Books, my beloved. - Ibua Journal

Dear Beloved,

You, for whom the heart aches: the blood rushes through my veins like Kiyira’s waters whenever I see you. I long for you in ways a desert lacks knowledge of the rain, yet beneath these lashes my eyes dart, avoiding you.

You are what a sad man needs to smile and everything I would ever need if it weren’t for books.

You see, I heard whispers which left me with a chill and with goosebumps on my skin. I heard that you do not read, that you wouldn’t be interested in a man whose conversation and language is about words. I have heard that you my love have never picked up a novel, nor entertained a thought of reading one.

I am a man ensnared, caught between my love of books and my desire for you. What woman wouldn’t like words, words penned down for the mind to revel in, and memory to keep? How can a man run wild with a woman, whose imagination is restricted to movies and stage comedy, and is not charmed by words on-page?
My beloved, how can I tell you of Maria’s plight in the fairy-tale? How do I state the depth of my relationship with her? The story of a prostitute with a fairy-tale ending; how might I tell what I liked about the irony? How can I tell you that there lived a prostitute called Maria once upon a time…how can I tell you about the mind of the man who wrote her story?

Books are my joy. With books, I travel in the comfort of my bed, savouring the mysteries that lie between the pages. I still recall the storms of the Arctic Circle. I was young then when I first traveled there. I met Throwstone and accompanied him on his daunting quest until he claimed victory and returned home. After my travels, I was as hooked as a fish to the bait. That was in November 2001, the first time I picked up a novel.

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I left the cold icy lands of the North Pole, and I went to London where I saw a doctor who had been imprisoned for 18years and then to Paris, into war. It was there that I heard a man say, ‘’It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.’’ These words summed up the world in which we reside. I heard them and nothing could have been more eloquent. See, I was young then. I had just returned from far places. I was naïve in the ways of men. Yet here were real man, blood and flesh. I knew little of death. It was right there, having seen death in the French Revolution, that I found myself.

My beloved, love a man who has seen loss and war because he knows what is worth keeping. My heart bleeds for you because you can only know this from books. Books will convince you that a man like me is what you need, and nothing else.

I am a learned man; my travels have been from here to the moon. I have traced the ancestry of the queen of Britain. It wasn’t always the case. My father did not write down anything about his ancestry, so I have never read about him, nor sat around the fireplace listening to the stories of my forefathers.

I am a man now, a learned man. Sometimes I feel I am Obi Okonkwo, and that I have returned to the village that I left behind, only to find myself uneasy in it. That’s what travels do, they change you.

Have you ever taken an Unexpected Journey, with strangers who became family, who taught you lore from their forgotten homeland? Have you ever gone into a wardrobe and through to the land of talking animals?

I want to take you to the ruins of Moria, to the city of the undead, but it’s the cinemas, bars, and churches that you fancy. I could show you the map to Treasure Island but you choose series, movies, stage comedies, and prophecies of riches.

And yet, my woman, still, my heart beats for you. Take me as a man whose other half of the heart is given to another. Share me. Share me with words. Let the warmth of your bosom, as my head leans on it, be captured in words. And I hope, as I write them, you my beloved will read them and feel my love for you.

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