The Don's Saving Grace (GxG)✔️

1 (Prologue)

On the playground of my childhood, plagued with stomach-churning memories, sitting in silence, no one is alive to join me. I am not alone: defeat, guilt, failure, and many more play around me. On the swings, the seesaw, the sandpit and monkey bars; little children and I happen to be their babysitter.

Suffering comes, in a clad coat and shining shoes, he comes to enjoy the fresh winter wind with us all. He is a busy dad to this bunch. He comes and goes often leaving more kids than he takes with, I guess that's not his job. I never ask what his job is, I assume it is important.

He wraps his arms around me, settles near me. "Soon, it will all be over and you get to come face to face with Death. The angel of your dreams." Death's absence haunted me and Suffering knew that I longed for his cold hands to smother me to peace. How he takes and take and takes but never gives, truly an angel. To be smothered by his hands taken to another realm to bask in him.

Death was a frequent visitor in my family but he never seemed to take an interest in me, always brushed me off as the niece who had a crush on him but if only he knew how deep I longed for him, his presence and touch, how I hated his absence and the crater it created in me. If only he would sit down and listen to me, maybe he would understand that I love him beyond words and I long for him beyond breaths.

I took a breath when I was done, I needed it. I always allowed the audience to interact with me afterward, that way they felt a part of the conversation.

There was a man who took a keen interest in how I wrote not just why and what I wrote. He asked question after question until it was time for the other ladies to sing and perform.

I went into the back to fetch my bag and head to the bus stop.

"Abiya, that was a nice piece."

"You listened?"

"Yeah, and I see why the sales go up on Thursdays."

"It's the wing special."

"Take a compliment." Abiya is my boss, has been for four years.

"Thank you, I have to go so I don't miss the bus, see you next week."

Our conversations never ran long partly because of my awkwardness around her.

.

I have class at 8:00 and to be on time, I have to leave early. Unlike most people I am not happy about graduating, I am lost and confused, it is one of those periods where you can not see the step in front of you.

The bus dropped me off at the gate of the campus but my class was behind the first block, which meant I had to jog a bit.

Part of me is still thinking about the man in the bar. He was not like the other creeps in the place, he seemed interested in what I was saying and how not how I appeared.

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Welcome to the world of Abiya and Amari💖