ARTICLE: "The Ballads Of Old Men" By TheRookieGod

Mal: I’ll tell you a riddle: you’re waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don’t know for sure. But it doesn’t matter. How can it not matter to you where the train will take you?

Cobb: Because we’ll be together

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My whole life has led to this epic moment in history. My bones are frail and my skin wrinkled. My eyes are watery but not with tears, for these are no longer the eyes of a man. They just merely reflect the soul of the one they are bored into, windows into the afterlife. Every breath a struggle. Every sigh bringing me closer to eternal rest. And in my mind, the tiny part that can still imagine, or perhaps see into the future, an image is formed. On a tombstone it read “HERE LIES MR. DOUGLAS OJIAKOR” “1942 – 2012″
A long fulfilled life. It would seem so. But i remember all too well my journey. And its been so long since I remembered. But death has a way of bringing memories to life. At first it came in flashes. And then as slide shows. I would  see my daughter’s smile. Little Munachi Isabella Ojiakor, before the
accident. I remember the accident and it tugs at my old heart. And thus my first vivid memory. But I stray from it because I cannot deal with its demons now.

Quiet a few things in life are worse than death. The memories begin to flood in. Sunny saturdays where my late mother tease me about my dentition. And I would feign anger but really just for show. I loved my mother just like everyone loved theirs. And when the sickness came, we fought it together. Sadly when death came for her it was her fight and hers alone. it took her. There was not a tear. There were no songs or ballads sung for her. No prose or poetry written in her honor. No holidays to mark the day. Nothing to remind us of the beauty of her name. Munachi Ojiakor.

Thinking about it now, it had happened before. It seemed scripted. Just some years ago her husband, my father had died in a hospital room. I remember how he had asked to be with me that particular day. How the man, or what remained of him had asked me to pray for him. I didn’t know that I’d live the rest of my life feeling that the prayers weren’t enough. Deep in the night, when all that lives should be asleep, his heart froze and he bade me an unceremonious farewell.
A gasp leaves my breath this time. My son hears me whimper and spasm my old body and is scared that I’m about to leave.
“Not yet” I mutter to him. “Not now.”

His eyes moisten and his face squeezes. He is about to cry, I know. I want to escape into my memories before I hear the sounds that would break my heart. But somehow I know that even if I were to go back to the memories of childhood, the ones where I rolled tires without a care in the world, the ones of extreme bliss, the ones with his mother, his tears would bring me back to him. So I welcomed them and his feelings. Let his hurt seep into the air that I inhale. The gluttaral sounds he makes forces me to the time when we lost Isabella. This time I cannot fight the memories. This time I cannot understand. In all my years I have had to live with heartaches that drive me to insanity, but this one time it drives me beyond that. Bella… Bella… Bella… I did not know that the name leaves my lips. And my son, strong as he is, in all the six years since he lost her too. In all his thirteen years of life, becomes pudding this moment. Uncontrollably, he wails into the night. His shouts perhaps trying to understand too why his sister would die. His shouts, the ballads of his soul. And mine. I cannot comfort him because I cannot comfort myself. I have no words of wisdom because I am not wise to this situation. I cannot shout. I cannot scream. My weak lungs would not allow that much activity. I can only make old man sounds. My whole life I had not grieved my daughter. And finally when I wish to I cannot.

He is holding on to my cloth when the drumrolls begin. His screams and tears to usher me into the journey which does not end. My heart racing as I hear the applause from people I know from a certain time but I do not care to remember. Their Vague faces applauding me as I march.  Cheering me on, somewhere I hear the screams of my son. Somewhere, I hear my father’s voice. Somewhere, my mother is still lying lifeless on a bed. Somewhere, I hear the laughter of my daughter. Somewhere, someone is beating drums oblivious to everything.

At this point I am nothing but a corpse. And the words my lips formed never became words. But with the last of my strength I send a message with my heart.

“Take care son,” I say. ‘would I have had it any other way I would take you with me. Look at mamaa and papaa that you never met. Your grandparents that you never knew but love you through and through. Look at all these people that cheer for you. For us… Ahhh… Look at Bella down this road. Her clothes unstained by blood. Her eyes not in anguish. And her face not afraid. She is squealing in delight as she rides behind you on your bike. She is not sad even though you did not notice she had fallen off. She did not cry as the truck that finally claims her gains its speed with the beating of the drum. And she is smiling again. At you. Do you see her? Son…so…”

-TheRookieGod