John

Photo Credit: Illustration by author

 You can think of John as an introspective guy, but never reflective enough! He suffers from a terminal illness called MPD (Multi Passion Disorder). Was recently dubbed a “backslider,” something he didn’t even have the chance to call himself first. Likes pancakes. Has loved milkshakes since the first day his high-school best friend gave him a treat. And refuses to tell anyone how insecure he is about the size of his arse so he always walks around clenching onto his buttcheeks with his powerful gluteal muscles in an attempt to masculinity…and also to avoid them wiggling behind his back.

John has never moved out of his home town. That’s where his whole life still is, his family and friends, his high school sweetheart, and everything he has ever known to be something. The memories of the past and all the things that were almost, cling to his foot like a vine clinging on to some tree, and whenever he thinks of moving on, the idea suddenly feels like a far-fetched thought. He goes home every night but never quite seems to get there, he always ends up in some stranger’s house who always welcomes him without question, they give him food and water and sometimes even make him smile, something he never quite seems to comprehend. These strangers, unlike John, seem to have been able to make a space for themselves in this foreign land. A place where their kin can find refuge in times of turmoil, or, in many cases, where they can find people to be mad at. Because in life one needs to have a balance between people they can love and people they can hate. But this isn’t a story about them, this is a story about John.

John is the kind of guy who never really has any action going on. He doesn’t drink, doesn’t party and he likes being alone – although whenever he tells me this, I can see his lying eyes break contact with mine, and for some reason, I’ve never confronted him with the truth, I just go along with the lie because I know there’ll be another day, and hopefully, he’ll be a better liar by then. Not every bubble deserves bursting. John has had three girlfriends up to now, and I feel the need to just put this out there that all his girlfriends were females with the XX chromosome. When telling me about his most recent girl, who’s the one he has spent the most time with, I felt that I should not explore her story now, she deserves her own chapter. However, the second one, John was telling me about her while smiling. She was older than him and they were in a relationship for a week, mostly because they were two horny people behind locked doors trying to escape the headmaster of their reality who demands that sex be a grotesque thing only to be enjoyed in the dark by two married people.

I wanted to weigh in on that point, I’ve never really understood how sex, in John’s words, is a spiritual thing. What we, as beings that like to find meaning in the mess, have done is put weight on the act, and when we put weight on things, they become heavy. Once we believed that virginity in women was something that can be proven or disproved, if you bled on the first night, you were a virgin, if not, well, you were the black sheep. We buttered some and butchered the rest on the basis of such primitive analysis because we thought we knew it all. We had subscribed to certain beliefs and they dictated certain things, we jumped without asking why and took that as the gospel truth. Now we know better. I wanted my thoughts to be challenged by John’s own thoughts but I could see all the confusion permeating his fickle mind, and so I said nothing.

John later told me that in that week, he was this close to getting some. His tone suggesting that I should be disappointed that he didn’t. Like if he did, for example, I would have been like a proud father who had a boy but now has a man for a son. At that moment, I could see in the depths of his eyes, like two abysses staring at the godless sky, a young boy still searching for the approval of someone or something. It was on a hot Tuesday afternoon when he gave me his confessions. That he is still waiting for God to speak to him, to feel like his fellow brethren. That he mostly feels an almost physical loathing towards himself. That he is still with that girl behind those locked doors looking for a way into the light. That his friends think they know him. That he still doesn’t know his name. That he is still wondering what the hell he is doing in this place!