Broken dreams and consistent regrets.
Puff…cough…inhale…exhale.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an engineer.
I would watch in fascination as the men on TV hit one iron over another, fix one piece into another that did not seem incomplete before.
I would smile.
I wanted to be an engineer.
When dad and mom were not watching. I would take out the screwdriver from the toolbox in the garage.
I will loosen the nuts on everything I saw a nut in.
The radio. CD player. The toaster.
Dad would yell at my brother. He was 14.
No one saw me do it. So no one had an explanation other than Kelechi did it and Kelechi was lying.
I was 10 and I never quite understood the irony behind accusing Kelechi of doing anything like that.
Kelechi walked like a girl. Was quiet and was always drawing weird things in his book. I’m sure he did not know where the toolbox was.
But it took attention away from me.
Puff…cough…inhale…exhale.
When it was time to choose classes for ss2, Kelechi picked the arts. I picked science.
That was when everything began to change.
Dad followed us to school the next day and said there had been a mistake.
He talked to the principal and switched me to art, Kelechi to science.
I won’t bore you with the details further.
Kelechi did study engineering. In Canada. He became an engineer. A successful one. Then one day, he was found applying makeup on a little girl. He was called a sissy.
Not sure I remember how the social media drama happened. I do remember dad’s screams of ‘you are a disgrace’ to a 28 year old Kelechi.
I remember the look on his face that day.
I also remember the look on his face on the floor after his lifeless body had been pulled out of the lagoon under third mainland bridge.
Puff…cough…inhale…exhale.
These days, I see his face a lot.
When I’m drawing designs on a book for the next dress.
When I’m walking behind my models on the runway.
In the mirror when I’m taking my antidepressants.
When I’m binging on engineering TV shows and wondering how long it will take a 40 year old woman with four kids and with mental health issues to get through engineering college and become an engineer.
When I’m reminding myself that I am a quagmire of broken dreams and consistent regrets.
Puff…cough…inhale…exhale.
I really should stop smoking. My lungs are no longer healthy.
Gail, 2021
