Sugar net

By Dumisani khumalo

Shout out loud causing confusion,broke the peace in the house .That peace came down with his silence..Her investigative demeanour came out on him like a study manual he had found the day he had proposed to her ,and that had captured his strengths and kisses on her tongue.,she w pacified awhile when he did so.

He quietly understood her and never argued with her.

She talked alone in way she would in the kitchen and at the sitting room,and at times ranting , blabbing, and throwing hands into the air, out at the same time and try to ask the same question twice ,rocking her chair on the verandah with him at her side .

She wanted to go out with him to places unreachable and unaffordable like" take me to Rio Alex ,what about the Bahama ?",and not to church alone tailed off .Her world seemed to begin where his ended .He played loud music if she was not there ,a tired eye going to her quibbling mouth wondering if she would ever come into his own world filled with love for her.

They were like his snares on the farm ,not catching a thing in them ,as any rabbit escaped with her words,and it did at times make him laugh on his own when he lost interest in the snares and they did catch something ,while he got to his own vices ,sharpening and cutting wood ,making small wooden figurines that pleased her ,as statuettes she had placed up in the kitchen,and the children love them when they were around.

" Alex ,what are you doing in the house ?" a wary question ,as his mumbling answer came out inaudible.

 his silent lips quaking in his deep voice, ,he cranned his head, as she focused deeply into the goings on there.

The noises in the house and his shufling walk told her a lot.

There was a kind of smile on his face ,maybe a stretching out of muscles so those wrinkles would not show.

Sometimes he was like her child whom she would whip into line with her tongue.

" It will come love.We will see " he ended up saying 

"Aren't those daises so beautiful .Alex? ,they seem to have come out much earlier,don't you think ?"she asked the second time ,as Alex looked Lucille up and granted a tired response,his mouth at the brim of the cup of tea he was having .his eyes looking into the distance where the open valley drifted with the dream.

He took out to the kitchench and brought her a glass of milk. That settled her down a bit.

Alex had those one word answers that seemed to be acted upon as the " I love you dearly "that Lucille loved with giggles and laughte,r that endlessly made her quiet for a while.

How they bonded was like hose clip to a hose .As long as he was.there holding out ,the flow ,ran inside their love no one could stop it .No one could help but watch helplessly as they walked together hand in hand as she kept her banter ,and he listened.

Sounds as snarling would have come ,or that weaponised voice would have come to him ,and he would only hear her voice as in the kitchen ,

"Am not cleaning the kitchen again , love,am done there for today " were slow words her feet gathered ,and after some time ,he walked out to the verandah where she sat with her quilt around her lap in a chair ,as he grabbed her up and held her ,as if for posterity. How he was ,how she was ,was how they were .

A smile lit her face as usual with an who told you so beaming ,and she would talk to him again about the beauty of things around them in her usual drone of a voice.

His feet sort of decided twice whether to sit or stand until she showed him where to sit ,close by her in his rocking chair .She looked him over like a child and smiled again sweet rosy smells coming from her own homemade blend of perfumes.

Of no consequence,he stood up and pulled her into his arms as she almost lost it ,eyes wide and off balance .She wanted to say don't but it skipped her tongue as he kissed her hard on the lips.

Love had everything to do with it.

The kisses brought surprises to her ,and she marvelled at their intensity in public .She would blush like a young girl again when he held her hand time and again. It was like he would do something out of the ordinary,or wired ,until they got home ,when she threw her head back like she loved to ask him " What was that about ?"and he just held his smile ,humming at her cheerful ,twinkling eyes, his naughty eyes looking at her ,as he made them both a double tot of whisky before bed.

She thought on everything he said ,and as active to things , his passive to them , reached a peek at the same time.

He would go back to her words even if they seemed to put him to sleep  bored ,and not listening to her,and it played up in her desires for him in a curious way ,when he suddenly came alive and told her all she had said ,word for word .

He was drawing her sweet sounding voice when she came to his side .The long years kept coming and their children long gone had not left a gap between them.

Grunting response he would talk , it made him stronger and happier,the power from him ,making that sugar net melting up their hearts together come like candy floss.

Sometimes she sat down to think if they had ever argued about anything ,the blanks came out .He was all quiet ,even when the kids were here ,he never raised his voice at them .He listened and took his stand to show his thoughts to them ,or his concerns like a gentleman.

His eyes betrayed nothing about his yes s and nos ,as she would call to order the children who did not listen to her ,and they tried as much to avoid her continuous talking ,until they went to bed ,which started in the morning as reminders.

It was a bond of delegation of duties than motives.

Pieces of rose petals ,or notes on the bed by who ever made it were left by the bed side in the days that had gone when they had had children ,,now he left her big blossoms ,as early before she opened her eyes ,and made her breakfast in bed.

They walked in the fields together ,and a table he set there for their lunch ,in the open so that God looks to see them he would say .

That was special and wise ,if not a wild side to things.

He took her in his arms to dance there reminding her that this was their fifteenth anniversary since their wedding,as song and music played from his iPhone so loudly as to raise the backyard and the cars by the roadside to wonder.

The evening was great as they called in all their kids and neighbours around for a celebration,bottles of champagne came with the turkey,as the old ballroom dancing started ,with her Alex the expert dancer since she knew him ,and it surprised the young around who were lost up to the new schools of sound and music ,barely with the word love in them ,as they finally sang along " I just called to say I love you " as the night wore on until the morning rise..