VAINMAN

The rain had had its own, pleasing itself till the last hour of the evening. Little time was left for the sun as it began to hide itself behind the high hills of the west and with it, its last light. The cold august wind brushed against my face as I walked through the green woods of Hervania on my way to the cold river…to see my reflection by its bank.
I had grown up hearing diverse stories of the woods and
the many strange creatures that had made a home in it. I heard once from a drunken preacher of his encounter with a flying fish and from a Gypsy; a walking tree. I cared little in the genuineness of their tales, so I cast all to the mist and trod on to see the river very few men had seen.
The wood was still and noiseless, sacred and peaceful, neither the birds nor the frogs seemed to want to disturb the sanctity of the green Hervanian woodland. I strolled through the canopy of trees which enchantingly pantomimed to the soft august breeze. The last of the suns light had been spent leaving me to chart my course in the shadows. I kept walking in the woods until I reached a juncture where all roads seemed indistinguishable, and there, right there where I pondered on which route to choose to help fulfill my fate, I heard a voice.
“What do you hope to find at the end of the road you seek?”
I looked about the quiet cold forest hoping to see who had questioned my presence, but I saw no one…not on the dewed pathway or in the trees.
“The river” I answered nonetheless.
“What do you hope to find in the river you seek?” came the voice again in the still forest.
“My reflection”
“What do you hope to find in your reflection by the river side?”
I stood there, and like the fearless rascal which I had been prevalently christened, I daringly uttered no word to my invincible questioner. Instead, I closed my eyes and lifted my hands into the dark cold evening, and for the first time I heard something true in that Hervanian wood…it was the noise of my own silence. It came rushing to me like a broken locomotive whistling and smoking, caring not where it went as long as it went someplace it had never been. It was a noise worth more than a thousand melodies and one. A noise I would never forget.
When I eventually opened my eyes, the voice of my questioner returned to me.
“What do you hope to find in your reflection by the river?”
“Nothing” I said.
“Nothing,” the voice echoed sounding rather pleased than surprised, “Nothingness is for those with no soul, you dear traveler, have no soul. Hence, any path you choose will bring you what you seek, but never what you hope to find.”
And the forest was void of sound again.
I chose a path least familiar and began my journey to the river, and just then did I see a green rock by the way side with an old face on it…verily I said “The rock with an old face spoke to me”
The path I chose was eternally forgiving, but the hope and desire of seeing my own reflection made me numb to my surrounding. Nothing mattered to me, neither the chatters of the mushroom garden nor the singing ladybugs seemed to excite me, and neither did it bring discontent me. All I wanted was my likeness in clear night waters; all I desired was to see.
The river was as I remembered it; like a poodle at the end of earth. The moon, now glowing in its radiance hung quietly in the milieu lighting the acme of the river. Everything was as I remembered it to be, everything, everything but the mermaids that sang as they bathe by the river. I stood a long while watching as the mermaids danced and sang in harmony, their clear skin absorbing the brilliant moon light but generous enough to lit their ambiance. The sight was what a man with a soul would have called ‘beautiful’. But I was no such man and thus found no word in my heavy yet empty heart.
“What do you seek oh man” one of the mermaids in the river said when one recognized my presence.
“I seek my reflection by the river”
“Will that ease your emptiness oh soul-less man?” She asked looking at me apprehensively.
“I seek not an end to the malady within me…I seek only my expression in the water”
“A vain man you seem” she said.
“Vain…we all are”
“Come then” she said beckoning me to do as I intended, “come and see your reflection in this water”
I walked towards the sea of mermaids who sang sad verses and into the river of night water. The water was as cold as winter’s snow but it enveloped me in its hidden summer warmth, why…I could not tell. When the river had swallowed my lower body I looked down into the water and saw for the first time in ten years…my own reflection.
Surrounded by night waters and singing mermaids I felt my heart stop. How long my heart ceased to beat I knew not for I was engrossed with the face I saw in that water. Once he had been handsome, once he had been a joy to behold for men, once he had been alive. His eyes peered back at me like raging thunder beckoning me to remember, beckoning me to be who he once was, beckoning me to live again. True he was like a peer of eyes sealed in a glass, but the bigger truth was I could never free him even if I wanted to. So I looked away from the river and turned the way I had come.
“Did you see what you hoped to see oh man” the voice of the mermaid behind me.
“I saw what I needed to see, and that is all I need”
“You will find your peace someday oh man, you will find your peace but not in this river”
“Maybe” I said and turned to leave.
“Will you sing one chorus with us before you go?”She called after me.
“Perhaps another day” I said without looking back and headed back into the woods, the way I came.
I heard the mermaids begin a new chorus as I walked away, it was the saddest chorus.

WRITTEN BY AYO ABEJIDE