What is Left Unrequited

Part I

I will never wash my hands again. It may be a bold and unprecedented stance to take, given that we are living through an uncertain period where having a bottle of hand sanitiser is as essential for human survival as breathing. I don't want to fall sick, but I don't have much of a choice. My hands are tied. They're also the last things I own that remember your scent, aside from your coat that rests somewhere in the back seat of my car at this very moment. And I know it's not mine to keep. Joe, my best friend, believes I cannot hold on to your scent forever. He seems adamant that my hands will cling to another scent and forget yours. Surely, I can try to prove him wrong, right? Prove them wrong? Surely a similar belief was held about Alfredo Salafia, the charismatic embalmer of Rosalia Lombardo's angelic remains when he attempted to preserve her body against a living organism's greatest adversary-decomposition. But there she remains, in a de facto museum somewhere in Italy to this day, beyond the reach of time; the Sleeping Beauty of the Capuchin Catacombs.

If I had known you for longer, I would have a lifelong collection of memorabilia in my possession to remember you by; pictures, letters, your favourite coffee mug, the T-shirt I would forget at your apartment that you'd eventually repurpose as your nightwear.

I would have loved to receive a letter from you above all. Your friends say you're the best writer they have ever read. Galaxia, your oldest friend, and the closest person you have to a sister, recalls the letter you once wrote to her when you were fifteen. From what I gather, she was angry at you over an incident you both nicknamed 'the slumber party incident.' She refuses to tell me the complete story behind such an ominous title. Instead, she insists I would never again see you in the same light. I don't know if I entirely agree with that sentiment. She did, however, reveal that you were the instigator behind the incident and, as a result, she didn't speak to you for half of that midyear break. To make amends, you went to her parents' house and refused to leave until she allowed you to explain your side. You waited the entire night, and it seems you had come prepared. You armed yourself with a tent and two sleeping bags and got permission from Valerie, her better-experienced mother, who helped you set up camp in their backyard. On that starless winter night, you scribbled your heartfelt epistle to her. The atmospheric cold and exposure to danger in the open yard could not dissuade you. Meanwhile, in the warmth of her air-conditioned bedroom, Galaxia gave in to tiredness and fell asleep. And even though she didn't join you in the tent that night, you didn't hold that against her. Her guilt over leaving you to brave the weather alone led to her reading your letter. She cried after reading it and would not stop until you returned to her house the next day and consoled her. It seems your person is the unrelenting type. Those around you cannot muster enough courage to get and stay angry at you, even when they have every right to feel that way. You are the master of apologies.

Galaxia loves you with all that she is. I felt I could not continue this letter without letting you know that. Your lifelong friendship and your peculiar names are not the only things you share. You share a culture of mutual respect and adoration, inside jokes, and childhood bedroom walls decorated by your history. Over the years, the water that established the foundation of your sisterhood has proven to be as thick as blood, if not thicker. I have never met two people more destined to be together than the two of you. You call her your life raft and you; she calls her sinking ship. I made peace with the fact that I may never understand what that analogy means or how it came to be, but I, and many others, will appreciate its significance in summing up your friendship.

Olwethu, one of your two larger-than-life mothers, says the conception of your name is, and always will be, the simplest thing about you. A few minutes after they hesitantly dragged you into this world, the doctors slid your underdeveloped body into her arms, and at first glance of you, her eyes welled with tears. This was not because of their many unsuccessful attempts at having a child, the six and a half months of a pregnancy considered by her family to be 'shameful' and 'an abomination,' or even the excruciating pain she endured delivering a healthy and beautiful baby girl from the comfort of a womb she fought tooth and nail to keep. She was crying because when she looked at you, she saw you looked dehydrated-a side effect of your hard-fought battle to postpone your arrival. Her first instinct was to inform the doctor that you needed water. They immediately attached you to a drip and barrier'd you for protection behind the glass incubator that would be your home for the next three weeks. She confesses she has never told you that story because she would die before the oxygen in her lungs betrayed her confidence and let you feel, even for a split second, like a burden to her. She knows that if she told you that story, you would have felt that way. In her own words, she captures the story of your life as "difficult with a happy ending on the horizon." She thinks the world of you. The same is said about Celia, your astronomical co-mother, who would venture to the beyond at your request, and return with but a single star to gift to you.

