Prophecy

 

Photo by Amritanshu Sikdar on Unsplash

When you peer into the well it only

mirrors a dumb grey sky, where no bird flies,

looking into a well is lonely,

it doesn’t speak back, there are no replies.

 

Unseasonal rain speckles the water

in rivers and streams as well as oceans.

Long lines of women – mothers and daughters

wait at the well for their turns at the omens.

 

You wish to hear the prophecies spoken –

no birdsong, no chatter. A lizard moves

somewhere on the parapet. Not a token

nor a sign. Just the rope in its own grooves,

 

the splash of the bucket, resultant ripples.

The draw of the future in drops and trickles.

Even when there's a contract all cut and dried, everything spelt out, a term specified - the future always retains its haze of uncertainty, its immeasurable potential for change, from a slight tweak to a megaspanner in the works. Something akin to a spanner has been thrown and as a result we are relocating back to India. A bit ahead of schedule. I'm here for this month and next, then it's back to ye olde hometown. I'm sorry and I'm not sorry. 

It'll be a relief to get to decent bookshops whenever I want. Get online/postal deliveries in 2-3 days instead of waiting interminably. And be in a more manageable timezone as compared to the rest of my family, phew! That I think is what I am looking forward to the most, being able to communicate again with folks in India, Europe and US without having to turn my brain inside out calculating the time difference and tracking civilised calling windows. Fiji has been isolating. 

So why am I sorry? mostly because...well, I'm a nitpicky goody two shoes - I don't like the loose end of an incomplete contract, no matter how justified the reason behind it. Secondly, in some ways, Fiji has been a throwback to my childhood in Nigeria, the same sort of isolation and remoteness from urban spaces, the same wide open untouched expanses of wilderness, similar rudimentary retail infrastructure - malls few and far between, home- and farm grown veggies bought at unsophisticated open markets, live fish bought after bargaining from  fisherfolk at roadside stalls - bliss! Most of all though, it's the familiar pattern of expatness and employed breadwinner that was easy to settle back into. Having a retired workaholic male at home full time, yikes - it's still an unknown, scary zone. :) All unknowns are adventures though, I'm up for a new one.