Random Ramblings of a Raving Redhead: Daily Devotional for Women (Giggles and Grace Book 1)

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As if the very hand of God had reached down from the heavens and flicked the car with his forefinger, flicked it like a fly from his shirt. If anyone had cared to look, dared to look, the two faces of the couple were briefly visible through the passenger side window of the tossed car. At least until the flames destroyed them. The truck-driver turned away from the scene, speechless and in shock. He felt a slight prickling sensation on his right forearm and realized that in the accident his watch had been crushed, the glass face broken into pieces, a few of which were now protruding out of his skin.

One by one droplets of blood began to spill onto the watch, spilling like the snowflakes from the heavens, spilling like the ash from the flames. His nose was bleeding. The blood began to obscure the numbers of the tiny clock as he looked down upon it. He could no longer read the time. It was kind of funny really, that that was his first instinct, and I think I actually laughed for a brief moment.

I laughed as my life spiraled out of control. As if it was a joke. Then I saw him let go of the wheel and turn towards me, grasping my hand, and in that instant time froze. I was lying in a hospital bed, tubes taped all over my body, and I knew it was my deathbed because God knows I would never allow myself to be trapped in a hospital for a long-term stay otherwise. My fear of this place was palpable; I could smell the sickness in the air through the tubes in my nose, feel the pain of it in my eyes straining against the blinding white of the walls.

Someone familiar was holding my hand but it felt strange, rougher and yet slippery as if I would lose the grip of the embrace at any moment. It was my husband, staring at me with his beautiful brown eyes, this time full of only pain and grief. We had grown old, and his face was strange to me now. It seemed as though he had already started mourning my death, and I wondered how long I had been lying in this hospital bed.

I heard faint bubbling noises and some beeping. I figured this was from those infernal machines of the hospital, and that laughter I heard must actually be crying from rooms down the hall, but then I started to smell coffee and I was back in that coffee shop so many years ago. His friends were leaving, we were leaving, but he held me back for a minute.

Scandalous; I had just met this guy! But I think we both already knew what was there. His face, the same face, I reminded myself.

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He was pulling a blanket up to my shoulders. Cold… And then it was raining and I was sitting on a bench in soaked clothes freezing my flesh, no, I was sitting in his lap now and we were kissing and there was a ring on my finger. But the liquid was washed away by the rain just as my tears had been washed from my cheeks, and he laughed. I was angry now. I was so confused at this, angered by this, because I had no memories of this. The round, black framed clock suspended on the wall of my hospital room began ticking audibly, blending with the beeping of those machines, growing increasingly louder as I focused my attention on it.

I was back in the car and there was a tractor-trailer about to hit us in the other lane. There was no trace of love in his eyes at that moment, the same way it was purged from his face in the hospital. The only thing frozen in his face now was pure terror. He almost convinced me that our love was divine. That the universe might actually be conspiring in our favor. Until that same God that felt so inclined to bring us together and show us the world decided to tear us apart with a casual snap of his fingers, tearing our families apart and taking all of the love with him.

That was my final thought. It would be fear. But no one else would know this. His hands eventually betrayed his novice only just before he pulled the curtain over the cadavers to hide the faces, trembling only in the moment of delving closest to the painfully widened eyes in order to force them shut. The elder EMT on the scene nodded, pulling out a clipboard and proceeding to fill out the necessary paperwork.

The sun was beginning to set. The elder sneered with her face still tucked down into her papers. In an instant the elder EMT imagined their faces upon the impact, wide-eyed and gaping in terror. Being beyond blurred now from the marring fire it was impossible to read into the faces for a detailed portrayal of the couple. The EMT saw the minimal damage on the body of the other victim of the crash, the truck driver, repaired by a few stitches.

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She also saw the damage forever lurking just beneath his eyes that doctors would never fix, altering his gaze forever, painting his story across his face. She saw the black ashes littering the snowy ground and pictured the families at the funerals, black umbrellas in the rain, black dresses in mourning, black boots scarring more wounds upon the damp earth, black hearts infected by Death. Probably muttering some shit about how peaceful their faces looked in the casket. The EMT saw the black emptiness now, consuming the world that could have been, fragments passing by in a whirlwind: The EMT then saw memories from her own life, familiar faces cycling momentarily within her vortex of thought as if waiting to be sucked in, their hands raised, grasping at nothingness, meaninglessness, an empty black backdrop.

