HOW ARE YOU?

Hi, How are you? Yes, I mean you. You are reading this post and I am concerned about you. It’s not the cliché; I really need to know how you are doing. Yes, someone said the same question in passing this morning when you walked into the office, stepped into your living room, dropped by the mall, passed that old friend at the traffic light. Someone has asked “how are you?” today and then you yearned so much to say “the truth” but they were gone as fast as the words came. So, it was simply a salutation then not a question because I know like you know that if it were a question, they would have waited for an answer.

I have been there, when I longed it would not just be a salutation that it would end with a question mark and not a full stop. I have wished that the bus man meant it that day I didn’t have money to pay my way back home; then I could have told him the truth. I wish my loved one had meant it; I would have cried out the hurt and pain that was swelling inside. I wish the physician had stopped so I could tell him my stress was due to the pain I felt from missing something’s in my life. Yes, I wish my priest had asked and not just said then I would have confessed it all and told him that I wouldn’t make heaven if Christ came at the minute. If my employer had bothered, I would let him know that I could see the future he was so oblivious of that there could be new strategies adopted to keep the business from crashing. My heart cries out each time “you” pass by with the question as if the wind slipped through.

I can understand you are going through so much, the bills have not been paid, the kids are not doing well, you just lost your job, you feel like a misfit in the society, the journey has so far been so uneasy, unrewarding and without promises. I see you are broken by some pain inside but your makeup has hidden your make up, yes baby girl you feel the world is against you because of your past, sweetheart your contemporaries have left a gap that the longest leap won’t let you fill, you have lost faith in yourself and so much more are the list of things that each passerby goes through. So where is the time to ask the next people “How are you?”

It’s logical but it’s not realistic, it’s a salutation not a question a cliché not a noun. Everybody has issues yes I know, life is a one way traffic so you are on your own until you reach the traffic lights we keep throttling and then at the traffic lights we are so concerned about the next stop to be bothered about the next car in the row, our fellow passengers and co travelers. We are on transit we say…. And I do so much so agree.

Let’s stop to think, someone set the software that makes the traffic lights stop, someone designed the car we drive in, someone made the shoes and clothes we wear, someone harvested the crops we eat, someone brought us to life, someone gave us the job, someone sold the fuel, someone….someone….someone. God always and will forever use people to reach to us. Ever imagined, your mother dead just before you were pushed out and a lion used its teeth to pull you out……. All the farmers dropped dead and famine struck, no investors and no jobs, no doctors and you are on the verge of dying, a church without members, how can you have a child without having a mother… cats have kitten, a world without people...God would not still come down even if all the traffic lights turned green and all the cars at the different lanes had head on collisions and that wouldn’t stop Him from being God. He is God all by himself .

Yes, that is why we need to stop this madness, numbness and chaos and hit the red buttons and stop to ask that person “HOW ARE YOU” and wait for an answer. Please wait, the same way you “wait while your transaction is processing” wait for a response. All the money in the whole world cannot buy the place of people. God made it so! They will give you an answer, they needed that question because for all I care, they could be gone in a minute; hit by a car, struck by an ailment, depressed, hungry, jobless, dead in sin, raped and set to commit suicide, having a terminal illness, needing a kidney and you are about to bury a loved one with good kidneys, please I beg of you take a minute of today and ask someone …. Use the three words that can change their lives forever... HOW ARE YOU? 

IF YOU ARE READING THIS, I MEAN JUST WHAT I SAID…SEND ME A MAIL, A TEXT, A PING, A CHAT MESSAGE, FLASH ME AND IL CALL YOU BUT JUST DON’T GO THROUGH IT ALONE I WANT TO BE THERE…. I NEED YOU; I DON’T NEED TO KNOW YOU BUT I NEED YOU TO SURVIVE….That’s how GOD designed it. Society, community, family, misery, and all the negatives that end with “y” have changed it but sweetest of hearts can I tell you something; in the beginning it was not so. So please tell me “How Are You?...... Yes, You.

mmantiumoh@gmail.com 

Sitting there all by herself, alone in a world so choked with people. Left to the cold, the dust and the moon, she can only ask herself "where is everyone?"

Not the aroma, nor the meal. Not the bed,nor the room. Not the room, nor the home. So many passers by, not one acquaintance. Alot of brothers,yet no friends. She heaves a sigh of relief or pain? Indifferently asks "where is everyone?"

The souls she played with @ dusk, the spirits that picked the crusts, the shadows, the silhouette, the echo, the distant cry. All now like a mirage. Was it all a dream. She screams "where is everyone?"

See! the twin musketers "she smiles" in separates lanes, shadowed by separate winds, like eagles in a convention yet soaring defined paths. The dust is from moving objects stationed on two sticks, yes things are moving but its like a mirage"where is everyone?"

She now understands....everyone's gone with the cloud.the darker the clouds, the fewer the sounds, the dimmer the lights, the less the company. The longer the journey, the less the co passengers. The smaller the ingredients, the less the partakers. The larger the harvest, the less the labourers. Hmmm so she can answer her question "where is everyone?"

Everyone has gone as everyone goes. Looking in the gardens for the treasure, none wants dirt, no hands in the mud, no sweat on the brow, no skin pain. If only they knew what they sought. Treasures in earthen vessels...."she smiles".

This is not the time nor season to be scared, it gets clearer now, now is the time to hold on and not lose sight. She can atleast see the musketeers and then she sees a silent swift sway of an angel - an angel in the dark. . . Reaching out his hand not grasping yet stretched and still stretching... Just the feel makes her smile.

She says Thanks, everyone is gone but someone is there. If you haven't travelled her way, this will just be a tale. A tale well told over a cup of ale, though stale makes a rail for a frail girl.

Good everyone's gone, they were all stale...