Green_In_Red Flags.
She's tensed, of course, certain she's pregnant, and it seems she's going to keep it even though it's killing her to face her world with that. On the other hand, I'm still hoping it's the weather. I don't know, man, maybe something came up and she's just late.
Wueh, let's start with the worst man. What's your take if she's indeed pregnant? Are you going to keep it?
Come on, you know what I'm thinking; that's every man's first thought. Of course, I'm thinking of getting rid of it. Look at me. Can I manage? On the other hand, I don't know, man; honestly, all I can think of right now is that I'm not ready for this, never been my thing. It's been two weeks since her date. I know it's crazy of me to still have some hopes. Yeah, I know you keep saying hope clouds observation, but man, I'm not ready for this.
You are working and have a good life; what's the problem with having little Mike, with cute eyes and a wider smile full of energy, running around the big-for-nothing house? Don't you think it's about time you made it home? I understand the circumstances; you had not planned for this, but here we are. What are you scared of?
Normally, with his confidence, he makes it hard to tell whether what he says is smart or stupid, let alone the truth. For once, I saw fear in his eyes—a soul barren of purpose. We grew up in the same neighborhood, and for all I've known him, he's more of a Dick; when things get heated, he gets hard, and tough, and faces them. But today he had shrunk back in, like from an ice-cold bath, and all that was left were overgrown pubic hairs around him. I couldn't see why, but they say kids change people, perhaps they didn't consider the biology of it.
We label them kids once they are born, and perhaps then they change people, but before that, from conception; blastocyst, embryo, and then a fetus, they scare, bring out demons and fears, confusion and doubts, sometimes going over aloud the eulogy for our dead parts, the shrines we've immortalized our traumas, and violence, whose roots are deep in the heart and has no season, always ripe green, just waiting for the right thirsty gut to pluck then.
In rugby, the game that's prompted most of our hangouts other than village drama and family shenanigans, maybe we would have been mad at each other already over a foul referee call that's normally against the losing side, but unfortunately today we were here with our eyes on the screen but hardly seeing whatever was going on.
So in rugby, sometimes the play goes on when an offense has been committed. The referee just highlights the offense by pointing to the offended side shouting "advantage," as the play goes on provided it's the offended side that has the ball and as soon as they lose possession, the referee can now address the offense and award the offended side and punish the other.
An interesting sport that has more than just violent men with plus-size buttocks pushing, shoving, and dragging one another to the ground while running with an oval ball. Maybe sometimes that's the real human existence, how we run with a fragile egg called life on our hands, with a pile of advantaged offenses, pleasing aesthetics, Smiles, and fake laughs, and it's unfortunate that no offense ever gets addressed immediately, so play on hoping for the advantage call when things get heated, but when being alive isn't your fault, you have to try your best until death visits, perhaps the mystery of life, not a problem to solve, just a reality to experience.
When I walked in, he was seated at the corner, cold and deep in thought—not the usual Mike I've grown up with, the fierce one who gets from zero to a hundred in seconds—so I did not attempt to hit it head-on. I started with a joke that he cracked to bits of a lonely smile and lost laugh. Eventually, after long waits for him to break the news, I asked what was troubling.
They say to understand another person, you must swim in the same waters that drowned them. The only common waters between us are our relationships with our old men, technically with most men, the "monsters" with friendly faces hard on the angels that are now full of scars. His old man, a devout drunkard, gave up on them on his fourteenth birthday to be seen again on his thirty-fifth as he was laying his mother to rest. As far as I can remember, they never had a close relationship, and well, the less he talks about him, how he was constantly on his throat, making him believe he was good for nothing. At an age when I'm usually convinced that a kid needs more affection than logic, what does a six-year-old need to understand logically about being useless?
For all I've known him, a child has never been in his plans, and he's never shy about it. He already had made up his mind that a child was the last thing he wished to have, but here he was today, confused about the unfolding of a path he never planned on taking. Perhaps sometimes love and guilt taste the same as he sat there motionless, eyes fixed on the screen, fist clenched tight as I asked him what scared him the most since he had a life going on.
On the fourth day without talking with his girlfriend, who was already fixed on keeping the pregnancy despite having mountains to summit for peace with her family and then a whole steep slope to descend for the sake of her lifestyle and friends, Nights of unprovoked sobbing, loss of appetite, and fears in her third year of studies.
I knew his fears, one that crippled him when the lights were off, and desires for his copy overwhelmed his heart, leaving him confused about whether waking or sleeping was the best option. Sleep had a nightmare, and waking thoughts were even worse, but a wound can only heal if you clean it out.
Sometimes when fighting a monster, I recently read somewhere, you must be careful not to become one for it looks you in the eye as you look at it. Mike was afraid of becoming the very monster he had grown up with during his most fragile years as I asked him how different he would be running away or terminating the innocent soul before it even had a thought of its own. Perhaps the best thing was to own up, for anyone can learn anything when they have to learn it, being a good father, a loving husband, and a caring and supportive partner, just to be different from the worst version we've experienced—one can even learn to fly if it holds the key to living the following days—only took determination, and there's nothing stronger than patience and time to mold the best versions of ourselves.
The good thing about boys' talk is the undisturbed need to constantly address the issue at hand: long pauses, seeping beer, touching on the match on the screen, then a sigh, a pause, followed by a solution: "Yeah, I guess I'll have to face this stuff like a man; I'll have to be strong for her; she's the one with a lot to handle, and I want to make a difference; tough, but yeah, Sini life ama?
Then a response from the other, "Yes man, you just have to step up."We have your back, and amazingly they always do, not all not for long. The kid is always a joy on arrival, a responsibility of them all, and as time goes by, as It starts taking junk oxygen, It slowly becomes your responsibility. The support system starts to wane away with the bundles of diapers they had gifted on the birthday. Soon, it drops to once in a while checking on you, then the next time they show up is with a, "You know I used to wipe your nose when you were young. Can you remember me?" bloody swamp rats, but regretful for them.
Last weekend was Leshan's third birthday. Yes, he's a bouncing baby boy, whose even a little cry can bring the whole world crumbling down from the wrath of his father. Very protective of him, nowadays I call him Thanos, in a proud way, like he would collect infinity stones if it meant wiping away all the faces on earth for his son not be disturbed, maybe one day hell will learn that his birth when he was first referred to as a baby, changed his old man to someone something better.
The other day I mentioned to some colleagues that perhaps deadbeats are sometimes a choice, maybe an ignorance to clearer red flags all through that some people react to in surprise, yet it could be seen all along.
I'm not in support of it, but it's a call for owning up when things get heated, but sometimes we can mold our partners into the parenting types by first understanding what environment they've been in before instead of surprising them and then crushing when they take off. It's also a call to address personal issues that might have resulted much earlier. Sometimes we don't choose the circumstances, but we can work on the outcomes and be better.
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