At least they were together, she thought. But it was only an instant, just an instant in time. And then there was just the EMT again. And their faces turned back into the faces. They all turned back into nothing but lumps under a tarp. So much for being immune. Me too, she responded silently to herself. Why would anyone want to see that? It was still snowing and she shivered, and for a minute toyed with the idea of retiring next year and maybe moving to Florida, yes that would be nice.

She would be fine, she thought. But tonight all she wanted to do was drink until every last face became a blur. Mother says they are family. Mother says they are all my Iya. Mother says family is stronger than anything. Women still need some mysteries and everyone needs family. Mother says I will make a good Ifa wife.

I said two words that day. It was a beautiful Yoruba wedding my mother adorned everything in shades of purple lace. Baba says Nigerian men will always have multiple wives. Mother says comprehension is not a requirement for following instructions. Mother says women have a role to play, it is not easy but it is necessary. He had a nice face, round, kind. Mother says, being ruled by emotions is an Oyimbo quality. Baba says they are simply proof of his wealth. I am simply proof of his wealth. Mother says she thought about taking another husband.

Mother says our system promotes tradition and togetherness. Last night she asked, what are your other options? Do you want to come back to Ibadan with us? Baba says our culture is our immune system. I cannot survive Brooklyn alone. She had to move back home.

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The family they look at her like her skin has fallen off. Like she is nothing without her husband. Baba says this is womanhood. We have nothing in common but foreign land. Baba says you are always representing more than yourself. You are always representing this family. Mother says it is not our culture to pursue everything else before family. I could have my own life, by abandoning this culture. Three years into her marriage her husband married again, his fifth wife. To her, that meant splitting time with another woman. She left him, without consulting her Iyaale or any elder.

She moved to Baltimore and got a job and an apartment. Mother says I would make a good Ifa wife. Her eyes are almost pleading.

I only said two words that day. I lay here alone And I will wait until the flames racing in my blood Slowly burn down to embers And I will learn to warm my own bed Without liquid courage And without your touch.

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Pariah I know you hate me, I know how you cringe at the content of my cherished thoughts. But how could you anonymous masses hate me any more than I hate myself? I've examined my lot, the plight of the automatic pariahs.

It seems some accident at birth may have branded me with its ugly scar or possibly it was a memory, dark around the edges, that I cannot look at directly - a Gorgon's face that leaves me fleeing blindly, feverishly pondering its contents and asking, "Did he? Alone, I sullenly look on as rare friends parade their marital bliss and their children before me, like the display of jewels locked behind glass and far too costly to obtain. Even the lovers I can count on my fingers sense my sickness. They stiffen at my pleas for certain kinds of role play, at my enduring, irremediable dissatisfaction when the fantasy terminates within flesh too rough, too heavy, too impure, already seasoned to sexuality.

My conscience crushes me, for I know I shall never sate myself; I read fiction furtively, looking over my shoulder as I attain my guilty purpose. Many times, my mouse has hovered over sketchy search engines for hours without clicking, before I dissolve in repentant tears and shudder in self-disgust at the thought of indulging in this enterprise of pain. I think of the thousands hurting because of men like me who went astray.

I think how cruel it is that I should be fashioned like a broken machine to eroticize innocence, the antithesis of sexuality. I know you hate me for these thoughts decreed by an unhappy resolution in my biology - I may have done nothing, but I know you hate me still, and I absolutely understand. How could any of you anonymous masses hate me any more than I hate myself?

He licked his lips at the challenge of having to wonder, for once, how this girl could gender-bend sexy and still get him hard. He let me siphon the moan woman pulls at the back of his throat. Only when his roommates asleep could I pull his hair, revel in the twists his face makes. You could tell it hurt and he could tell I loved it. He said it made him feel weird, gay. I tried to tell him how sexist it is to not bend back and return the favor. Work down the shape of him and round my mouth gentle. He almost forgets his eyes roll back and close, mouth hangs, whispers god.

When eyes open he tells me i have no chill. He feels taken from his own skin. He is a real nigga. Last week touching his ass at all became a hard limit. Most times he ends up pulling them out the first day. The Narnian The White Witch, Aslan, fauns and talking beasts, centaurs and epic battles between good and evil — all these have become a part of our collective imagination through the classic volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia.

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