Fickle

New short fiction from Nigerian Tope Ogundare

I wake up to a grey morning. The sky is covered in a greyish white blanket of mist, and the cold dry wind caress my face as I stand on the threshold of my house, wondering at the fickleness of the weather. I had gone to bed yesterday stripping down to my boxer shorts and contending with the stifling heat, choosing the lesser evil — mosquito bites. Somehow, in the middle of the night, the weather had decided it was no longer interested in blowing hot and had now decided to deal in cold harsh winds. I make a mental note to stock up on Vaseline jelly and lip balm as I head to the storage tank by the side of the house to get water for my bath.

The word “fickle” linger in my mind all through my morning routine — fetching water, ironing clothes, some push-ups and squats — and in the shower. I rummage through my ever-shrinking vocabulary for words that rhyme: tickle, little, brittle, cuticle. I draw a blank, and wonder if ‘mingle’ qualify. I shake my head in disgust and self-pity. A writer’s strength lies in the vastness of his vocabulary, and mine shrinks daily from disuse atrophy.

I play with the word ‘brittle’. It leads me to ‘Brittlepaper’ and I shrink at the thought. My mind recalls the words that has haunted me for the past week: sorry, we do not find your work appropriate for us at this time. It is a code word for ‘you are not good enough for us’

It hurts, the feeling of not being good enough. At its sight, I become a dwarf, craning to look over the wall of literary exclusivism and onto the other side — the land flowing with milk and honey. I wonder if I had what it took to succeed. These things require talent, without which, one cannot hope to be successful. Cooked yam, no matter how fertile and well manured the soil, and the rigorous effort of the farmer, can never sprout.

I reflect on the power of words and where it can lead one to: fickle has led me on this journey to revisit my pain and insecurities and yet it had done it through word association. Good writing, I muse, should have the ability to take the reader on a journey into themselves either directly through the words and the emotions it provokes, or through the images the words conjure and other things associated with it.

I have an epiphany then: I finally understand what it means for a writing to have depth — the several layers of self, hidden inside a piece for every reader that reads it. Perhaps this is what I lack. Depth, I repeat aloud, slowly, tasting the sound, and trying to know its many flavors.

I try for depth in my head. I wonder if I could write a story from just a word, and somehow manage to give it perspective and add several layers to it. The word ‘fickle’ stays with me, and I determine to make it the first test of this newfound knowledge.

How do I give the word ‘fickle’ depth? I ponder a while, and realizing the irony, chuckle to myself. To be fickle implies a lack of depth, and somehow, my task is to give something that is inherently shallow a deeper meaning than the word itself has power to convey. Where to start?

Then it comes to me — the answer lies in the word ‘change’. If a fickle man is one who changes his mind at will, and one who cannot stick through to a plan, then it means that the desire for change is a reflection of the inherent fickleness of the human race. We want change, we pursue change and we vote change. Perhaps it is not about the desire for change but rather the constancy of it: after all, change is the only permanent thing, which itself is ironical because its permanence is tied closely to its constancy.

I yelp and hurry my shower, I just had my ‘eureka’ moment. I have succeeded in creating depth from a word as weak and shallow as ‘fickle’. Yet, in its fickleness lies its strength: its ability to be a mirror, to point to us the error in our condescension. It mocks us when we use it despicably — we are what we despise. Perhaps, this is why we despise it so much, because we despise the weakness in us — and we deride ourselves in the derision we mete out to others.

We want change but we do not want to live with the consequences of change. We wistfully talk about the ‘good old days’, we wish for time to be reversed, to go back in time to a time we consider a better time, not willing to reckon with the inherent flaw in our logic: if things were better, why then did we need to evolve?

If change is the only constant thing, why then do spouses gripe about their partners’ change over the years? Why do we panic about the weather and climate change? If we must grow, then we must accept change and walk with it. If we must survive, we must adapt to changes in people, situations and circumstances. If we must live, we must change.

