to find him and find out why he’d run away. We were good to him. Ever since he moved in with us, we’d done our utmost best to ensure that all of his needs were met, so why would he leave? And even if he had to leave for some reason, why would he leave without saying goodbye?

After endless searching, some of which our neighbors joined in on, we reported him missing to the police and they promised to find him. They never did, and I don’t think they ever even put in effort towards finding him. There were so many missing cases and so they were overwhelmed. Missing reports had gradually become the new normal.

Six months after he went missing, my dad suggested we hold a funeral for him. There was no use searching any more, he said. My family was very supportive. My siblings all lent a helping hand as I designed a casket for him, while my parents made arrangements for snacks and other things we would need to make the funeral a memorable one.

We had about thirty guests in attendance during the funeral. He was loved by one and all. He’d quickly endeared himself to everyone in the neighborhood after he moved in with us. He quickly became friends with many of the kids in the neighborhood. Play time at the neighborhood playground was never the same without him present. His presence had been missed the few times he’d fallen sick, and we missed him more when it became clear that we wouldn’t be seeing him again. 

He was gone. My best friend in the world was gone.

The funeral was an outpouring of emotions. We kids did most of the talking and sharing because we were the ones closest to him. Parents who came on stage spoke about their brief encounters with him and how much he’d lifted their spirits. That’s who he was. He spread love wherever he went. He brought smiles to the faces of the people who met him, both for extended and short periods. That’s who he was, and that’s why I elected him my best friend.

Before he came into my life, I’d been very shy and so I found it hard to make friends. We’d lived in Rosewood for almost two years before my mum brought him home that fateful Sunday evening. In the two years we’d been at Rosewood, apart from school and a few outings, I scarcely left the house. All that changed once he came into my life. 

He never like staying indoors, he was the outdoorsy type. Whenever he wasn’t outdoors for some reason, like rain or storms, I’d find him by the window, staring longingly at the grass and the trees and hoping the weather would improve. In the first week after he joined our family, I spent more time outdoors than I had in the previous handful of months. It had been uncomfortable at first, he was taking me far outside of my comfort zone and everything within me screamed at me to get me to return to the safety of the house, but I gradually got over it. I found myself yearning for time outside with him, playing in the grass, running around the neighborhood, and playing investigator.

It was while running around the neighborhood, chasing after him, that I literally ran into my second best friend. She was just rounding the corner on her skateboard and I spotted her too late. He ran past her and he’d drawn her attention to him, so she didn’t see me either. We crashed into each other and ended up flat on the sidewalk. There were a few bruises here and there, but it marked the beginning of a strong friendship. We would later find out we went to the same school and we would become very close friends. 

Our “love triangle” would have spilled over to our time at school, but he couldn’t read or write. I remembered how sad he was whenever I was about leaving for school. Sometimes he’d become so overwhelmed with emotions that he’d run up the stairs to the room we shared to hide. Mum swore that she saw him cry on a few occasions.

That’s who he was. And that’s why he was my best friend. We loved each other and we loved each other deeply. He was my first love, and I believe I was his too. 

As we carried his coffin to the grave my dad dug at the back of our house, there was lots of crying. All the kids cried, and so did some adults. Even my dad cried, it was surprising because he always acted so macho. 

***

I stared at him, and he stared back. The smile on his face had been replaced by a curious expression. I understood it. I had seen it many times before. He was wondering what I was thinking. He was trying to understand what I intended to do next. He was trying to read both my facial expression and my body language. He rarely succeeded in deciphering either, but he was an optimist, so he always tried.

I approached him slowly, expecting him to run away again, but he stayed put. He wanted me to come to him. As I drew up to him, I noticed the scars on his face. They were still healing. Whatever inflicted them had been sharp and had cut deep. I wondered what could have caused the scars. Had he been attacked while he was out on the streets? Had he fallen into bad company? All those questions paled in comparison to the most important question on my mind: why did he leave?

I reached out to him and touched the scars. He winced. I noticed one of his eyes was damaged, and I noticed the scars extended all the way to his back and round to his stomach. 

I looked into his eyes questioningly, if he knew what I was wondering about, he chose not to answer my questions. He always left it to me to ask the questions and then answer them for myself. The answers usually came slowly, but this time, my mind proffered one potential answer immediately.

A question that had recurred to me at different points during his funeral was suddenly brought to the fore. My dad hated dogs, he had developed a strong dislike for them after he was attacked and injured by a dog at a young age. If he hated dogs so much that he couldn’t stand the presence of one in our home, why then did he cry so much at the funeral?