They met in the village lanes and every time they passed each other, heart flutters pumped in their chests and love darts shot out from their eyes. Over the next several days, the arrows of attraction became ribbons of love around their hearts and they drove each other silly with wonderful feelings of bliss, gladness, joy, delight and ecstasy and felt the age old romantic feelings of falling in love. With the simplicity of village ways, they became a pair.
But the man was not from around. He was from a village in Phalombe, a district some fifty kilometres away. In their conversations one particular day, it was decided that the lady should follow him the next day to Phalombe to get some money for her to use as capital for some small business ideas she had. So duly at dawn, the lady informed her relatives that she would be back in the evening as she was going to Phalombe to get some money to start her business.
And off they went. To Phalombe. To the bank…
But it turned out, as fate would have it, they found the bank closed. What to do? Well, there was nothing for it but for the lady to sleep over. So she did.
The next day, to their astonishment and perplexity, the bank was also closed because it was a public holiday. And as luck would have it, the weekend was upon them and the bank would not open until Monday.
And so it was that she had to sleep over again. They made the best of it and had a wonderful time, inseparable, willing nature to squeeze them into one, so wonderfully did they feel for each other. Love opened their hearts to glimpses of a world that was transcendent and fantastical. Whoever said love was blind was a fool and didn’t know what they were talking about.
Finally, and all too quickly, Monday’s sun rose in the sky and the bank opened. Reality asserted itself enough. The man went in and withdrew the agreed amount of money and even more and handed it to her. They said goodbye and it is not hard to imagine that they were tears and promises and plans laid out to the best of their intentions.
Sadly, time passed… and things stalled…
One thing didn’t stall, though; the inevitable ballooning of Life. Nine months later, the world welcomed a little bundle of joy…
But…
An absent father. A bitter woman. And a little bundle of gurgles and giggles born into the world because of the bank.
Peculiar News Compilation
'The Telling Is Mine; The Story Is Not'
© Dingiswayo Allan Sambo 2019