I think to the ways in which I have changed, and to those times that I have resisted change. My thoughts inevitably take me to Subomi, and the first time I used the word ‘fickle’. Subomi is the first girl I ever loved. She is the very opposite of me — vivacious, impulsive and extroverted — and that was the attraction. Soon, the fascination had given way to a sense of being on a rollercoaster ride and I began to feel dizzy at the pace of her half-conceived ideas which were discarded almost as soon as it was conceived. She could never make up her mind on anything, and her opinions were fluid — swaying to the wind of her ever-capricious mood. It was a love that lasted the length of a firework display.

Then there was Doyin, with her sweet, soft voice that makes me think of cool summer breeze by the beach, and light brown eyes that take me to early mornings and sunrises. She, with her sunny disposition and optimistic approach to life — full of dreams and ideas on how to change things: a few ideas on how to spruce my living room, some plants and paintings and color palette. I resented her for making me feel I wasn’t good enough. With her, things could always be better and that made me bitter.

“why can’t things just be the way they are?” I had blurted out, unable to hold the resentment at bay, on the day that I lost her, cutting her off in mid-sentence, and watched the light go dim in her eyes. The light never returned to their burning intensity, and that day marked the beginning of the end of our relationship. It took another four months before the end came, but the flame died that day.

I have not thought about Doyin in a long time, never sat down to dissect the cadaver of our relationship lying on the cold slab of my mind. Today feels like the day to do so and I don my coroner’s garment and set to work.

Our relationship ended because I had been resistant to change, I admit, making the first deep slice across the chest of the decaying body. I wince, as the truth ooze out, filling the room with its pungent aroma. I close my eyes and continue: she was always right, and for the first time ever, I didn’t feel like the smartest one in a relationship, and I resented that, resented her ability to see my flaws, and it hurt, that rather than embrace them, she chose to fix them. I didn’t need her to fix me — I didn’t need fixing. Anger, that all familiar emotion wraps me in its hold and offers its comfort, but I do not take it this time. The quest for self-discovery is a powerful motivation.

“you know I am not saying that I have the better ideas” Doyin said to me, after my outburst, “I am actually running them by you, and I want us to have fun reaching a decision together” her voice had been uncharacteristically low, trembling a little, even. I remember feeling foolish afterwards, considering the way I reacted. Although I apologized, my words had been delivered like a viper’s strike, and the resultant envenomation had slowly lysed the bonds between us.

I didn’t know it then, but now, looking through the spyglass of hindsight, I see that I had been gradually pushing her away, till there was no space for her in my heart.

“it is in your eyes” she said on the night she told me she was leaving, right after we made love. She knew she had no place in my heart again. For the first time since we started dating, she wrapped a sheet around her body as she made for the bathroom. She left that night, and didn’t show up to pack her things till a month after. When she came, her radiance was back, and her gaze, when I caught it, revealed no trace of the life we had shared together. She was warm, back to the woman that caught my attention at the wedding reception of Bola, my cousin, eighteen months earlier.

Seeing her with her shine back filled me with sorrow at the knowledge that she had grown dim by being with me. “I am sorry” I said when she was at the door, her back turned to me. She stopped and turned slowly, and for the briefest of seconds, I saw in her eyes all the things that she could have been with me — that we could have been together — and I gasped at the sheer beauty of it. I made to move towards her but she smiled and said it was okay and disappeared through the door into the darkness.

She had chosen her timing well, she did not want to be remembered as a fading image, becoming smaller and smaller till blending into the milieu of bodies. Rather, she wanted to be remembered as a presence that filled the room with light and then disappeared, leaving no trace of light behind, creating a longing for the warmth and safety she had provided.

This is how I remember her now, a light whose intensity was too bright for me, threatening to render my light useless. I had tried to snuff out that light, and for a while she had let me: love does that to one sometimes. I am glad she left me. The real tragedy would be her staying and have me snuff out her light. She doesn’t deserve that.

