The Lion King In The Human World Part 3

Another Big Time Guilt Trip Coming Up.

TAKA

I shot awake from a nightmare. For the leader of the criminal underworld, it's hard to scare me. But the dream I just had was bone-chilling. 

It was a worse case scenario of Mufasa leaving me behind. I never got adopted, not even once and returned back to the orphanage. I never beat my illness, instead my illness beat me. I died in my dream.

All the rough memories of struggling through school, the shooting pains, long doctor's meeting, and many more of my childhood nightmares passed through my memory. In my dream, Mufasa wasn't there with me and that made it all ten times worse.

I shook myself. It was just a dream, nothing more. People have dreams all the time, they never mean anything. They are just dreams. Surely, if Mufasa wasn't there for me, things wouldn't have been that bad.

Right?

I got out of bed. The dream shook me to the core. Why was I thinking so much about my big brother? Muffy has been dead for years, I shouldn't give him a second thought.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and turned on the recorder in my great nephew's new house. Still no wedding date, but we'll get there. We've narrowed it down to a three month radius. Sadly, those three months are later in the year next year, but I'm not in charge of this wedding.

All I heard from the mic was soft snores. In the middle of the night, of course there was no one awake. Then I heard something. Some other language was being spoken. Probably the woman's cousin or something from Africa. 

Just my luck, the one person awake at this hour doesn't speak English.

"Amahle," the woman said, "What's wrong? Am I speaking English or Swahili? It's too early to tell."

"Rani," the girl who wasn't suppose to speak English said, though heavily accented, "I had bad dream about Momma."

Rani sighed. "Come here Amahle." There was a rustling of sheets. "I know you miss your mom," Rani said to the little girl, "It's okay to miss her. And you don't have to pretend to be okay with her gone. All you have to do is take this one step at a time and make her proud."

I shut the mic off. One step at a time. Make her proud. Those were things I can remember Muffy saying to me. I could practically hear his voice.

"One step at a time Taka. I'm not going anywhere."

"Mom would want to walk. She'd be so proud if you walked. Make her proud little brother."

"Take, I'm waiting."

That last one was different. Where did that come from?

MUFASA

"Taka," I said to the stars out my window, "I'm waiting."

I remember everything, every little thing. I knew who I was, what happened, who killed me. Though Taka wasn't the one who actually shot me, he did order me dead. He betrayed me so much and I don't even know why. 

But I'm still waiting. I love my little brother and this little incident won't make me love him any less. To most of the world, he's Scar the mastermind of many crimes and public enemy number one, but to me. 

To me, he'll always be my little brother Taka. The boy who drove me crazy with a flute, the boy who nearly died a few months after he was born, the boy who changed my world. Everything I became when I was young was because of Taka, and for that, I could never hate him. Only love him like the little brother he always was and always will be.

I don't say any of this to Simba though. The whole dying and coming back to life thing sounds crazy and he already thinks I'm delirious. I was when I first came here, but not so much now. Many I'm still a little bit delirious, but not as bad as I was. Also, he wouldn't understand why I still love Taka after all he's done.

Sure, it makes sense that I would hate his guts. But no one said that love made sense. Once money got involved, every single girl who teased me in school swore they were madly in love with me and always have been. Yet it wasn't the kind of love that showed before, because it was the love of money. Love is something I would chase over and over again, yet it hurts more that anything else I've ever experienced. That includes getting shot. Love is confusing and strange and makes no sense, yet we all long for it. 

Which also makes no sense.

I looked over at the pictures of my family. The K-squad and their girlfriends and husband, my son, my beautiful daughter-in-law, the twins who look like twins, my niece and nephew, and my dearly departed wife. She would understand me.

Sadly, she's not here.