LIFE WITH REE : COLOURED

Colored
It’s 1:43am. I’m lying down, scared. It’s dark. But no, it’s not the dark I’m afraid of. The only sound I hear is the rotation of the ceiling fan. I can literally feel my heart thumping in my chest. I’m angry too,really angry. I can feel my eyes welling up again. I must not shed a single tear, I tell myself. I get up from the couch, I really don’t know where I’m going. I stare at my reflection in the mirror and I’m thinking, ‘why do they hate us so much?’. I’m still staring at my reflection, I take my hair strand after strand and pull at it gently. I’m tempted to hate it, a couple of days earlier, I was so in love with my hair. I recently decided to grow it out naturally, I remember when I took that decision, in retrospect, I was looking into a mirror as well. Seems kind of funny now recalling it, I just kept wondering then, if that was how how was supposed to look, you know, if that’s how God envisaged I looked when he created me, plus I just wanted to explore anyway. Perhaps a favorite writer had something to do with that decision as well. Back to the now, I’m still picking at he strands of my hair, as I examine my face delicately, wondering now if I made the right decision. I lick my lips a I turn my face from left to right, carefully scrutinizing . ‘But I’m beautiful’, I think to myself,they definitely can’t deny that. I drop the mirror and walk back to the couch, I settle into my initial position as I ponder ‘why then do they hate us so much?’ ‘what wrong have we done exactly?’. I think about my brothers out there who wake up drenched in their own sweat from nightmares and troubled sleep. These nights would be considered good nights because at least they found sleep or rather sleep found them. They don’t know what horror awaits them at the break of dawn. They come in different flavors, the horrors.
A police officer stops you over for no just cause, ‘step out of the car, put your hands where I can see ’em!’, he says to you and your wife, you oblige and so does your wife. He is feeling your wife up slowly and inappropriately in pretext of searching her. He runs his hands over, slowly, from her ankles up her thighs and you can’t do anything. You stand there and you watch, eyes welling up with tears, hands trembling, you watch every inch of your dignity being stripped off your sagging shoulders, you apologize for nothing and thank the officer, because.. oh well , you’re different, a peculiar kind of different. Mental brutality. I can’t bear to ponder over it. Picture this. James is about 19 years and trying to do well for himself, stranded in the middle of the cold cold night, he flags down a car and ‘fortunately’, it stops. He climbs in and thanks the driver, who is about the same age as he is, but they are different, a peculiar kind of different. They are trying to make conversation, Jake Bug’s ‘ simple as this’ is playing in the background. James comments on his love for country music, the driver doubts him for reasons best known to him. There is a brief moment of silence as the driver eyes his companion subtly and rather suspiciously. James starts to laugh rather hysterically, so the driver asks what the joke is. Apparently, James sees an image on the bonnet of the driver’s car and that’s the reason for his amusement, but he refuses to tell, instead he says ‘oh nothing’. The driver pulls over and tells James to get out of the car, James apologizes and implores the driver to continue with the journey. The driver would have none of it and insists, ‘get the hell out of my car!’ he yells. James laughs. ‘You really want to know what’s funny? I’ll show you what’s funny’ he says and puts his hands into his pocket. Driver yells ‘get your hands out of your pocket now, put them where I can see them’. Apparently, James is rather insistent on showing him the reason for his amusement, his hands are still searching his pocket. ‘Boom!’. That’s the sound of a revolver. James is dead, his companion is holding the revolver, James is holding a replica of the tiny little statue on the bonnet of the car and…well all of his dreams and hopes too. They are different, James and the driver, peculiarly different.
I’m still on the couch, feeling a little drowsy. ‘why do they hate us so much, what exactly did we do wrong?’ I ask myself again, ‘what exactly?’. I do not know if my question would ever be answered,but I know it would not be answered tonight. Who am I? Oh …I’m a woman, a black woman. I drop my pen as I drift off into a rather troubled sleep. I dream of colors. Black, red, pink, gr een,white, I see them all. I dream of policemen and hands too.