Sunday 19 January 2020

We Pulled The Plug...

I was working the night shift when my phone rang.


It had been a crazy night.


Tuesdays were always relatively calm, but somehow this one was different.

 

And I was beyond exhausted.

 

You'd think Nursing school would have taught me a thing or two, but not even the 10 years under my belt could get me ready for tight Tuesdays such as these.


I never have my phone on me.


Plus the scrubs I wore that night had no deep pockets.


The truth, however, was the fact that if I did have my phone on me, I would keep checking it.


Checking the signal and the Internet connection.


Wondering why Eliud was not reaching out.


We'd been fighting a lot lately.


It felt like he was slipping away.


Three times we pulled the plug.


Twice by me and the third by him.


Somehow we always found ourselves together again.


Out of my many needs that made me weak, I wanted to be wanted. And he wanted me. Eliud wanted me.

 

The thing about him and I, we thought we were quitters, but we were fighters.


We had been told by so many people, people we cared about, that we couldn't, wouldn't make it.


And because of that, we believed it.


Truth is, we thought we'd stopped fighting, but we never did.


We were fighters, who maybe didn't believe in their strengths, but we fought alright, to find our ways back to the intimacy we had never known with any other.


We wanted each other.


I walked out phone in hand, face hanging low, staring at my pink crocs.

 

Who would I be without my insecurities?


The only reason I took them pink crocs was because they came with a Scooby-Doo tag.

 

He said I am a child at heart for loving Scooby-Doo.


I'm not a pink kinda girl. But for Scooby-Doo, I will be that kinda girl.


My phone rang.


Eliud was calling.

 

It had been four days, 13 hours and some minutes, I guess.

 

Long enough to make anyone pull the plug.

 

I must have been staring too long because it stopped ringing.

 

I kept walking towards the Exit.

 

I was almost getting to my car when I heard a familiar voice, "Shii".

 

Nobody else ever called me Shii. Short for Sheila.

 

Right there, at the hospital parking bay.


He knew my spot.


We'd been down there enough times.

 

But it had been four days, 13 hours and some minutes, I guess.

 

Long enough to make anyone pull the plug.


Many times we would be getting to know each other better at the back seat of his car.


One time he had me right on top of his bonnet.

 

I must have been exhausted. First the phone ringing and not picking up, or standing there, almost paralysed at the sound of his voice.

 

"Ca-Can I drive you home? You look tired," went the voice again.

 

I turned to look at him for the first time, adjusting my glasses with my middle finger.

 

He was a sight to behold.

 

It would take a lot of strength to not run to him and kiss the parking bay cold away, and tell him how bad I'd missed him.

 

It indeed would take a lot of strength. And I am a strong woman.

 

"Hi"

 

I finally said something, swallowing hard.

 

"I wasn't sure I'd catch you. I wasn't even sure you'd be working tonight."

 

"I'm always working."

 

"Yeah, I know..."

 

"But you just said you didn't know...I'm sorry".

 

There I went again, apologising for things I said. 

 

Apologising for expressing myself. I hated it. I hated feeling gagged. 

 

I never knew how to hold back. 

 

I wanted to be heard. I wanted to be heard by him.

 

I hugged him.

 

Wrapped my tired arms around his neck.

 

He wrapped one arm around my waist, and the other came up to my shoulder.

 

In that embrace, we shared emotions we hadn't let out in a while.

 

It had been four days, 13 hours and some minutes, I guess.

 

Long enough to make anyone pull the plug.

 

His house was closer, so we headed there. In his car.

 

I was grateful for the short ride because even though we had missed each other, we had grown distant.

 

I wanted him, but maybe I didn't.

 

The crocs were the first to go.

 

I wanted something loose, looser than scrubs that had seen spit and vomit.

 

He offered to fix dinner, a pleasant surprise.

 

In his Tee and nothing underneath, I poured myself a glass of wine and headed to the balcony.

 

I stared at the traffic from the fifth floor of his apartment building, the smell of oregano chicken killing me softly. A death I was enjoying, washed down with the chilled wine.


I could smell him.


I could feel him stare at my calves. 

 

He came closer, wrapped his arms around me, pulled me close to him.

 

"You're cold."

 

"No, you're warm. And you smell like chicken."

 

I turned to look at him. Wine glass still in hand.

 

I stared up at him,

 

I remembered the last time we were here, this close.

 

It had been four days, 13 hours and some minutes, I guess.

 

Long enough to make anyone pull the plug.

 

We'd been fighting a lot lately.


He'd said a lot of things, but the hardest to accept, was the fact that he'd be leaving for Waterkloof.

 

Suddenly he didn't have much to say anymore.

 

Eliud took the wine glass from me.


"Did you miss me?"


Did I miss him? I thought about him all day, sometimes all night.


"No. Did you?"


"Why you wanna hurt me like that?"

 

I couldn't bear the thought of being further. Not filling my arms with his huge frame.


I called him a man blanket. He fought the cold just fine.


Nobody made me feel as light as he did.


My petit body was nothing for him. I didn't worry about the weight outside, but that which we knew was happening but had little strength to face, and perhaps fight.


The sky was falling, and I was losing the man I had loved for 13 years.


It felt like I had known him for 13 days.

 

But we had been fighting a lot lately.

 

It had been four days, 13 hours and some minutes, I guess.

 

Long enough to make anyone pull the plug.

 

In those last 13 minutes, all I had known was poured out of him and inside me.

 

I knew I didn't want to fight anymore.

 

It was 13 minutes to seven. I called my supervisor. I was going to Waterkloof.