I have grown to become more optimistic in my outlook to life, and lost some of my cynicism. My taste in colors are less neutral and dull, and a few bright paintings adorn my maroon colored wall — one of the colors she had suggested. These changes have gone largely unrecognized till now and I marvel at how change can sneak up on one, and how persuasive the voice of love can be, long after it has stopped speaking.

My new girlfriend tells me how refreshing it is to be with a guy that appreciates colors. She says my colors are girly, and it means that I am in touch with my feminine side. “it makes you more sensitive” she had remarked smiling and trailing a finger down my cheek.

I wonder where Doyin is now. I had called her the next day after she came to pick up her things and she had been warm, and I had felt a surge of hope that we could somehow patch things up. Then as we rounded things up, she had told me not to call her anymore.

“it is best that way” she added, firmly closing the door against redemption.

The door opens and Ayomide walks in, followed by the aroma of breakfast — French toast, omelet and a cup of tea. It is always the same every morning, and at first the sameness had been refreshing, something firm, steady and always there. Soon, I began to crave novelty and variety. When I brought it up with Ayomide, she looked at me with an expression that said she considered the thought absurd — breakfast always consisted of French toast/omelet and tea. Period.

I considered declining breakfast but decided against it. It was the least I could do considering she didn’t have to make me breakfast. Eating it was my way of showing appreciation, much as her preparing it was her way of showing affection. With every morsel that I force down my throat, I lose grip of my eureka moment. Suddenly, it isn’t so clear cut anymore, this line between being dependable and being inflexible.

My realization of how much I have embraced change over the years is in conflict with my current reality of swallowing inflexibility and washing down my desire for continuous change with sweetened tea. It is true the saying: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Perhaps, humans aren’t fickle after all. Perhaps, the desire for change is a self-serving delusion of grandeur — the willingness to embrace a concept that strokes our ego, and projects our narcissism to the world. These thoughts stop me midway through my breakfast, and I do not realize this till her voice jars me back to the present

“What is the matter babe? You don’t like it?”

I focus my gaze on her, and my mind begs me to scream the truth, to be courageous, to take a chance at new beginnings and seek change both in myself and in others. I struggle and then let go: sometimes, lettings things be the way they are is the way of peace. A wise man should know when to let good be because ‘better’ is tricky, and oftentimes ‘better’ ends up as ‘worse’.

I think there is actually a thin line between better and worse, and the marriage vow proves it: the two are seated comfortably side by side, or on opposite end of the divide if you will, like mirror images or one half of a whole. So, I choose sameness and smile

“No dear, these are very good, you know how much I love, love your French toasts. I guess the day has begun its intrusion into my mind is all”

To prove it, I take a big bite and mumble incoherently. She throws her head backwards and laugh. I hold on to her laughter as prize — lift it high like a trophy and beam with pride at the feat. There are certain things that shouldn’t change, her laughter is one.

It is this sameness that fuels hope every night: the firm belief of waking up to familiar people, environment and events. And although we desire change, they are usually desired in the context of a background of sameness: we want a promotion but we would like to share it with our amazing wife who has somehow managed to remain slim through her childbearing age, and hasn’t aged a bit through the years. Such is the irony of our lives.

I allow myself to be borne on the wings of her laughter to a place where happiness floats in the air, like butterflies on a sunny day. Somewhere at the back of my mind, the word echoes, mockingly. Fickle.

Tope Ogundare is a Nigerian writer whose works have previously appeared in Kalahari Review, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Pilcrow and Dagger, DASH, Intima, Snapdragon, TinyTim Literary Review, Pangolin review, The Aquila and forthcoming in Maple Tree Literary Supplemment, and the Charles River Journal. He is the author of “The Book of Pain” a collection of poems published by Sevhage. He can be found on Twitter @_topazo_ and Medium Tope Ogundare.