Tears of Ivory

Chapter One: Bound in Gold

Tears of Ivory

Chapter One: Bound in Gold

 

To be able to fully trust is to fully love. For that reason, good advice is difficult to acquire. Although a bulletin board or a park bench may have a fanciful engraving—it is nothing to base one’s life on. This is why I always refer back to my dear mother’s advice.  I hear the whispered words of bearded men and barbarian brutes: that I am an advanced child clinging to the sandless hourglass of my youth—I respectfully disagree. I choose to think of myself as a developed pearl returning to the manners of the sealed clam, but whatever the case, I cherish her wisdom.

 

She had always informed me that, “A mundane life is the result of an exceptional lack of vision”. Fleeing from the repetitive, mediocrity of my life in America, I yearned for an injection of excitement and vivacity. I’ve searched in coffee shops and libraries and all such outlets; there is no American cure to this ailment of melancholy. I retreated to my drawing room, searching for life’s mysterious answers among the ceiling tiles—all of a sudden, my eyes became aware of an orb of life. A dust-filled globe.

 

I spun the globe, with every spin, my carelessness increased: even to the point where the sphere’s stand lost balance and tumbled to the floor. While collecting the globe a single country tolled, the sound of resounding freedom. I therefore knew how I would free myself from the chains of occupational self-loathing and boredom: a vacation. To be perfectly honest, (as one can in their personal written confessions) a vacation was not truly the idea—a vacation implied return, of which I was unsure if I would be capable.

 

I glanced out the window, in a world unwilling to change; I must speed up the process with personal evolution. The sky was heavy with sorrow, which somehow was made manifest with clouds. It did not rain, yet puddles spread across the city ways and alleyways and highways. Each puddle existed as a bleak reminder that every decision’s outcome far endures the action. The rain had stopped but the water remained. Even I, myself, was a spherical ditch in which impure water and residue gathered. There must be a way to somehow cure my villainous inaction. Perhaps in the indiscriminate heat of foreign lands, the cold, stagnant revelations on which I await may become thawed.

 

I amassed my collections of cash, clothing and books from across the apartment, placed them in my obtuse, grey, traveling baggage. I left the possessions alone for now, however, seeing as I had to bring Fontanne upon my whimsical journey as well. I fetched her at her friend’s house, where she had become drunk on ceremonial gossip and high on female cackling. Her friend, Wilma, I believe… demanded that I was far too impulsive; yet, it is far more impulsive to ignore a carnal craving than to follow one’s soul. I grabbed her hand, after removing the cherry red liquor from her grasps, and pulled her through the symbolic barrier of Wilma’s cramped entryway—into the air of liberty and to the plains of self-discovery.

 

We both gathered our things, picked up the baggage which we had packed and left for the airport to find a seat on a random plane, to get to a random place, based solely upon the advice of an antiquated globe. The climax of the thoughts of adventure clung to ourselves, and attracted us meaningfully, we walked even onto the plane with each other’s hands held with a grip of death. Our togetherness was seemingly put to an end however, when we reached the stewardess’ gate upon the plane.

 

The stewardess wore a blue beret and a sky blue blazer that gave the impression that she was of a different breed—a type made for pioneering the celestial bodies…even if her only true job was to poor coffee and clean-up vomit. Fontanne was forced to go left to her seat, and I was guided harshly to the right. Such is the trouble with buying plane tickets on the wings of a frivolous instinct. I would have been able to see across the aisle to Fantanne if the man to the front of me did not have the head of an obese zeppelin.

 

I sat in the middle seat of a row. To my left was a British man, whose accent was saturated with nationalist pride and a strong distaste towards Americans. To the right of me was a black man, he spoke both English and French—both being broken beyond repair. His lack of adequate language skills appeared as if he had belonged to two contrasting families (One French and one English) and never mastered or met the expectations of either. The Brit leaned over, after thoroughly enjoying his dinner and asked,

 

“So, what is there for you in Cameroon?” His facial hair—a shimmering grey, portraying integrity and the capacity of trust. I wanted to confide, yet had nothing to truly say.

 

“It depends on what’s there.” I believe that my statement had further ignited his resolute stereotype of Americans and ignorance. He looked at myself and saw a colony that ‘went wrong’ somewhere along the way. Perhaps my naivety was an inadequate response; nevertheless, my course was unapologetically set without a chance of diversion.

End of Chapter One