22:55
I’m walking down Riverside Lane alone. I can picture my mother scolding me for walking down this road alone so late.
Walking along, I notice yet again the neat rows of trees on both sides, their branches stretching out to intertwine in the middle of the road, forming a canopy that is very welcomed on a hot summer’s day. The trees look like rows of battle weary soldiers, standing in line in a peace making handshake. If trees have feelings these must feel like I do when that man takes my hand. His handshakes last seconds longer than necessary and they leave me with a feeling that I find hard to describe..
I force my thoughts back to pleasant ones.
Polite trees.
That’s what folks around here like to call this road even though it’s got its own name. I am now at the middle section of the road, at the point where the road snakes off to the left.
I can make out the outline of the huge Birch Tree that stands just behind Dr Lawson’s house. Out of the corner of my eyes I think I see the tree move. This is absolutely ridiculous, I say. Trees do not move. I walk on, no longer confident.
With shocking realisation I see that the tree is actually moving and is now at a place that it is obstructing my path. In wild panic I turn around and run down the road I have come. Reaching the end I look back only to see that the tree is back in its usual place as if it never moved. I shake my head. Did someone add something to my drink at my cousin’s party? Otherwise how could a tree move?
I must have imagined it.
I begin to walk back again. The eerie silence is beginning to get to me and I am anxious to get home.
This time as I approach the tree I keep my eyes fixed on it to convince myself that the earlier sighting was indeed imagined but again the tree begins to move. It seems to glide along the path, silent and speedy, like a ghost in haste. I rush on determined to cross to the other side before it can block my way again but it beat me to it. As I run smack into its middle it folds its branches around me in a suffocating bear hug, a human like warmth, a warmth so familiar and so dreaded that I open my mouth and scream and scream…
“You’ve had one of your nightmares again.” I hear my mother say.
I open my eyes to see her sitting beside me, her arm is resting against my brow.
I close my eyes but I know sleep will not come again for he is standing a few metres from my bed, awkward like. But I guess no one noticed anything about that. They never do.
And again I had seen his face…. my stepdad’s face… in the middle of the huge birch tree.
Ayibu Makolo 