Short story: Waiting for Victoria

He runs frantically, he is not himself. There is nothing of the normal rhythmic movements, breath in, one step, breath out, two steps. Today is running more like a mad person. He burst out sprinting until he can no longer hold the pace, falters and run slowly for a bit and burst out again. He does this cyclically. He is totally besides himself. Its hard to judge if today he derives joy from his habitual activity. For sure his performance is uninspiring as his mind is else where.

When the exertion is done, he heads out to his normal morning beaming with excitement of the day. It is the day when Victoria will come. A special day. He has been waiting for this since, since, since, since, well never mind, he can’t remember himself since when he has been waiting. Its a long time.

Seeing him, you wouldn’t notice anything special or abnormal about him today. He seems to be going about his normal day as he has always done so. The calm with which he caries himself betrays the frenzy run he had earlier. And the emotions boiling within him underneath the surface. To him these emotions are hard to tell out one from the other. To him they all seem intertwined. Or strangely, he experiences them as one huge strand. He gets a small bit of joy, which joins pain and in turn joins excitement and so it goes. With unequal irregular repetitions, he is in an emotional strand without end.

Though he does not stop to think, his actions are deliberate. He finishes his tasks, arranges his space. Goes looking for flowers, and prepares some thing to eat. He acknowledges his difficulties by making a list of things he wants to share with her. Without it, he will wander about all over the place. Its not sure if he will really follow it, but it wouldn’t hurt making one.

Checking time and feeling that he his happy with what he has been able to prepare, he sets out to the bus station. He hesitated on what to bring along. Finally its a book and a flower. A book for him, and a flower for her, how romantic he thinks. Although he just took the first book he could get, there is an irony in having one. Many years ago, on the school bus, she would have brought him books. Children’s books she were reading. He would read these stories, and they started him on the love for stories. Before reaching the bench, he throws away the flower to the bush.

Immediately a bus arrives, his heart leaps out. He stands excitedly. Watches the people descending from the bus. No one seems familiar to him. After the last one, he is tempted to go inside to check her among the passengers. Maybe she is sleeping he thinks. He is held still by thoughts that maybe this is not the right bus. She will come with the next one. He calms himself, sits down as the bus departs from the station. He tries to read but he can’t pay attention. He tries to recall the last conversation he had with her and the list he had made beforehand.

He is still waiting for her when he falls a sleep. Time has flew by rapidly. His exhilaration has tired him. His body has given up. His book is now resting on the ground while himself is in a deep sleep, unbothered by the cars and people passing near by.

Victoria will never come. Not that day or any other day in the future. She, as many children of her age, died of malaria years ago. He never grieved enough for her. He didn’t know how to do it. As it was then, nobody now would understand the effect and his pain of her passing.

Over time, he has came to terms with death in general, but not hers. What if it is he himself who would have missed the medications instead of her? Would she have grown to be a happy woman today. Would she have been caught up in poverty and its ills? Would she have suffered from gender based discrimination or patriarchal societal system? Does he have responsibility to her? All this is in the past. Its true that it is a sad story, but what is it to him that this poor girl died so soon?

Conflicted as he is, there is a safe distance between him and the poor girl. Well, between him and the conditions that led to her death. Deep down that doesn’t console him. Nothing can convince him that he doesn’t know a potential Victoria. For instance there is Mugisha who has no way of accessing diabetes treatments. This has taken a toll on him. He has lost a job when he started feeling sick. When he saw him last he was lying on a mat, complaining of back pains. He doubts if the two things were connected. He has resorted on prescribing himself some medicines, that is, after praying of course and asking Edi, who also herself had back pains some time ago. This is absurd, and unimaginable from where he is. There it was, some one taking such a chance with one’s life. And yet, this is not an exception among the people he knows.

He imagines that this may as well be another conditioning, things we receive from our families, societies and the world that make us see things in a certain way. Often, they are very strong that we don’t question them. Now that he thought of it, he sees everyone as a victim of forces beyond themselves, him included. Could the people stuffing others into a concentration camp are as a victim of conditioning as a person who takes medicament without prescription? Isn’t he as well? If not how can he explain how he refuses to leave Victoria alone?

Maybe this that could also explain the encounter he had few weeks ago. When a person that he normally respects went out of his way to try to explain how beneficial was colonialism to those who were colonised. How those poor souls were running around without clothing or god before we arrived. “They should thank us”, he said, “otherwise they would have nothing. And if they don’t think so, they should have fought hard not to be colonised”. His immediate response was silence, another conditioning. Later that night he decided that would have to be the last time they spoke together. Maybe it is harsh, after all they are both victims.

He used to think he was very tolerant. He now questions himself on how could that be. How can he dialogue with someone who has been conditioned to save him, and others like him. How to express his views with someone who doesn’t seem not to know that people don’t need his help, but, they are his equal? He want to scream every time he feels being patronized or find himself on the receiving end of condescending remark. Instead he smiles and let it go. He is interested in living life, he tells himself. And not giving a lesson on how he should be treated.

He heard several times in conversations, casual or otherwise, things like, “Why are they coming here? They should stay in their homes.” And in private, “No, no, no, that was never meant for you. You are good and you belong here with us.” He ends being twice as sad. Are some lives worth more than others? Because he too is Victoria.