Linda’s Diary: Entry 1

Thursday, 13 February 2014

11:00pm

Dear Jennifer, 

I have decided to write a personal journal to help me cool off my head over the tough times I face with my family. Should anything weird happen to me one day, I hope this book will find its way to you and help solve the riddles around my situation. I am not predicting something bad to happen to me or my family any soon; however, the future, and all its occurrences, is inevitable.

Since my husband won the elections, he has been acting strange. I hope by now you know that we no longer live in the ‘boondocks’, but in our new home in the city. And I am really struggling to cope with this life in town, dear sister – as a housewife, you know.

That aside, my husband has been one on constant move. He attends evening and late-night meetings and no longer has time for me and our two kids. Every day, after supper, he leaves for the so-called impromptu assignments and meetings. I wonder whether my marriage is on the right track of living. 

Today, dear sister, he came back home somewhat earlier than usual. Though he was as calm and quiet as always, my instincts told me something was wrong. Imagine your husband, the Godlike creature the Bible posits we women were made out of, walking into the house and right to the bedroom without either a hug or a hi. What a supercilious and denigrating attitude! Anyway, I have lived to understand and brook his nagging lifestyle these days.

Georgie, so to speak, is one of those explosive introverts, and so I would not even think of asking him what was wrong. So, unminding him, I went about warming his bathwater. And while he took shower, I prepared his evening tea, taking note of the specifications given by his doctor for the sake of his digressing blood sugar levels.

When he finished bathing and came back into the house, I went straight to the bathroom to pick his clothes as usual. It was then and there that the most uncertain moments dawned. On the window stool lay a tiny glimmering object, a beautiful rare thing to behold.

My eyes must have waited eagerly a lifetime to capture such a profulgent ornament, for barely had I stepped into the bathroom when I beheld it, an expensive gold ring, glimmering extrusively like the evening sun! Gaping, I took it into my palm and watched, both fear and anxiety nibbling at my spine. I was like a hornbill hit inimically by the rain in the night and now feeling a tidge of hope mixed with uncertainty at the onset of daylight.

To be succinct and sincere, dear sister, I have never worn or been worn such an ornament, and even as I write this, I think perhaps he is holding up a surprise for me; who knows though, a man’s real intentions are hard to define.

I placed the ring back onto the stool and made my way back into the living room. But Georgie met me halfway, the bath towel still wrapped around his trunk, and with unnerving looks all over me. I planted myself in front of him and waited for those uncertain moments, of either a firm clout or ruthless inquiry. Instead, he asked me in a silly cracking voice, “Woman, have you seen it?”

I replied almost incoherently, “What was it?” Then I corrected myself, “I mean, what are you talking about, my lord?” He hesitated awhile and then replied, “So, you haven’t seen it, woman?” I insisted, “What, my lord?” I reasoned with myself that suppose it was going to be a surprise for me, then it would not be a good idea to say that I had already seen it. So I withheld my knowledge that way. He grunted and moved quickly past me into the bathroom. 

I think he must have taken a minute or two in there. And when he came out, he went back to our bedroom and finished grooming himself. Then he came to the living room, quietly took his tea and left us as usual without putting in another word.

As I make my first entry into this journal tonight, all alone in my bed, yet it is approaching midnight, dear sister, I feel like a boat left in the middle of an ocean, anticipating a favourable surprise or another hell on wheels in the coming days.

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Continue to Entry 2