Eyes of the dead.

Anna still goes to sit by the beach every evening, quietly falling into the pages of the book she holds as the tides wash over her feet. A part of her hopes that unknowingly the water carries her and never brings her back to the shore, but a part of her also worries that dying is not the end. She fears that this grief will follow her to the beyond and eat even deeper into her stillness. So when the tides come, she lets it wash over her, but she doesn't give it permission to take her away.

If you ask her why she comes to the beach every evening, even in the breaking cold of winter, this is what she will tell you. That Emeka's eyes were like a gateway to a world that only existed for her, that it was while looking into his eyes that she found herself. She will tell you about the day they danced in the rain with the Bluetooth speaker softly luring poetry into the moment from underneath their neighbour's car. His hands joined together at her back as their bodies merged into a burning harmony. 

She will tell you that what she remembers the most was the way he looked at her and how the moon shone through his eyes. It was the first time someone ever looked at her like that. It was the first time she knew what it was like to be seen by someone. 

If you ask her what love is, this is what she will tell you.

That loving someone is seeing them. That loving someone is seeing their scars, but still teaching them what it's like to dance to poetry in the rain. She will tell you that through his eyes she knew what it meant to be infinite, boundless. Endless. Until it ended.

June 7, 2006. A month to their traditional marriage, Emeka did not return home. It was while preparing the table for dinner that she received a call with the news. His car had been found abandoned a few junctions away from their house. They called the number that was attached to a gift bag found in the car. He forgot to remove the number when he asked the gifts' consultant to deliver it to him instead. He had changed his mind and wanted to surprise her himself. 

She called his brother immediately after the call with the police to break the news of his kidnap, and he had asked her to be calm and patient. They were on their way to her. 

August 7, 2006. Her phone rang, they had found Emeka's body lying cold by the roadside. Medical assessment showed that he had been dead for three days. She called on her father's God as she held his unbathed body against her own, fleshing her tears on all that was left of the man she loved. Watching her was like watching a mad woman wail over a child that took days to come out of her body.

The thing about losing a loved one to the cold hands of an unworthy death is - it breaks you open to many things that you are not ready for. Many things that you did not think yourself capable of. Like tearing at your clothes until all you are left with is the image of his kisses imprinted all over your body. 

It's been 17 years since that time. She has now made a home out of all the things he left behind. His clothes - sewn into curtains and bed covers. His shoes - dangling decors for her plant-sourced library. His books, untouched - she worries that years of therapy will be stolen from her if she opens his books.

She fears that she will remember those lines as vividly as when he first read them to her. That she will see him again, sitting across from her, a book in his hand and his eyes, the gateway to a world existing only for her. She fears that she will get lost in them. And not know how to come back.

Because how do you come back to life from a dead man's eyes?