Prologue

The rain is a battering ram. I left it batter me. Besides I'm already in bits. The sky's tossing huge balls of water, the size of oranges. They hit with an icy chill that is almost soothing, like a distorted massage from an angry masseuse. I'll probably be down with a fierce cold come dawn, but that is as insignificant as polishing the shiny bronze plaque in the living room. 

Being in the rain is like holding a butterfly, the flutter of its wings like a small tempest–smaller and safer than the tsunami that hit me when Chimamanda came, and the swirl of crudely formed emotions that raged when she left me. Far more safe. 

I don't run from the rain when it accosts me in the middle of the street. It has long become an old friend, a balm that soothes the monsters in my head. An outlet. A rare chance to escape. 

It is also because the rain is like her. Wild, vivacious and kind. I like to think that if i just closed my eyes long enough i would see her, see her light brown eyes in its steady heartbeat, the velvet of her honey skin that shone from the inside. I will hear her laughter again–husky, loud and carefree and complete.

And maybe I'll be able to reminisce a time before her. A time when the world sat in perfect balance, in unshaken equilibrum, a time when I didn't know that joy was just one person away, and it could be so tangible and real as to fill your chest and make your lips hurt from smiling.

A time when the sun sat just right in the sky.

I wish the summer will last forever. 

I wish the sun will shine forever. 

Not the glare of a red harmattan sun in the afternoon. 

Not the unforgiving heat just before the rains. 

I want that early morning sunshine in the rainy season, that bright gold touch to the heavens that reaches past your clothes to kiss your skin, gently like an old lover. 

I love that summer sun. It reminds me of you— Amanda.