Still here
The man at the window said not yet. The bag is still under the bed. On waiting as a way of life.
Not yet. That is what the paper said, in more words. Not no; not yet. Another document, another statement, another season. The lawyer in Lagos says it is normal. The small notebook says it is another eight months of not enough. Mama said, then you wait, and you write, and went back to her pot.
So I am still here, in the room by the stadium, with the bag under the bed and a manuscript that is finished and that I cannot yet send anywhere, because a book with my name on it in Owerri is a book with my address on it.
I want to write about waiting, because it is what most of my life has been and nobody writes about it. Waiting for the sermon to end. Waiting for E. to text. Waiting nine days under the stain. Waiting six weeks to go back to the clinic. Waiting for a man at a window. Waiting is not nothing. It has a taste, which is Fanta gone flat, and a sound, which is the generator next door, and a posture, which is the one in the black and white photograph, a man on a path, going somewhere, not yet arrived.
I walked to the mango tree at five this morning and stood under it. Charles came out, half asleep, and did not ask why I was there. He said, you are always here at this time, and I said yes, and he said, good, and went back in. I am still here. Some of the people I am still here for know it.