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When an Elephant Cries

By Aquilinus Odong (UK)

Chapter 1

Chapter 1    Emotional Turmoil        

The African music reached its climax and the high pitch acoustic of the electric guitars filled my dining room in a crescendo. I began to reflect on my childhood life hitherto experienced in the company of my parents in Uganda Africa. It was a free and happy life filled with parental security, boundless love and hope for the future. The song, Nzube Oleka Te, sounded exactly as it did some thirty years ago. The only difference was that the familiar lyrics, in the morning air of my three bedroom mid terraced house, was coming from the laptop and not from either the gramophone or the record player.  I was pleased to note that Franco Jazz Band, the legend of the 60s to the 80s African music, had blended well with the digital technology of the21 st century.

I closed my eyes to surrender my soul to the powerful seductive effect of the music from my childhood. In an instance, my mind drifted away into the peaceful past, in the presence of my proud powerful father Omino. Sitting beside him, was my easy going mum Laberlok and my other mum Labong who was one of my father’s three wives. Although they had all succumbed to the war of hate in Uganda, I was thrilled to notice how they were forever happy together. 

In this illusionary presence of my three parents, I began to feel like a child again and the extraordinary experience was good. I then started to dance; twisting my waist, in the same style I had done when I first heard the music.  With my huge hands up in the air, I increased the pace to match the rhythm. My heart responded by pounding hard in my chest when the song, reached another crescendo! 

 Nzube Oleka Te, was one of my favourites songs. I was just nineteen years old and full of energy and drive when I first danced to it. I felt the same energy again as I continued to dance and  I could feel the heavy burden which had accumulated over the years, being lifted from my shoulder. The optimistic feeling generated by the dance made me to belief that all my problems had been caste away for good.

Yet, half way through the music, I turned and looked out in the garden, at the terraced houses on the other side when reality struck me. This isn’t Africa and I am no longer a child. In fact I am 56 years old, have my own children. All three of my parents are actually dead. They have been dead for years. The truth of the matter is that I am unemployed in a far away land, England!

The sudden realisation and awakening created, in an instance, an unbearable void in my broken soul. Suddenly, the sweet melody was replaced by a bitter taste of salty tears which begun to flow freely down my emotionally twisted mouth. Feeling utterly gutted, I tried to subdue the emotional turmoil. As I bent down holding my knee, I staggered to the wall and hit the bookshelves and in an instance, all my three parents vanished.

My life was now literally scattered on the floor in the various books through which I had hoped to gain my salvation. The books, displaying impressive titles, were of no use to me; just a messy heap on the floor. My overriding priority was therefore to avoid falling down over them in a final crushing defeat. Though vanished from my illusionary view, I knew my father who had had a good fight of his own, was watching me. I couldn’t disappoint him and I summoned my whole strength to avoid falling down and the music stopped.

I wiped away the tears and put on Nzube Oleka Te, again. It was surprising to note that the music had lost the emotional appeal. It was just a sound from a distant past of no real meaning to the present. Why then was I making such a scene around it initially?

I was unhappy with the present and afraid of the future. The music was the connection to the past to which I was clinging. I hit the bottom when I realised that I could not live in the past. It is just as well that I had realised it as the only way, with a fight, was now up. Before any fight, it was important that I identified what it is in life that I wanted and set out to achieve it. Another thing which I had overlooked was to learn how to cope with those things I had no control over. With my new sense of reality, I started to dance to the music with confidence, in the knowledge that I still had a meaningful future ahead of me.

Feeling exhausted, I went to the kitchen to prepare a cup of tea and I was tempted to have some biscuits with it. If I was to get out of my predicament, I needed a fighting chance which should start by losing weight. I decided against the biscuits.

With a cup of tea and a slice of bread without butter, I sat down and my mind raced to a point last year when the telephone rung, triggering the chain of events I am now affected by and it was as vivid and clear in my mind as if it had happened yesterday.

“Is that Aki?”

“Speaking”                                                                                     

Continued...