..hijrah..

..from the realms of my imaginations, a post inspired by a comment from Oldstock..

..when they met, he was a swashbuckling forty-year old..married with children..

cocksure and confident..self-assured as a government officer, mid-level but with enough power to be surrounded by friends real and artificial..within his circle he reveled in being well-known..

..and she was in her mid-twenties.. a girl from the province..fair of complexion and a ready smile on her face..hiding her disappointment at her failure to further her studies at a tertiary level..and a lingering regret for turning down an earlier offer she had received whilst in Form Six for training as a teacher in a governmental college..

..and nursing a slightly bruised heart, he was to learn later..

..they met and she viewed him with revulsion..this male strutting around like as if the earth that he strutted upon was his..and all the girls were for him to court..but the dislike was mutual..this little provincial girl looking lost and beyond her depth within their mutual friends..not even the cerebral kind that he could connect with...but it developed into a relationship of sorts..parleys and taunts resulted in an assessment of values..enough for his wife to confront them..and an admission extracted..and a month to end it..

....he was like that little, silvery ball launched in a pin-ball game..flippers flipping..a nudge and a push..ding..a knock here and a tap there..ding..steady as you go..ding-a-ling..straight down..into a bottomless pit..

..he shivered when she slowly poured water mixed with slices of lime-fruit on his head..pieces of lime stuck in his hair as the water formed rivulets down his naked body..as she stooped to take another scoop, he looked up to see her intent face, murmuring a prayer..though she chose to ignore it, he smiled at her as she continued with the ritual of bathing him..

..he sat on the steps of the kitchen....'I come to ask for the hand of your daughter....I am already married and I have children..'