Purpose

My name is Pulchra, but they call me D. I know they love me but did they have to remind me of how much of a daddy’s child I was? If there’s anyone that’s ever shown me love, it’s that man. Where I come from …. Actually, I don’t remember where I come from. Right now I’m standing in the cold mud of a slimy pond with my backpack on my aching front.

The sky is … not blue. Or maybe it is. I can’t tell. The clouds cover it and thus it would be a lie to assume that the sky above the clouds is not blue.

Let me start over. My name is Pulchra Panemorfi. I’m a girl. I hate cold and grimy faces and I love apples with as much zeal and passion as my great grandfather loved smoking. Things didn’t go well for him because, they said, he had a wild addiction, and that is when I decided to love apples. Yes, I decided.

The only reason I’m standing in this muddy pond is because I fear the white ground. I prefer to walk on grass and brown sand and, as I have noticed, the white ground all around me makes my joints jingle and rattle like the heart of an impala running for its dear life. I don’t remember where I’ve come from but I love this place. It’s foreign and cunning. It’s filled with such loving people, everyone working their way from place to place. Before me right now is a man in a blue uniform, shadowed by the leafy baobab behind him. He looks tough and bold. He is way shorter than me; most people are. He looks as though he would like to talk to me.

“Are you drunk?”

“No, I’m not. Are you?” I ask with courtesy and curiosity.

“Do you think this is funny? Get out of the mud this instant!” He retorts with a fiery voice.

“Is everyone here like you? You seem so kind.” I respond with vibrance, in response to his retort that was full of energy.

“I will come get you myself if you need help,” he says after managing to calm himself down.

“But why would you like to come get me? Sir, I believe you have a wife.”

“Look here, young woman, I’m offering to help you out just this once. You look lost and worn out. I know of a diner nearby. I can pay for your meals and help you find a place to stay. So if you’re willing to make this awkward and start talking about my wife…”

“You mean your wife is awkward?”

“No! I meant that I don’t want you making this look like I’m asking for ….” He said before stopping himself, seeing that I was laughing.

“Kind sir, after that, it would be nice if you went to see your wife,” I said, laughing silently.

The kind sir took me to the diner he had promised and watched me down ten apples. It was the only thing I accepted to be fed. All around me, people are eating food that’s perspiring more than they are. Either their food is frothing with an oily substance, or their drink is bubbling faster than drinks do on their way out, or, the men especially, are eating ravenously as if they were pregnant with twins. It is quite an amusing sight. Watching all these people satisfy their hunger is satisfying in itself. It reminds me of something that my father had taught me, which as of now, I can’t remember. When the kind sir left, I took a window sit and stared into my new world. I was curious as to what lay behind the doors of this nice smelling safe haven.

The sky is now blue and bright. The wind is absent but the gentleness it usually carries with it is still present. I can feel the joy of the young lad who’s suddenly discovered that his bicycle is faster than everyone else’s. I can see him ride down the lane along which this diner is. I can see the barley fields opposite us, parts of the produce making way for someone or some animal moving through it. Probably some drunkard who decided to go back ‘home’; literally. He must be really smart to have figured out where ‘home’ is, being in the state I imagine him to be. I like that. I can see a family heading towards their car. They must have been eating at this very diner. They look amazing. The two kids are incessantly fighting over the gift toy they have just received from the diner. They punch each other in their bubbling stomach. I love the passion they exude. My father would have loved to mentor them. Their parents walk hand in hand, probably having forgotten that they have kids. Why would it matter anyway? Why would they allow their loud and energetic kids to override their moment? Why would they love them? Then again, why not? I love them already.

The car they enter into is parked right in front of the window I’m sitted in. I can literally see the handsome father’s face and feel a sort of stirring in my loins. He is one heck of an attractive man. His wife must be a lucky woman, but I’m not sure he’s a lucky man.

To my right and to their left, a car drives in and parks. Maybe today I’ll get to see two handsome men in the span of one minute. That would be a new record. I glint my eyes past the reflection of my face on the hazy glass. I can see a woman, and then another, and then another, and then a last one. What a let down. I mean, women are amazing and all, but men would be more interesting; their lives are much simpler to understand, seeing that they have an extra nine months of their lives to be more productive than their wives but instead end up being on the same level with them. No wonder they’re the ones to kneel during a proposal.

