BISOLA

Bisola

"Thank God I can feel pain". These are the exact words I will be satisfied to acclaim. But I can't anymore and I am so ashamed of this. The circumstances surrounding this tragedy were self-inficted. I am the architect of my own fate. I never believed that a day would come that I would wish to feel pain. From error to error,one discovers the entire truth- Sigmurd Frued.
I am Bisola, a beautiful young man. I am in my early thirties but I was 22 when this life changing incident occured. I grew up alone. (Smiles) I am not an orphan. But I don't have any siblings. My parents are rich. Yet so poor to realize what I needed. Growing up I was always like a nation seeking independence. Oh yes, I grew up alone. This continued till I left home for school (the university). I came to school seeking everything except the only thing that meant everything " love"(that is in its true sense). I hadn't much chance to socialize cause I live far from school. It was not my choice. My parents wanted a flat for me and you hardly could see a flat close to school. I enjoyed a normal life, going to school ,learning and coming back home. It was fun cause I had to do it without my parents and that was more than enough to ask for. I was satisfied with life, I was not so sure if life was satisfied with me. 
On a certain day, something uncommon happened. I was sitting as usual in the bus stop close to my faculty, after lectures wondering why the buses were delaying. Then I noticed someone walking towards me. She is a beautiful woman. Her gait was impressive. Another impressive and disturbing part was the way she was smiling at me. I immediately treked through my mind and was sure she was not a familiar face. She finally got near and sat awfully close and gave me another type of smile. Her confidence alone made me like her, the kind of confidence shown by a card player with an ace in the hole or a person holding a concealed weapon. She asked questions and I replied accordingly. Each question she dropped made her more beautiful. I can't recall the conversation because I gave her first words that came to mind. But the conversation was nice, the way I ignored the arrival of busses was proof of that. 
Our conversations will continue after lectures every day. She never ran out of what to say and I never got tired of listening. I was not used to making independent decisions, so exchange of phone numbers was her initiative. I went home that day noticing for the first time how big and lonely my flat was. I actually got bored of one of my greatest companions ( my play station 4) .I had the idea to invite her over, and besides I now make independent decisions. I called her, her voice sounded more melodic on the phone. She accepted my invitation with no second thoughts. She came about 20minutes after the call. That day for the first time something that was not noodles was cooked in my kitchen. I was busy with my game while she was cooking. I wanted to help but who knew girls won't want you in the kitchen while cooking. She left immediately after cooking, I guess she did not want me to eat her food while she was around. The food was superb, I have never seen someone cook rice and beans together, she did and it was really nice, I called and appreciated her, she kept on asking how the food was. The visits and the cooking also continued during the weekends, I had enough food that I had to call my dad to ask him of the fridge he wanted to get me. She was so caring, so selfless and so attentive. Any young man could be seduced by such attention.
It's so sad how some nice stories has to have a "but". Our own " but" was a clash of ideology, this clash was brought to light during one of her visits. Overwhelmed by emotions she wanted intensity, so she tried to be sexually involved. I too, not being gay in all wanted to succumb to her advance because of what I felt, but my mind has being the side I always loved to listen to, the mind is the standard of the man. So I had to stop us for what I know is right. I couldn't tell how she felt about the way I halted her, but I went ahead to lecture her on how sex and love are mutually exclusive except in matrimony. It was a long short lecture, she looked like someone that saw sincerity in what I was saying, I kept hoping she would see the person in the sincerity, then she asked..."Don't you think about it"..."how then do you have fun"?. I said "Ofcourse I think about it that's how I know it has nothing to do with love, the problem actually is that we don't think about it, we just joke, dream and fantasize about . Everyone needs love but not everyone needs sex..... Then we have really misplaced the meaning of fun. We tend to excuse our addictions as fun, and if we are sincere to ourselves we would see that our negative addictions are our greatest demons. The truth is that we have more control over this situations than we like to admit". I stopped, smiled and asked, "do we ever become matured enough to sin?" She smiled back and I changed the topic to make the environment less awkward, that day I taught her how to play virtual game and she was a fast learner. She slept over that night, I guess she was comfortable after my lectures. She left the next morning, I was not sure how she felt but for me, I have never felt so masculine in my entire life . She became a game addict, so she was coming around quite often and I liked it cause we now have something in common.... I stopped seeing her as just a friend, she was more like a girl friend now but I still have to make it official, so I asked her out on a date with the intention of telling her on that date. Of course she accepted, she wore the black dress I got her on her