You refused to tell me your name the night of our meeting. Rightfully so, as I was a stranger to you. Fate brought us together at the moment you became the middleman for my glass of Fanta grape and the floor. You must have apologised nineteen times for the entire catastrophe, despite the nineteen more times I insisted it was my fault. I get absorbed by whatever thoughts preoccupy my mind and as a result; I drift away from the task at hand, which at the time was to avoid ruining your strapless, floral summer dress. "If you're not careful, one day the most amazing human being you'll ever meet will slip out of those butterfingers," Joe often says. It kills me to know that his bogus predictions almost proved to be accurate. I just had to make it right. Your dress was not about to pay the ultimate price for my 'butterfingers.' You did not make it any easier for me. You were quick to refute any attempt I made at remedying the situation. I would only later learn that you are a proud individual, and meekly accepting consolations defies the very nature of your being-a fact that I most admire about you. You are a self-made woman by every definition of the phrase. I use the word 'meekly' because you eventually gave in to my unwavering determination, but not before putting up a valiant defensive of your own. There isn't a thing in this world that is yours that you did not fight for. Galaxia is taken aback because it only took me half an hour to wear you down. The standing record set impossibly high at four hours is a record she held with pride for the better part of a decade. Your stubbornness is as unyielding as your fiery spirit. Wherever you are, I am reassured by everything touched by your light that yours is a flame that will never die down, let alone burn out. The ones closest to you will carry your burning torch until the sun one day collides with the Earth's surface and wipes away every trace of human existence, along with your own, and if that does not become a reality, then you will truly live forever.

I eventually came to learn your name from our mutual friend, who was also the host of that night's very intimate get-together. I cannot for the life of me recall his name. I am usually good at remembering names. All I can remember about him is that he had the most exotic accent and an equally extravagant personality, evidenced by his Mediterranean house decor. I couldn't map his accent to a single geographical location. He and his wife Lesego are a recent addition to our Melville family, and their arrival was the very reason for our meeting that evening.

I will never forget your name-that much I am certain of.

You left our mutual friend's housewarming in a subtle rush. No one could think of a plausible reason you had to leave in such a hurry to get home before ten o'clock on a Saturday night, other than the one you offered. "I have an early morning," you said as you eyed the door from your seat. There was an underlying discomfort in your voice. You towered in front of me, ready to say your farewells and 'nice to meet yous,' and that's when I reached for your hands-in a last-ditch attempt to coax you to stay out a little while longer. You tried your best to let me down easy. Everyone in the room could see that I had to gain the satisfaction of trying, and I did. Yours is the company that one is graced with only once in an entire lifetime at most, and that revelation struck me when you were halfway home. "You worry too much. We're neighbours, so I'm sure we will see each other sooner rather than later," you insisted, as your hands slipped through mine. Your tone inspired confidence. I had to let you go.

Your eyes remained on me, with a reassuring smile on your face that summoned forth the dimples from your cheeks as you disappeared through the door. My gaze lingered at the window for an extra moment, hoping you would return. I immediately knew that my world would never be the same. That is not a grand proclamation intended to gain your favour, nor is it a sentiment meant to hyperbolise the nature of my adoration for the person you are. It is an unfiltered truth that I cannot, in good conscience, keep to myself or attempt to deny. And I never will.

"Has Amanzi left? She forgot her coat with me," Galaxia asked me, standing a few meters away from where I had been sitting with you. There it was! Your name at last-Amanzi, or as I would eventually come to know it, Amanzi Buthelezi-Nkosi. To your parents and everyone lucky enough to know you, your existence was as nourishing to them as an ocean of freshwater. Your parents knew this from the moment they met you. They also knew that you'd never need a second name. "One name is enough. It will tell its utterer who she is and what she means to those around her in just a single word." I agree.

You were already out of sight by the time your coat turned up in her possession. And so, she promised to return it to you first thing in the morning. I suspected she would be too hungover to prioritise returning a coat so early in the day, and she agreed. So, the task fell to me to return it. I decided I would drop it off that night on my way home.

I only wish I'd left thirty-minutes earlier.