These women, though women, seem interesting. Their choice of dress does not match well with the green Vitz they’ve arrived in, but it does with the interior space of the diner. They dressed for this particular diner! Amazing! I already love them. They are women with a plan and an implementation.

I fight the urge to cross the pink and white checked floor space to go and sit with them in the opposite side of the diner. I can see their purple clothing clash unceasingly with the ash wall art on the white walls of the diner, producing an imprinted memory in my head. I watch with keenness as they order food and settle down into the conversation they seemed to have paused when they were transitioning from the car to the diner. Women of their worthy status cannot simply translate but transition. One of them has two golden teeth while another has two missing teeth. Missing is a lovely colour to go with gold. The third has three small purple gem earrings on each ear while the fourth has a set of dimples that seems to spark some jealousy in the group. The fourth is the beautiful and timid girl, yet to realise that fat, slow-running chicken are the first to end up headless. The third one is the glamour queen; the boss. She is like an ant, able to carry loads ten times her weight in form of facial powder and rings on every finger her body has. I wonder how she walks with those special stockings with thin linen rings round each toe. The second one is the laughing stock; the comedian of the group, by chance and not by choice. She spends no sweat but gets the whole crowed cracking. That’s where she finds her value, in being a joke to everyone else. Nobody really likes her, they just love her missing teeth. The first one is the actor. She is anybody else but her. She never needed her golden teeth; I can tell. Either that, or she bit into a coin, thinking it was chocolate, because somehow she has two adjacent golden incisors.

The one before the first, is me. I’m the judge. I judge people’s lives and look keenly to identify their errs. I overthink to solve other people’s problems then I realise that I have my own and before I know it, I’m depressed because it seems unmanageable. I’m the kind … no! I’m not ‘the kind’, I’m me. I get jealous when I see four gorgeous and well-dressed women enter a diner and order food only to realise that the object of their attention is not the food but the young waiter. I mean, he’s my age, not theirs! But, above all, I’m loving. I have a heart for every soul as much as I have an eye for their errs. Somehow, I’m in a town I know nothing about, I ended up here through means I do not remember, but I’ve fallen in love with the people.

Now is when the words of my father come back to me, “Every action has consequences, but focus on the fact that every action is dictated by the mindset suggested by your emotions. You want a happy life with amazing consequences or results? Then first and foremost, be happy irregardless.”

So I’ve made up my mind; I’m going to order. I call upon the waiter and he rushes to my side. He is one heck of a loyal servant. I would hate to spoil his day, but I’m not spoiling it, rather, I’m upgrading it. I raise my voice so that all can hear my complaints. I runt and runt on about the amount of gum under my table and the fact that I cannot eat in peace without my high knees scraping someone else’s DNA. I insist until he decides to have a look underneath my table.

I suddenly make a move for his head. I grasp his the gentle groove between the head and the neck, and hold it gently between my steady and soft palms before driving my face forward into a kiss. He doesn’t resist.

Bliss; the stuff of dreams.

In that moment, I view the purpose of my life. You are wrong to think that that waiter is the purpose of my life. No, not at all. The purpose of my life is to love, and with love comes abundant joy. This is just but the first among the many daring things I shall do in my life.

After our brief moment of bliss, we release and stare into each other’s eyes. We know that we won’t last, but as long as women exist in this lovely town, this story will. And we both know that that’s what we’re here for, breaking the shackles of the mind and spreading love and joy, from one person to the next.

The shock on the faces of the four women soon turn into smiles. Just like a dream, every awkward thing makes sense, even the fact that you don’t know where you came from or that you will probably not remember the dream itself, but the emotion, also makes sense. And if you intend to question the insensible, dare to dream and realise that reality was once insensible to somebody some time long ago and, that once, that day, years ago, when you stood in that slimy pool and stepped into this new world, you never knew where you came from, but now you know your purpose.

Dream and love.

Dream.