birthday to the date. The dress blended so well with her chocolate body, she didn't order much cause she disliked eating in public , I knew that already but I had to make the occasion official. I was rehearsing all that I wanted to tell her in other not to say anything wrong. I began with "I have something to tell you", she was anxious and she gave me a smile that looked as if she already knew what I was about to say, I was about to continue when her phone rang, she didn't want to answer it, as a form respect but I persuaded her to go ahead and at least I needed some minutes to gain momentum. She went outside and came back minutes later, I wanted to continue but she stopped me and said, " I have something better to tell you, there is this guy that I have being dating for a while now and I like him" I was seriously happy that she has assumed that we were dating. I was brought back by the truth when she said, " I like him because he is good in bed", it's obviously not me. The pain from those words of revelation kept my shadow shouting, my heart raced without rhythm. My mind left my temple. You could image how I felt. She continued talking about the guy and I continued listening and smiling ( that smile that night, was the greatest deception I pulled off in my life). She ended the conversation and thanked me for the date and left for a call that came from the call she received. I was sitting in that restaurant seeing no one but my self cause I left my body to look at myself, I was in a deep conversation with myself from the restaurant back to my apartment. I came back EMPTY and I am not being hyperbolic. I was filled with emptiness, I wanted to sleep but the silence of my apartment haunted me, I created noise with my speakers but it didn't help. I have never cried in my life and I didn't cry that day but I wept as if I would weep forever, I went to the second room in my apartment that I turned into an archive, I searched for those books that I thought had deceived me. I Read out words that I had underlined from the books. " Assigned as a duty to every man is the dignity of every woman", "the pure man may experience desires, but he refuses to let the beauty of a woman's body distract him from the dignity she deserves", "lust indulged became habit, and habit unresisted became necessity", " until a man knows he's a man, he will be trying to prove that he is one"..... All this sounds to me now as words brought together. I was loosing grip of both the books and consciousness, I fell and woke up slightly in the hands of my neighbor that wanted to return a book. I finally woke up proper in a hospital room. After receiving my drip , I was asked to the doctors office. There the doctor asked of my parents, I told him I was an orphan and I felt no guilt saying that, he tried to know when they died in other to relate it to my condition but I told him they died years ago, he asked if anything happened recently I told him no, he then said that I suffered a great amount of shock and I am now suffering from hypoesthesia, from the look on my face he started explaining what it means. Hypoesthesia is a partial loss of tactile sensation AKA numbness and I asked him if he meant that I am emotionally paralyzed, he smiled and asked me if I felt anything about the information he passed across. He made his point cause I felt nothing about the news. As I was leaving the office, a nurse told the doctor that I was lucky it didn't end up to be schizophrenia.
You might be confused why I am ashamed of my self, I understand your confusion. I too would be confused if I were not me. So let me tell you why...... I am ashamed because I allowed the perplexing pain of life to override my sanity, I am ashamed of my self because I understood love as a benefit and not as a sacrifice, I am ashamed that I gave up so easily , I am ashamed that I even thought of vengeance, I am ashamed because I can no longer feel ashamed of my self. This past ten years of my life has not been so better than death. I am like a dead living thing. I could do the unthinkable without remorse. I have everything but I am nothing, I wish I could buy back that pain. I would cherish it as long as I could, Living without feeling is like breathing without smelling or being without perceiving. Don't even ask me about the girl cause I can't live a lie, I can't care about her anymore not because I won't but because I can't. Everything that happened to me was self inflected, she didn't do anything to me , my parents didn't do anything to me, the books that I took to mind and not to heart didn't do anything to me. I did everything to me. Because although I can not control all that happens to me in life, I can control the ways I react to it and I reacted in the wrongest way. I lost hope, I lost the punctuation mark of my life, it has left my life meaningless......you still have hope, pray for grace to be strong enough not to be weak when the pains and sufferings of life strike. Don't pray against it (pain), just pray for strength. And believe me you, if you see numbness as a weapon or an advantage in life then its either you need a therapist or experience would be a great source of knowledge for you, then if you have really faced pain and sufferings positively, you are truly a super hero, never give up never give in just get ready for more, for the world of reality is too bitter to accept......This question posed by John Keats is a monumental one, how good life would be if we understand and know the right reply, Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is, to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”

Cyto
Bisola is an imaginary friend that I hope remains imaginary

Image: J Cole