One Week Later by Mwangi Murimi

Published in Qwani 02

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It was a small cottage. Decades-old furniture lay scattered throughout and tens of pictures of children and grandchildren hung over the tacky yet durable wallpaper. Lace covered the small coffee table, the cupboards and shelves, the antique lamps and the vacuum tube television that was hardly-ever on. On top of a capsized milk crate in the corner, near the worn-out armchair where he could always be found, sat the behemoth of a radio most recently used a few nights ago, probably for the last time ever.

Days of cooking and planning, entertaining and hosting had left her exhausted, but more importantly, kept her busy. Now, it was silent. No condolences, no prayers, no dirges. No armchair creaking, no grunting, no heavy breathing, no radio. Total silence.

She sat down on a stool and absorbed it all. For the first time since it happened, she was completely alone. Hours after the last car had left for Nairobi and the last neighbors had retreated to their homesteads, she sat on that stool and listened to the silence that engulfed her; the silence of birds chirping and chickens crowing and scratching, the silence of a world that continued to exist and thrive beyond her tragedy.

At their age, however, it could hardly be classified as such. They both knew what was coming. They both knew that it could have been him sitting on his favorite chair, days after her singing had ceased and her heavy footsteps were no longer audible against the old wooden floor. But it was she who sat there, completely frozen.

She’d always thought she’d feel angry at him for leaving before she did. Part of her assumed that she would adapt fairly easily to his absence. They hardly ever talked much anymore. Yet, as the heavy coughs and the music of his people that once filled the room were now replaced by noises of nature that seemed only to punctuate an aching internal quietness, the only thing she felt was loneliness.

Despite her eldest daughter insisting that she should not be left alone, she had refused to be babysat by her family. As much as she loved her children and grandchildren, she felt no need to delay the inevitable grieving.

And so she sat there, on a stool, in the middle of the room, listening to the birds and the chicken and the absence of radio chatter and the complete lack of coughs and grunts. She looked at the wallpaper that had yet to peel and the pictures that hid so much of it. She looked at the lace-covered coffee table and all the furniture. She looked at the empty armchair. She looked at the radio that would never be used again. But she only saw the space between these things.

The cottage felt a little less small.

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Mwangi Murimi is a writer of screenplays, short stories and poems from Nairobi, Kenya.

To communicate with the writer:

Email: mwangimurimi15@gmail.com

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Photo by Ekaterina Astakhova